philmcpeake

I thought I posted this earlier today but something must have bollexed up! LOL

Anyway, this point of controversy has gotten my goat for a while now, no human person could ascend into "Heaven" without a space suit or something yet the religionists wish me to believe that Jesus was sucked up into the sky somehow.

It would be believable maybe, if it said that a 'stargate' appeared and he walked into it or thru it into another realm or dimension (this is science fiction, right?) but to be hooved into the sky, it is too much for me to take.

Unbeliever

Hi philmcpeake! :wave:

I agree completely, it is too much to take. But there are millions of people out there who claim to actually believe such absurdities! And they even believe stuff that's even more asinine than that, like bringing people back from the other side of death, etc. What I find the most unbelievable about the Bible is that anyone expects anyone else to believe that tripe!

EarlOfLade

And the direction you take when going up is different depending on location. Up to me is down to people on the other side of the earth.

Roland

Another problem. If Jesus had actually ascended to heaven, why would Matthew, Mark and John not have ended their gospels with that incident, which would clearly have been the logical place to do so?

GakuseiDon

A lot of people at that time thought that Heaven was literally located above the dome of the firmament, so people literally had to "ascend" to go to Heaven. Ironically enough, fire was regarded as a spiritual substance (since its natural inclination was to travel upwards), and some Greeks believed that the realm above the firmament contained fire -- so people ascended into a fiery heaven.

martin

GakuseiDon, do you have references for this ancient Greek belief in a fiery heaven? I do think that the Hebrews had the same idea.

Malachi151

I really think this ascention issue is a big one.

First of all, not only Jesus is claimed to have ascended, but Mary also!

What this means is that according to the Christians, there is no evidence at all left on this planet that these people ever existed, they claim that they are entirely off the planet, so it is not possible, even in theory, to verify these people's existance.

You see, this whole ascention this is just a way to explain why there are no tombs for these people, and it should be noted that many heroes in the ancient world were said to have bodily ascended into heaven.

When people began demanding to see the remains of heroes so that they could build temples to them and enshrine the remains, the myth makers claimed that they had "bodily ascended".....

Chili

Mary was assumed into heaven which should tell the reader that she had no existence of being (not self propelled) because she was taken from man to be his flesh of flesh and bone of bones called woman in Gen.2.

Alf

Not too much for people at the time. Refer to the primitive view of the universe as in hebrew cosmology that people at the time believed in.

It is too much for you because you live in a world where we have a different understanding of the world we live in.

Alf

Doug Shaver

Unless it was a miracle.