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Alexander Einsiedel
The Manifesto of the Space Christians
Content
1. Christians and space travel – how does it fit together?
The statements of the Bible about the end of the world
In the Bible the following is written about the Last Judgement:
„For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.“ (Isaiah 66:15-16);
„Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.” (Luke 3:17);
„But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.“ (2 Peter 3:10);
„And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.“ (Revelation 20:15)
Accordingly, God will judge the earth with fire.
The statements of natural science about the end of the world
If one assumes that „God makes that things makes themselves” (Teilhard de Chardin), modern natural science has an amazing prediction about this fire of judgment:
„[…] what will happen […] when the sun runs out of nuclear fuel?
When the hydrogen will be almost exhausted, the burning mechanism of the sun will not be able to bear the weight of the outer layers. The former balance between gravity, which wants to plunge to the centre, and the intensity of the nuclear reactions, which want to push the gas outwards, will be destroyed and the sun will break out of its long lasting main sequence.
The weight of the outer layers will press towards the centre and let the temperature rise even further. The remaining hydrogen will burn even faster and the explosive force of fusion will triumph over gravity, even if only for a short time. The Sun will expand and its outer layers will swallow up Mercury, Venus, the earth and even Mars. At that time the sun will have become a ‘red giant’.
But long before this surprising development of the sun, life on earth will disappear. The increase in sunlight that precedes the final phase will cause the glaciers to melt and the oceans to heat up. […]
On earth, the water vapour that has risen from the heated oceans will form a layer of dense and impenetrable clouds. But when the sun will then also fall to earth as a red giant, the atmosphere will also have dissolved into its parts, which have escaped into space.
Our former blue planet will have become a burning, red-hot heavenly body, while the rocks will slowly dissolve and the continents will slowly slide into the basins that once contained the oceans.“ (Lorenzo Pinna 1994)
More recent model calculations from 2001 (Schröder et al.) state that the sun will not swallow up earth and Mars because of its loss of mass due to the solar wind, partly because their planetary orbits will become larger due to the sun’s reduced gravitational pull. Nevertheless, the shortest distance between the earth and the sun will then only be almost ten percent of the orbit radius, and temperatures of up to 1600 °C will prevail on earth, which will cause rocks to melt and make all life impossible.
God’s end-time judgement over the earth with fire can therefore also be understood scientifically.
Space travel as a consequence
What consequences result from these findings? The Bible also gives an answer to this question:
„And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man [i.e. Christ]. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.“ (Luke 17:26-30; see also Matthew 24:37-39)
In other words, according to legend, Lot left his abode of Sodom before Sodom was destroyed – the Christians must leave their abode of earth before the earth as we know it will be destroyed. Legend has it that Noah built an ark on God’s behalf to save his family, himself and the endangered animal world from the Flood – the Christians, for their part, must build arks on God’s behalf to save themselves and the endangered animal and plant world from the impending flood of fire. Given the nature of the impending global catastrophe, what kind of arks should it be other than „arks on the sea of stars” – spaceships, forming a new earth or on their way to a new Earth. And so it says in the Bible:
„For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.“ (Isaiah 65:17);
„Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.“ (2 Peter 3:13);
„And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.“ (Revelation 21:1)
As a further consequence for the kingdom of God in space not only a restriction to a new earth can be thought of, but also the further development and settlement of space.
This demonstrated the connection between space travel and Christianity.
Now the fundamental question arises how spaceships on their journeys between the stars should actually be propelled. A concept by the physicist Robert Forward lends itself to this. According to this, spaceships with light sails made of highly reflective material are to be propelled by the light pressure of a tightly bundled laser beam, which travels millions of kilometres without broadening significantly. Such a beam can be generated in space by a large number of sun- or star-powered lasers, whose individual beams are combined and bundled by a huge lens system, preferably made of plastic. (Mackowiak 1996)
2. Why this topic now?
The approximate time of the end of the world
Data on the time span until the sun develops into a red giant vary between 4.5 billion and 7.6 billion years, depending on the source.
However, the intensity of the sunlight is already increasing steadily even before that. Because the nuclear reactions in the Sun result in the net conversion of four hydrogen atoms to one helium atom, the number of particles in the Sun’s nucleus gradually decreases with the result that the nucleus becomes steadily smaller, which in turn causes the pressure and temperature inside the Sun to increase, causing the outer solar layers to swell slightly and the surface brightness to increase. (Schilling 2007) Therefore it is expected that already in several hundred million years there will be a „galloping greenhouse effect”, which will cause a life-hostile hell on earth like on the planet Venus. (Kayser 1998)
In view of the nevertheless still enormous period of time the question arises what sense it makes to bring the relation between space travel and Christianity into conversation already now.
The cost issue
The first thing to note is that space-related research and the development and deployment of space technology is a costly business. Today’s space activities already devour billions. The International Space Station ISS alone accounts for an estimated 100 billion euros (Deutsche Presse-Agentur 2009). However, the costs of developing and colonising our solar system as a prerequisite for jumping to other star systems are hardly conceivable. They can only be covered by the economic return over a very long period.
But the space-Christian thought sets no limits. It is a matter of using the remaining earth years in such a way that as many people, animal and plant species, soil, technology, raw materials and cultural assets as possible can be saved from the earth, and it is a matter of penetrating as far and sustainably as possible into space. No matter how large the share of the economic yield from presumably several hundred million years is that is made available, it remains a tightly limited budget for the comprehensive implementation of these two tasks. Moreover, life exclusively in space will be extremely complex and expensive after this period, so that a shortage of funds must be expected before a planet comparable to earth has been found.
So, because of the question of cost alone, the remaining time on earth must be used as intensively as possible for the preparation and implementation of the development and settlement of space.
The following should also be noted: Today’s industrial and information society is based on the progressive mining and consumption of raw materials such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear fuel and metal ores. In the foreseeable future, most of them will have been used up after extraction has become increasingly expensive because the most profitable deposits were mined first. The finally switch to other forms of energy production and a possible mining of raw materials outside the earth will entail even higher costs. Since a high, practically never-ending demand for energy and raw materials must be expected for the progressive development and settlement of space, it makes sense, also for cost reasons, to approach this task as early as possible.
Other possible global natural disasters
The second point to note is that the lives of people on earth are also threatened by other global natural disasters. There is always the danger that mankind will be wiped out by the impact of a large asteroid or comet, as probably happened to the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago. Also eruptions of super volcanoes could destroy all of humanity. Such a fate would make any human effort pointless in hindsight. To escape it, it would be advantageous if there were independent human settlements in space as soon as possible, even if only within our solar system.
With the development of appropriate technology, all dangerous asteroids and comets could perhaps one day be detected and, in an emergency, diverted from their orbits; however, humans would probably remain powerless against super-volcanic eruptions.
It should also be noted that disasters can occur that affect a much wider area of space. For example, in a distant future our solar system could come into the life-threatening proximity of a supernova through its movement within our galaxy. In this case survival would probably only be possible by leaving the solar system and the remaining danger zone in time.
Creed and tasks of the Space Christians
In summary of the above facts, the following complementary creed of space Christians can be formulated:
I/We believe in God’s Last Judgment on earth by the fire of the sun, His kingdom in the universe – the heaven, its establishment by Christ’s elects by the power of the Holy Spirit, and my/our own calling to this service through God.
What should space Christians do now? For the near future they have only three tasks that go beyond being previous Christians: to attract new space Christians, to organise themselves and to ensure a broad dissemination of space Christian thought. Otherwise, if possible, they should remain in their ancestral Christian communities, because the settlement of space cannot be pushed forward by a small sect, but only by a broad ecumenical movement.
3. The resurrection of the dead
The deeds of man as his soul
The resurrection of the dead is a central Christian faith content. This is now to be explained here from a space Christian perspective. First the concept of the soul: If one assumes that man consists of body and soul, and if one then imagines the living human being as opposed to the just deceased, it becomes clear that the soul represents the difference between living and dead man. But what makes this difference? Obviously it is all movements of the body, body parts, cells and cell components, which in their complex interplay – including thinking and thus the mind – ultimately appear as deeds and courses of actions.
The general bodily functions are to be understood as an indispensable basis for the deeds and courses of actions. This can be formulated as a completely new insight: The deeds of man are his soul. Since the deeds, which by their nature are still movements, in any case change the environment of the human being, in the form of movements of parts of this environment, it can be said that the soul flows out of the human being throughout life and manifests itself in changes of the environment.
So the soul does not leave the person at his death, but throughout his life until his death. These connections find a parable in the candle. As long as the candle burns, it shines, the light corresponds to the soul. When the candle goes out, it no longer glows, which corresponds to death. The glow seems to be an inherent characteristic of the candle, which the candle only loses when it goes out. In reality only the light that has already left the candle while burning reaches the eyes. It is the same with the soul: It appears to be attached to the living body; in reality it flows out of the body throughout life as an environmentally changing movement.
The deeds that make up the human soul can be divided into two groups: constructive and destructive actions. Deeds that spring from a right faith and thus serve the welfare of people are constructive; deeds that arise from unbelief and thus do not serve the welfare of people are destructive. Thus constructive deeds are actions that are based on the commandment to love God and neighbor and thus also on the Ten Commandments; in particular, they are also careful and diligent work and good education of children; destructive deeds are actions that violate the Ten Commandments and the commandment to love God and neighbor; in particular, they also include careless and lazy work and bad education of children. Destructive deeds can take place not only actively but also passively, i.e. by omitting pending constructive deeds.
Since Ascension Day in the year 2000, when space Christianity came into existence, deeds that serve the settlement of space are also constructive and actions that harm the settlement of space are destructive. It must be noted, however, that all constructive deeds which do not directly serve the settlement of space do so indirectly, because they contribute in their totality to the development of human civilization, and only a highly developed civilization can advance the settlement of space. Accordingly, all destructive deeds, whether direct or indirect, damage the settlement of space.
If a deed consists of a constructive and a destructive share, then it belongs to the group whose share predominates, i.e. if the constructive side of an deed predominates over the destructive side, then the deed must be attributed to the constructive deeds, and if the destructive side predominates over the constructive side of the deed, then this deed must be attributed to the destructive deeds.
What happens now to the parts of the human soul that come to light in deeds and their results? As soon as these deeds and their results are used by a person or have an effect on him and this person does or commits his own deeds at the same time or afterwards, these soul parts flow on. In this way, constructive deeds and their results give those who use them the freedom for own constructive activities. The soul parts that live in the used deeds thus gain share in the manifestation of the soul of the person using these deeds and thus flow on. However, the aforementioned freedom can also be misused for destructive deeds. These tear a gap into the flow of constructive soul parts. If this gap is made up again with constructive deeds, such deeds are missing in another place, so that the gap remains. Thus the destructive deeds lead to the fact that in the end less will be saved than could have been saved. In that which therefore cannot be saved, these destructively effective soul parts will live on.
Humankind as a living being
It has been found that the souls of people, divided into many parts, flow further and further in the deeds. But how do these parts come together again at the resurrection of the dead? There is only one solution to this within the framework of the laws of nature: All outflowing and further flowing souls of humankind form an overall soul. To expect God to effect the resurrection of the dead by a miracle that breaks the laws of nature, when there is another possibility within the laws of nature, would be to put God to the test, which the Bible does not want Christians to do (Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 4:5-7; Luke 4:9-12). Therefore in the following details about this one possibility within the framework of the laws of nature.
The total soul mentioned at the beginning would have all persons living in human society and all things made by man as a body. Accordingly, humankind would have to be a living being in the biological sense. And indeed, today’s humankind, considered as a whole, shows several characteristics of life. The classic characteristics of life are: a specific chemical composition of the body, movement, stimulus absorption and response, nutrition, growth and development, procreation, increase, heredity and evolution. (Strasburger et al. 1991) The ability to procreate is regarded as the overriding criterion of life, because all other characteristics are either a prerequisite or a consequence of this central characteristic. Let us now look at these characteristics in connection with the fictional living being humankind. Since its body consists of all living human beings in addition to all man-made products, its chemical composition is also dominated by the substances of which other organisms also mainly consist: proteins, nucleic acids, polysaccharides, lipids and other organic molecules and ions.
Among man-made products, food and things that have also been made from plant and animal raw materials also have this chemical composition. The basic building blocks of the fictional living being humankind, the humans, as well as the man-made product “machine” – including a variety of means of transport – have the characteristic of movement. Within human society, not only individuals are capable of absorbing and responding to stimuli, but whole groups of people are able to pick up environmental signals directly or via apparatus and technical sensors and respond to them directly or by means of tools and machines.
In human society there is not only an organized nutrition of people to supply the organism with energy and structural components, but the fictional living being humankind also supplies itself with a multitude of mineral and organic raw materials to produce products and provide the energy needed for these products. Both the individual human being as a basic unit and humankind as a whole with all man-made products show growth and development.
Today’s humankind as a whole does not have the central life characteristic of procreation and the characteristics of increase, heredity and evolution caused by these. The fictional living being humankind would procreate if independent „daughter-humankinds” were to emerge in space. One could speak of increase if more „daughter-humankinds” than „parent-humankinds” were to develop and thus the continued existence of humankind would be ensured even in the event of procreation failure. Heredity in the procreation of humankind could be understood to mean not only the transmission of the genetic information of man, but also the transmission of technical and scientific knowledge, language and culture.
Accordingly, an evolution of humankind would not only be a change in the genetic information, the associated appearance and the associated behaviour of today’s human being through natural selection, if it still comes to that at all, but evolution of humankind would also be a change in the knowledge, culture and language of humankind including its appearance and behaviour. Although such an evolution would be an inevitable consequence of procreation, it would only occur over a long period of time. Since the characteristics of increase, heredity and evolution are an inevitable consequence of the life-characteristic of procreation, humankind is a living being in the biological sense if proof of its ability to procreate has been furnished. This would be the case when an independent „daughter-humankind” has developed in space for the first time. Then one could say that the souls flowing out and further in the human deeds both in the „parent-humankind” and in the „daughter-humankind” each form an overall soul.
These overall souls would have the people living in the „parent-humankind” respectively in the „daughter-humankind” as well as the man-made things existing there as their respective bodies. So the souls would again be assigned a body, and that is equivalent to the resurrection of the dead.
For all those who believe in the kingdom of God in the universe, the necessary life characteristic of procreation with regard to humankind need not first have been proven. In faith the resurrection of the dead already begins there where people make the space-Christian thought their own, because that is how the settlement of space begins for the believers. And this includes the formation of independent „daughter-humankinds” and thus also the fulfilment of the criterion of procreation.
4. Salvation and damnation
The soul of a human being, seen as a whole, is considered saved from a space-Christian point of view, if the right faith of this person has outweighed the unbelief (cf. Matthew 17:20; Mark 9:24) and thus the benefit of this person for the settlement of space outweighs the damage he has caused (cf. John 5:29; James 2:24). The soul of a human being is considered to be damned when the unbelief of this person outweighs his right faith and so the damage to the settlement of space, which this person has caused, outweighs his benefit. At this point it should be pointed out once again that all constructive deeds directly or indirectly benefit the settlement of space (see chapter 3). It is important that they are balanced in terms of their direct and indirect benefits so that they can have an optimal effect. Accordingly, all destructive deeds, whether direct or indirect, damage the settlement of space.
It was criticized that the balancing of faith against unbelief did not correspond to the biblical tradition. However, in the New Testament there is talk of justification by faith on the one hand (Romans 3:21-31), but also of justification by works on the other (James 2:14-26). These seemingly opposing points of view can only be reconciled if one assumes that the good works of Christians (i.e. their constructive deeds) are conditioned by faith. Since the evil works (i.e. the destructive deeds) certainly cannot be caused by faith, they must have been caused in each case by the lack of faith or by unbelief. But because according to the Bible every person, even every Christian, is a sinner (Romans 3:22-23; 1 John 1:8), one must assume that Christians, too, do evil works, if one assumes that they do not only sin in thought; i.e., Christians, too, have unbelief. For this reason I must adhere to the thesis of weighing faith against unbelief.
The constructive and destructive parts of the soul considered individually, however, do not cancel each other out, but continue to exist also after the resurrection of the dead – in space as well as on earth, here to the final destruction in fire. However, they cancel each other out in their effect regarding the settlement of space, so that in the end a positive or negative effect remains, and that one is decisive. Now one could object that a large part of the constructive soul parts will continue to flow despite the assignment of rescue on earth, where also all destructive soul parts are to be found, and therefore would not at all benefit the settlement of space. But this is a fallacy. That sufficiently constructive deeds and their results are left to the people who will remain on earth corresponds on the one hand to the commandment of love of neighbor, but on the other hand it serves the maintenance of social peace between men who will remain on earth and those who will leave it.
If a person who remains on earth uses a constructive deed or its result, it serves the undisturbed course of the rescue operation to the same extent as it serves the person using it. Since the constructive deed or its result is not shared, one must assume a doubling of its effect. Thus a constructive part equivalent to the original constructive deed flows into the overall soul of the daughter-humankind. Therefore the following applies: In spite of the constructive parts of the soul that indisputably remain on earth, the weighting of benefits and harms for the settlement of space, which is important for the salvation of the soul senders and which in turn is based on the weighting of faith and unbelief, in no way changes. It should be added that the humankind left on earth after the resurrection of the dead could again produce one (or more) daughter-humankind(s), whereby the souls entering this (these) daughter-humankind(s) according to their weighting would also be saved.
Space Christians are not only active in their own cause with their constructive deeds. They also bear responsibility for the salvation of those who throughout history have believed that they have been redeemed. They continue to bear responsibility for the future generations, who need a sustainable basis on which to continue to build.
5. About the hereafter
The statements of the Bible about the hereafter
According to the Bible, the redeemed, or rather their souls (Revelation 6:9; 20:4), go to Paradise in the interim between death and resurrection (Luke 23:43). Paradise is also described in the New Testament with the phrases „to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) and „to be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23). Furthermore, according to the Bible, the souls (cf. 1 Samuel 28:8.11.13) of all people to whom Christ has not yet been preached, both those of the wicked (Job 24:19; Psalm 9:18;49:14-15) and those of the good (Isaiah 38:10), as well as the souls of those who have not accepted Christ, have entered the realm of the dead, the underworld, for the interim period between death and resurrection, or still come there (Genesis 37:35; 1 Kings 2:6; Job 7:9;17:16; Psalm 6:6;31:18; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Ezekiel 32:18; Hosea 13:14; Revelation 20:13). According to a Bible passage (Luke 16:23-26), however, the underworld is divided by „a great gulf” into an area for the souls of the wicked and an area for the souls of the good, namely for those good, who died, before Christ could be preached to them. This realm of the dead, called „Sheol” in Hebrew, „Hades” in Greek, has often been translated incorrectly as “hell”. (The Old Testament was originally written mainly in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek). Into the actual hell of fire, Greek „Geenna” (Matthew 5:22; Mark 9:43.47-48), the lost and damned (Matthew 5:22.29-30;10:28;23:15-33; Revelation 21:8) come for eternal punishment (Matthew 18:8;25:46) only after their resurrection from the dead (Revelation 20:5-6.12-15). This hell is also referred to in the Bible as „outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12;22:13;25:30), „furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:42.50), „unquenchable, eternal fire” (Matthew 3:12;18:8;25:41; Jude 7), „lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14-15) and „lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Revelation 21:8). In contrast, the place where the redeemed will be after their resurrection is described in the Bible as being in heaven (Matthew 5:12; John 14:2-4; Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Peter 1:4), but according to the Bible they will also dwell on a new earth (Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1).
The place of the hereafter
What it has to do with the new earth in heaven as the whereabouts of the resurrected redeemed has already been described in chapter 1 – for this only another planet or an artificial world in space comes into question, but this must not be the final state, but must become the beginning for a further development and settlement of space. The eschatological fire hell as the abode of the resurrected damned was described in chapter 1 as a result of the further development of the sun, which inexorably leads to the stage of the red giant. The statement of the Bible about the punishment of the eternal fire is to be interpreted in this connection as meaning that that which cannot be saved from the earth, namely that in which the destructive parts of the souls live on, will be destroyed for ever and ever by the fire of the sun.
Now some things about Paradise as an abode for the souls of the redeemed deceased, before they will resurrect from the dead: Paradise is described in the Bible as being in different places. According to the story of creation, it lies at the starting point of the rivers still known today as the Euphrates and Tigris (Genesis 2:10.14). The prophet Ezekiel moves it to „the holy mountain of God” (Ezekiel 28:13-14), by which he probably means a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula. In the New Testament, however, paradise is described as being in the „third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). But according to the ideas laid down in the Bible, this place is also an inner-worldly one: The earth was thought of as a disc and the sky as a dome above it (Genesis 1:6-10), the sky was also compared to a stretched-out tent (Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22 and others); the whole thing was imagined to be enclosed above and below by water (Genesis 1:6-7); in the water above the dome there is, according to this view, the dwelling place of God (Psalm 104:3), which was believed to be divided into seven heavenly rooms (Rienecker et al. 2004), one of which is the above-mentioned „third heaven”.
Today we know that paradise as an abode for the souls of the redeemed deceased is not to be found at the springs of the two rivers mentioned, nor on any mountain of the Sinai Peninsula or any other mountain. The biblical world view described has also become untenable: The earth is approximately spherical and moves in free space around the sun. These deviations from the exact wording of the Bible, which are proven by natural science, as well as some others within the framework of the space-Christian doctrine are not, however, in fundamental contradiction to the Bible. And so Paul writes in the first letter to the Corinthians:
„Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face […]“ (1 Corinthians 13:8-12)
So the Bible may be revised if it becomes necessary! Some people may have referred the Bible passage Revelation 22:18-19 to the whole Bible; but the New Testament was not bindingly composed of individual books until a long time after the writing of Revelation by John, and so the Bible verses mentioned can only be related to this last book of the Bible.
But where is the paradise?
Since the collapse of the biblical view of the world, Christian theologians up to the present day have, for lack of better knowledge, moved the paradise of redeemed souls to a mysterious invisible parallel world and still refer to it as heaven. But as already described, such an extra-worldly hereafter is foreign to the Bible. However, I can fill the gap that opens up in the Christian framework of faith by stating, in accordance with the space-Christian doctrine, that paradise in the hereafter can be found wherever constructive soul parts flow out and further. These are „present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) or „with Christ” (Philippians 1:23) in so far as the parts of Christ’s soul that continue to flow throughout the world gain a share in the manifestation of the soul of those who use His word and work (see chapter 3).
The place of the realm of the dead mentioned in the Bible, in which the souls of those who died before the preached Christ as well as the souls of those who were damned after the preached Christ reside, is analogous to the place of paradise. In the statements of the Bible this realm of the dead is presented as a space in the depths of the earth (Job 7:9; Psalm 63:10; Isaiah 14:15; Ezekiel 32:18), so it is also considered an inner-worldly place. This is also supported by the fact that it was believed that the Korah company had gone down alive into the underworld (Numbers 16:30.33). However, today’s geological models leave no room for such a cavity inside the earth. In analogy to paradise I therefore state that the realm of the dead of the hereafter, Hades, is located where the destructive soul parts flow out and further (see chapter 3).
Whether a soul has a positive or negative effect on the settlement of space due to the weighting of faith and unbelief in the overall balance is decisive for whether this soul is attributed to paradise or Hades. However, the constructive and destructive parts of the soul, considered individually, do not cancel each other out, but continue to flow further separately in paradise and Hades. The area of Hades for the souls of the deceased good people, to whom Christ has not yet been preached, merges from the space-Christian perspective with paradise.
The doctrine of purgatory
The Catholic Church also teaches that the souls of the deceased, who still need purification but are not condemned, go to purgatory before they enter paradise. The purgatory is also called the „place of purification”. The doctrine of purgatory is not clearly documented in the Bible. Nevertheless, this Catholic tradition is based on three Bible passages (Matthew 5:25-26; 12:32; 1 Corinthians 3:13-15) and also on the practice of prayer and penance in the early church (2 Maccabees 12:42-45; inscriptions in the catacombs). According to this practice, the whole community of saints can assist the soul of the deceased through prayer and sacrifice (German Bishops’ Conference 1985).
The facts cited by the Catholic Church can all be explained from a space-Christian point of view in a different way than by the existence of purgatory. The one biblical passage mentioned (Matthew 12,32), which indicates the possibility of forgiveness in the future world, can be understood in such a way that also in the heavenly resurrection body – the daughter-humankind – real human beings live, who perform constructive deeds and commit destructive deeds, which has an effect on the further procreation and increase of the living being humankind. And so also these men will be saved or will be lost because of the weighting of their faith and unbelief.
The second Bible passage (1 Corinthians 3:13-15) speaks of the possibility of being saved, „yet so as by fire”. Well, this probably concerns the vast majority of the redeemed, because according to the space-Christian doctrine their soul parts, which flowed out in destructive deeds, will inevitably end in the fire of the melted earth’s crust, even if the more weighted share, consisting of their constructive soul parts, will be saved. The third biblical passage, which according to Catholic tradition is supposed to point to the existence of purgatory (Matthew 5:25-26), has only been interpreted in a certain way; it only needs to be interpreted in the true and not figurative sense of its words, and it is already invalid as an argument.
The prayer and repentance practice of the early church with regard to the deceased, which is considered the actual basis of the doctrine of purgatory, does not contradict the space-Christian doctrine. It is therefore dropped as an argument for the existence of purgatory. After the death of a human being it is still open how his faith and unbelief and therefore his benefit and harm for the settlement of space are exactly weighted. It depends on the behaviour of the people who make use of his constructive deeds or are affected by his destructive deeds whether the tip of the scales turns more or less to one side or even the other. This is why Christians can stand by the deceased through prayer and sacrifice.
6. Bibliography
Books:
Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, Katholischer Erwachsenen-Katechismus, Das Glaubensbekenntnis der Kirche. Verlagsgruppe „engagement“, 1985
The Bible, King James Version (KJV)
Mackowiak, Bernhard: Energie vom Mars? Die wirtschaftliche Nutzung des Sonnensystems. Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 1996
Pinna, Lorenzo: Fünf Hypothesen zum Untergang der Welt. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München 1996
Rienecker, Fritz; Maier, Gerhard, u. a.: Lexikon zur Bibel. R. Brockhaus Verlag Wuppertal, 2004
Schilling, Govert: Unser Universum, Vom Urknall in die Unendlichkeit. Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2007
Strasburger, E., u. a.: Lehrbuch der Botanik für Hochschulen. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart-Jena-New York 1991
Journals:
Kayser, Rainer: Die Sonne dreht auf, Teil 2: Die ultimate Klimakatastrophe, in: www.morgenwelt.de, 1998
Schröder, Klaus-Peter: Die Zukunft der Erde, in: Sterne und Weltraum, Juli 2002