The Location of Heaven and Hell
It is not that I want to disappoint my Atheist friends, but some things in life are just that way. For one, I have searched as many of my Facebook and blog postings and I do not find where I have specifically stated “You said you believe in Heaven and Hell. Give me some evidence they exist. You, being a man who only cares about evidence, should have no trouble with this.”
We need to define a few ideas here and understand what is meant by various statements.
Evidence:
- a. A thing or set of things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weighed the evidence for and against the hypothesis. b. Something indicative; an indication or set of indications: saw no evidence of grief on the mourner’s face.
- Law a. The means by which an allegation may be proven, such as oral testimony, documents, or physical objects.
- The set of legal rules determining what testimony, documents, and objects may be admitted as proof in a trial.
Evidence does not necessarily prove something; it can just as easily be used to disprove something. Evidence may only indicate something leading toward what you wish to prove or disprove. Moreover, evidence may not be fully understood. We may not know how to apply it to either side of a dispute. Evidence can also change. It can be over-rated, warped, misconstrued and be challenged.
I am not an individual who “only cares about evidence.” I care about facts and proof of facts. Let us try to understand that. Facts are something I can touch, feel, smell, see, and hear or facts that others have experienced and written concisely about it. Proof of facts is information that verifies what others have touched, felt, heard, smelled or seen.
Facts are indisputable. The sun provides light- we can analyze dozens of different ways of measuring it, but it is a fact that the sun does provide light. Water is wet- the definition of wet depends upon the qualities of water, but it is a fact that water is wet. I am writing this blog post- that is a fact whether you were aware of it at the time I wrote it or not. These are universal truths: the sun provides light, water is wet, and I wrote this blog posting. They cannot be denied (by other individuals considered sane- we always have those odd-balls out there- an entire group believes in a flat earth).
So let’s get back to “Heaven or Hell.” As a conservative Biblical Christian, I believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Therefore, what the Bible says about “Heaven or Hell” I must, of necessity, believe the entire Bible. I cannot pick and choose which verses I believe, I must believe them all.
I used Bing (please never use Google) and searched for “Heaven and Hell.” I got many responses. Many of the web sites had verses that did not include the words “Heaven” or “Hell” but they rationalized how these passages described or meant “Heaven or Hell.” I chose to discriminate and only print below the actual scripture verses that mention these words exactly in the first two chapters of the Bible. The other interpretations can be discussed at a later time.
English Standard Version
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth
Genesis 1:7-8 And God made2 the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven
Genesis 1:14: 15 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.
Genesis 1: 16-18 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 2: 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Genesis 2: 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
It is important to note how many times that the word “Heaven” appear in the first two chapters of the Bible. Obviously, it is because this was the start of creation, the beginning of time, which will be eternal from now on. Some secular scientists would equate this 6-day event with the “Big Bang theory.” At this point in time, all of the current laws of thermodynamics, gravity, light, physics and all other things we now know as scientific came into existence.
Since the Bible was written in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, translations vary greatly, and so there is no single count for the occurrence of the word “heaven.” Rather, its appearance differs according to which translation is used. The King James Version of the Bible mentions the word “heaven” 327 times in the Old Testament and 255 times in the New Testament. Meanwhile, the word appears only 186 times in the New International Version’s Old Testament and 236 times in its New Testament. In the New Revised Standard Version, “heaven” appears 246 times in the Old Testament and 248 times in the New Testament. I know, I know, there will be many comments here, but stuff it. Your doubts have long been answered whether you wish to believe it or not and I have a post on it also: https://iamnotanatheist.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/biblical-interpretation/
The reason there are a variety of translations of the Bible is that the English language is based upon the many languages that have given root words to the language. http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/06/counting_words/ will help explain some of that. You might have to click on it and then go back and click again because the first time they try to make you subscribe to the magazine. You might have to copy and paste the URL
Let me tell you a simple little yarn about two words: salsa and king. My younger brother is a Chef, a well-trained one and he got into making spice packets and different flavored salsas some of which he has won awards in national competition. I was unemployed at that time so I agreed to sell his products (which he had created a logo and named “The Salsa King”) at the farmers markets out here in west Texas. (He had an advantage in that most of his markets were within 100 miles of his house; mine were at least 500 miles away.)
I went to the bank to open an account for “The Salsa King” and the person asked me if I was that good of a dancer. Obviously, my face showed confusion. She said, “You dance don’t you- the Salsa. You’re the King of the Salsa dance?” I wasn’t really familiar with it but after a little study I realized that this was a popular dance among Hispanics.
With just these two words in English, one could get two very different interpretations. Therefore, you can see trying to understand one word of Aramaic or Ancient Greek, which all had many meanings based upon the preceding or antecedent words.
Enough with the diversions. Let us get to the facts, or the truth, or the point I am trying to make. Scientists have been trying for years to rework the concept of the “big bang theory” to make sense. There are so many holes and dead ends in a theory which makes up dark matter and dark light and dark energy and other things that they cannot define, measure or prove in any way that they exist. So instead of going back to look at just the scientific facts without any of the imagined concepts they invent a new one. Now I am no genius but I took the original theory and changed the speed of light from 186,282 miles per second to 100,000 miles per second and did the math (it wasn’t easy, but I came up with figures that did not need any of those immeasurable, imaginary ideas the secular scientists use. I am still waiting for someone to prove to me that they can measure light at 186,282 miles per second or since 1983, the meter has been defined by international agreement as the distance travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. This makes the speed of light exactly 299,792.458 km/s. How do you reasonably measure such a short amount of time? I don’t think a Rolex can be that accurate. Wikipedia defines a second as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. Now tell me how you count over 9 billion changes per second.)
Dang it, we are off on another diversion. The reason for the expansion of the “big bang theory” is to generate the idea of “multiverses”- multiple universes that exist side by side with the “real” one we exist in and which may contain different rules of logic and thermodynamics and gravity, etc. This fantasyland (first made popular with the original Star Trek series) makes both sides of the “big bang theory” equation equal. Wikipedia describes it as: The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them.
Ok, Samuel and the other Atheists out there. God describes Heaven and Hell so I believe in them. I cannot tell you a specific location for them, other than keep up with your beliefs and when you die, in the blink of an eye, you will find out. For now, I am going to cop out and state that I believe in a 3 part multiverse. The one we live in and the one that contains Heaven and the one that contains Hell. It solves the theological problem and the theoretical physics problem all in one neat little package.
I Am Not An Atheist 