Multiverses/Parallel Universes/Other Dimensions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hope1960
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
To the post at the head of the topic. Would that be #1?

I’m not yet fully conversant in the new format. Where are the post numbers?

ICXC NIKA
 
Your question 3 shows a lack of understanding of the subject. A free electron has a mass of 511 keV/c^2. When an electron encounters a nucleus, it is electrically attracted to the protons in the nucleus, and if it is not moving fast enough, it will be captured and orbit the nucleus in an atomic orbital. Electrons have both particle-like and wave-like properties, so there are discreet orbitals that electrons can occupy, where their self-interference forms a standing wave. The kinetic energy for establishing an orbit is obtained from the electrical attraction between the negatively charged electron and the positively charged nucleus, less the amount radiated away by the transition photon. In a standing wave orbit, an electron does not radiate, nor experience friction, so it remains in the same orbit until something disturbs it or it can transition to a lower-energy orbit.
 
GEddie said:
To the post at the head of the topic. Would that be #1?

I’m not yet fully conversant in the new format. Where are the post numbers?

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
See where the reply arrow is? Then look to the left of that and there are three little things…tap on the little icon that looks like a pair of eyeglasses.
 
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<In his book Eschatology, the future Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “The Scholastics took these insights further and gave them systematic form. Drawing, in part, on extremely venerable traditions, they spoke of the special ‘crowns’ of martyrs, virgins, and doctors. Today, we are rather more circumspect where such assertions are concerned. It is sufficient to know that God gives each and every person his fulfilment in a way peculiar to this or that individual, and that in this way each and all receive to the uttermost” (Eschatology, 236).

In the same place, he linked the individual’s unique experience of heaven to the passage in Revelation where Jesus promises to those who remain faithful to the end, “I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone, which no one knows except him who receives it” (Rev. 2:17; see Eschatology, 235).

Despite its presence in a good deal of Judeo-Christian literature, the idea that there is a specific and fairly small number of spiritual heavens is not something that the Church teaches.

Instead, it teaches the core idea that this represents—that heaven is experienced differently by individuals, based on what they did in life and how much they have opened themselves to God’s love.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I’m not understanding. Does this mean the Church teaches that there are no other dimensions or parallel Universes? It says we aren’t taught that there are a small number of spiritual heavens. I’m talking about other dimensions and parallel Universes. Is that the same thing? And if the Church doesn’t teach that, what happens to the Church if there are?
 
Last edited:
Hope1960 said:
I’m not understanding. Does this mean the Church teaches that there are no other dimensions or parallel Universes? It says we aren’t taught that there are a small number of spiritual heavens. I’m talking about other dimensions and parallel Universes. Is that the same thing? And if the Church doesn’t teach that, what happens to the Church if there are?
Click to expand...
What Church teachings do you think it would contradict??
 
thistle said:
What Church teachings do you think it would contradict??
Click to expand...
Any teachings the Church may hold that goes against scientific discoveries that there is likely to be other dimensions and Universes.

In other words, does the Church allow us to believe in other dimensions or Universes or not?
 
Last edited:
Hope, you are really getting bogged down in stuff that doesn’t matter.

The church doesn’t teach science. It has nothing to say about the possible existence of parallel universes nor multi-verses. In fact if they do exist they were ALL created by God. He is still in control and the Catholic Church is still the church He founded. It might be a problem for some physicists, but it’s not a problem for Him. Believe in other dimensions as suggested by string theory and or in multi-verses, yes, if you want to. Their existence or not is irrelevant. God who created all is unchanged and the Church will continue to teach His truth no matter what scientists might discover.
 
Last edited:
Kaliaa, so the Church allows us to believe in other Universes?

What about other dimensions?
 
Last edited:
Why wouldn’t it? IF they are out there, they are also God’s creation. Anywhere you want to look in creation… God was there first. There is no reason whatsoever to get all excited about what might be out there… we will never know this side of heaven. Physicists have theorized about them because they can’t explain a number of things about our own universe. If they exist we won’t be able to pack a bag and buy a ticket to go. We are physically confined to our own universe. No human will ever be able to visit any of them.

I suspect dimensions as you are thinking about them are not what scientists mean by the word. Here is an article that explains a bit. After reading perhaps you’ll see that the Church would have no problem with them either.

How Many Dimensions Are There?
 
Last edited:
Kaliaa said:
Why wouldn’t it? IF they are out there, they are also God’s creation. Anywhere you want to look in creation… God was there first. There is no reason whatsoever to get all excited about what might be out there… we will never know this side of heaven. Physicists have theorized about them because they can’t explain a number of things about our own universe. If they exist we won’t be able to pack a bag and buy a ticket to go. We are physically confined to our own universe. No human will ever be able to visit any of them.

I suspect dimensions as you are thinking about them are not what scientists mean by the word. Here is an article that explains a bit. After reading perhaps you’ll see that the Church would have no problem with them either.

How Many Dimensions Are There?
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help. Could Heaven be in another Universe or dimension, like the book Imagine Heaven suggests?
 
Last edited:
I don’t think it’s likely since everything we’ve been talking about is within God’s creation. But then I’m speculating.

You’re just going to have to wait to find out the rest of the story. 🙂

John Burke, the author of Imagine Heaven, of course, is not Catholic. He started his own church which doesn’t appear to belong to any known denomination.
 
Last edited:
Does anyone else know if Heaven is in another dimension or Universe? If Jesus, Mary, and maybe Enoch and Elijah are there, it must be a place, somewhere.
 
Last edited:
Code: 
I am 84 years old and more and more, each day, heaven becomes a very important object of contemplation. I've decided that since I have never seen a description of Heaven that is both imaginable and plausible and also accounts for that other possibility we call Hell, I stopped guessing what Heaven and Hell are like and began to imagine what I would like them to be. It is easier to describe my Heaven than my Hell because fortunately this lifetime was closer to a Heaven than to a Hell. So, here's what my Heaven would be like:
My mother, father will be in the same age-relationship with me as they were this time around. They won't be teenagers and they won't be ageless, they will be my mother and father. So too will my brothers and sisters, my children, their children and all the people I have known in this life time will be there just as they are or were in this lifetime. Yes, there will be the same animals, flowers, oceans, stars, rocks and all the things I've experienced in this lifetime.
I will fall in love again with the same beautiful woman and live an entire married life immersed in romance, good humor, and friendship. My Heavenly life will be filled with the same or more of the laughter, wonder, love, joy, fun, peace, nostalgia, and piety that has filled this life. I will hit a baseball again; I will hear La Boheme for the first time again; I will sing babies to sleep in the middle of a quiet night again. I will eat peanuts, smell roses, hear a whippoorwill, see the ocean for the first time; see Broadway musicals, watch my children graduate, marry the same persons, and have the same children again. That is my vision of what Heaven will be like. 
On the Hell side, just as there is in this life time, there will be diseases, earthquakes, plaques, floods, and all sorts of physical evil. There will wars, bigotry, injustice, tyranny, and poverty and all sorts of social evil. There will be sin, crime, addiction, affliction and all sorts of personnel evil. However, in our next life each of these evils will be palpably diminished. 
Since I have had a minimum of disappointments in this life, I can't describe a vision of a personal Hell but it would consist of far too many regrets and sins, none of which I care to share. But if I have confessed those sins, transgressions, and regrets, then they won't happen in the Heaven that is my next lifetime because I will enter it with a more effective conscience, more moral certitude, and more open to God's grace.
My Heaven and Hell would look a lot like my present life except there would be fewer regrets and sins committed. In other words, it would be imperceptibly better. Kind of like the movie "Ground Hog Day" in which Bill Murray repeatedly wakes up on the same day, but each subsequent repeat, he alters his behavior for the better, and experiences more and more joy. For us, each new life would be closer to Heaven and farther from Hell until I and all the rest of humanity achieved that goal and we reach the fullness of the Mystical Body of Christ.
----- continued------
 
Code: 
I am not saying with certainty that this is a theological view of Heaven in accordance with scripture and the "defined dogma" of the Catholic Church, it is merely what I want Heaven to be like. On the other hand, it describes how those that have been derived of a full lifetime of wonder, peace, and joy, those now suffering in a life that seems like Hell to eventually escape, so that all souls are saved.
In the meantime, we are making our way through our personnel purgatories in which we too often make the wrong choices by failing to respond to God's grace. Eventually we will all escape our personal Hell and arrive at that perfect world we call Heaven. And how would this sort of Heaven/Hell come about. Well there does happen to be a scientific solution for my hope. It is called the Many World Interpretation of the Schroedinger wave equation that is often referred to as parallel worlds. The first thing that comes to mind for some that hear of the parallel world idea is reincarnation. Living a parallel life as yourself is not reincarnation; if the Many World Interpretation is real, we are now living in a parallel lifetime and the only thing that that we bring from our last one is our innate conscience.
I find theological support for my view in the following excerpt from the Vatican's 2004 International Theological Commissions report on "Human Persons Created in the Image of God" where it states in step 29:
  1. The central dogmas of the Christian faith imply that the body is an intrinsic part of the human person and thus participates in his being created in the image of God. … The effects of the sacraments, though in themselves primarily spiritual, are accomplished by means of perceptible material signs, which can only be received in and through the body. This shows that not only man’s mind but also his body is redeemed. The body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. Finally, that the body belongs essentially to the human person is inherent to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body at the end of time, which implies that man exists in eternity as a complete physical and spiritual person.

    From this I infer that since our bodies are resurrected at the end of time to exist eternally as a complete physical and spiritual person, and since in this present state the body and soul are imperfect, and since it is through grace and the application of our free will that we are justified, it seems plausible to me that there be interim states in which the process of justification is brought to fruition. Hence parallel worlds.
    YPPOP
    P.S. Parallel world theory is not Multiverse theory, the difference is left for the reader to discover.
 
Your musings are not in line with Catholic teaching as regards what follows death. You are either going to Heaven, Purgatory (and afterwards Heaven) or Hell. All of your decisions have already been made prior to death. There are no interim states… no parallel worlds where we get a little better each time. (Sounds more like reincarnational ideas to me and we know there is no reincarnation.)
 
Last edited:
Hope1960 said:
Kaliaa, so the Church allows us to believe in other Universes?

What about other dimensions?
Click to expand...
By definition, there is only a single Universe. The word universum indicates “the sum of everything”, in other words, the totality of everything that is physical.

The Church has no comment on the existence of higher-ordered dimensions, such things are irrelevant to Her purpose.

The problem is that you seem to think that Heaven, to the extent that it may involve a dimensionality that we cannot detect, is distinguished from the part of space-time we can detect only by the fact that we can’t detect it. But that’s not the case.

We don’t, and can’t, know everything of what heaven is, but we can certainly know what it is not. And it is not merely another physical dimension.
 
Last edited:
Wow, you’re back to the same question again. NO ONE knows if Heaven is even a “where” much less where it might be. It’s all nothing but speculation. You are wasting your time trying to find out. Again, no one knows until they finally get there and maybe they don’t know then. God after all… even once we are in Heaven…is still infinitely above us and His thoughts will still be above and beyond us. We don’t become equal to God once we are in Heaven.
 
Are you saying that when scientists talk about a multiverse and parallel Universes, the word Universe includes the multiverse or parallel Universes (if they exist), because the word Universe includes everything?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top