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Where Is Heaven?

Cordelier:

No, unless we're all just photons splattering on an event horizon. So no. We have too much mass to achieve the speed of light.

Heaven and hell are far more likely to be synthetic states of mind in our own brains, rather than distinct and discreet places in the cosmos. We have created the means of our own salvation or our own damnation (or perhaps even both simultaneously) in our brains out of fear and uncertainty to impose an illusory order on a chaotically structured cosmos. Heaven and hell can metaphorically be peered at through the eyes of people racked by real fear and an self-generated hope.

"Ecce homo perditionis et paradisi creator." (Behold Man, creator of perdition and paradise.) Not "Deus Vult" but "Voluntas hominis". (Not God's Will but the will of men.". Apologies for my bad Latin.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.

You're thinking three dimensionally, though. In four dimensional spacetime, isn't it an accepted fact that as our velocity increases, time slows down - theoretically, to the point of stopping completely were we to achieve the speed of light? Given that trade-off, if our velocity is zero, then should it not be given that we are in fact travelling through time at the speed of light? As our velocity through space increases, our velocity through time then decreases accordingly.

Of course, special relativity has nothing whatsoever to do with spiritual beliefs, but it is illustrative of how flexible the concept of time itself is. So what if, for argument's sake, at the instant of our death, we have the innate ability to slow our perception of time to zero? Call it a kind of last-ditch survival instinct. Would we not then exist in a kind of consciousness of singularity - in fixed point in time - while the rest of existence flies off at the speed of light without us? I think it's probably akin to something like a locked-in stroke victim or someone in a coma would experience - what your consciousness experiences depends on what you take with you. There's not really any connection to time in the world outside of your consciousness - there is just the existence you create for yourself. We create for ourselves our own heaven and our own hell, and journey through our own purgatory for the wrongs we know we have done. As you believe, so shall it be.

When you talk of God's will vs. Man's will, I don't see the dichotomy there. To me, they are one and the same. We are the cells, God is the body - ie, Spinoza's God. We have different perceptions and exist in different environments, but we are, in the end, one and the same.
 
The question was about where is Heaven? Not where the BB originated.

Moving at the speed of light would cause time dilation.

I think most people might have a different mental picture of what constitutes Hell's "Lake of fire."

But what if both Heaven and the BB were singularities? All of existence encapsulated in a single point in 4th dimensional spacetime? Would not such a hypothetical state defy attempts to locate it?

Moving through 3 dimensional space will cause time dilation, sure, but why not turn the problem on it's ear and look at it from a 4th dimension perspective. If an object moves at the speed of light in 3D space, then time gets dilated to zero. So what speed are we moving through time if that same object isn't moving at all in 3D space?
 
All religions look to the sky or high places when worshipping. So where is heaven or hell for that matter? Another dimension? Another universe? Another time?
If god created this universe then it is probably in the universe that was created for god.
 
I think most people might have a different mental picture of what constitutes Hell's "Lake of fire."

Because water extinguishes fires, it can't be a literal burning lake. What is your picture of hell?
 
All religions look to the sky or high places when worshipping. So where is heaven or hell for that matter? Another dimension? Another universe? Another time?
Don't know about heaven but Mephistopheles in Marlowes Faust can tell you where hell is. Everywhere that isn't heaven...

"Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"
 
Because water extinguishes fires, it can't be a literal burning lake. What is your picture of hell?
I have no picture of it beyond popular culture depictions.
 
Because water extinguishes fires, it can't be a literal burning lake. What is your picture of hell?
Hell is not so interesting, but you have to go through there to get to the Lake of Fire.

Every material object is a Lake of Fire.

There is a Lake of Fire at the bottom of Creation in the upturned tortoise shell.

Gas is a liquid and it burns.
 
You're thinking three dimensionally, though. In four dimensional spacetime, isn't it an accepted fact that as our velocity increases, time slows down - theoretically, to the point of stopping completely were we to achieve the speed of light? Given that trade-off, if our velocity is zero, then should it not be given that we are in fact travelling through time at the speed of light? As our velocity through space increases, our velocity through time then decreases accordingly.

There is no such thing as absolute velocity. Velocities are relative to a frame of reference. You could have a velocity of zero relative to the chair you are sitting in, but a velocity of 30km/s relative to the sun.

As your velocity relative to another frame of reference increases, it approaches the speed of light. Time is likewise relative to a frame of reference. As your velocity relative to another frame of reference increases, the passage of time approaches 0 seconds in your frame of reference per second that passes in the other frame of reference. As your velocity relative to another frame of reference decreases, the passage of time approaches 1 second in your frame of reference per second that passes in the other frame of reference. A rate of 1s/s is not "the speed of light."
 
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