Heaven is to the sky, while hell is to earth’s mantle

Suppressed Perspectives

Some people will tell you they will go to heaven on the condition that they follow certain teachings. It is a laughable wish. Let us look into it step by step. Books talk about heaven and hell. Heaven is towards space, while hell is toward earth’s core. In the Bible, the word heaven has been used synonymously with the word sky. For example, concerning the Tower of Babel, the New International Version reads in Genesis 11 verse 4 states, “Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens…” For the same verse, the Easy to Read Version states, “Then the people said, “Let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that will reach to the sky…” Since both versions are legitimate, then heavens and the sky are synonymous.

Likewise, hell is described synonymously with the underground. In Mathew 16 verse 18, the 21^st Century King James Version reads, “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” For the same verse, the Common English Bible reads, “I tell you that you are Peter. And I’ll build my church on this rock. The gates of the underworld won’t be able to stand against it.” Again, both versions are legitimate implying that hell and underworld are synonymous in the biblical context.

The Bible was written when people’s knowledge about the universe was much more limited than it is today. In the 15^th century BCE, when some books of the Old Testament were written, people thought the earth was flat among other numerous misconceptions. People believed that the sky was a firmament or a dome upon which the stars were fixed. Heaven was considered to lie beyond the dome. At least they knew that the underground is hot, which we now call the earth’s mantle and inner core. As simple as it sounds, it is this hot mantle and the core that ancient people called the underworld or hell. The notion is laughable, but not when you were indoctrinated in early childhood to buy into it.

At the time of writing of the Bible, people did not have as many facts as we do now. They perceived the earth as illustrated in the image below:

Source: A COMMON COSMOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD (wabash.edu)

Psalm 104:5 says, “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” To biblical authors, the earth was fixed. Had they known about the earth’s rotation and revolution, they could have talked more about it. However, since they considered the earth to be a fixated structure, they kept referring to its foundations. In Job 38: 4-6, God allegedly says,

 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone.”

In Matthew 4:8, the devil is purported to have shown Jesus all the kingdoms of the world while they stood on the top of a mountain. The verse states, “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” The author did not think of the earth as a sphere. There is no way someone could see the whole sphere – maybe for a flat earth, but for a spherical earth, how? Not even the sun could shine on the whole earth all at once; the best it can do is on a half as long as the earth is spherical.

Apparently, ancient people thought there was just one planet, one sun, and one moon. In Genesis, the bible talks of the creation of the three (sun, moon, and earth), and never does it suggest the existence of other planets. It even says that the sun was to govern during the day and the moon during the night. They also thought that the earth was at the center of everything, for God loved his people so much that nothing else could have been at the center. When Galileo Galilei advanced the Copernican theory, which suggested that the earth was not at the center of the universe, the church sentenced him to life imprisonment. During those days, the church ruled, and preaching anything contrary to the accepted beliefs was a serious crime termed as heresy. It could get you beheaded.

Further evidence exposing the ignorance of biblical authors is in verses such as Ecclesiastes 1: 5, which states, “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” We know objectively that the rising and setting of the sun is a result of the earth’s movement, not the sun’s unless one would argue against what is objectively true.

Considering the above, it is ridiculous to entertain any thought about the existence of a paradise in the sky. However, so many people have fallen for it, and it is now hard to get sense into them. Just because the majority believe in the Bible and other similar books, it does not mean they are right. Honestly, it does not require too much reasoning to see how misguided the belief is. It is like a child believing in a fairy tale. People should know that the Bible was written by creative human beings whose inspiration was no different from today’s writers. They should focus on understanding the history of Bible writing before believing in what it says. If that is too hard, they should study the history of their own indoctrination.