Captain Yahweh And The Starship Heaven

Let's start the ball rolling here with a tiny sci-fi story: Stardate - 4004 Bce: You are directed in this your first command, Captain Yahweh, to saunter at warp speed with your crew of the Starship Heaven to the Sol planetary system in the Alpha Quadrant, third rock outwards, and quietly, discretely, and inconspicuously infiltrate and aid the primitive native hunter-gatherers in the region called the Middle East to attain the next socioeconomic level upwards on the road to their becoming a modern civilization we can openly have polite and trade relations with. Any violation from this Prime Directive will result in the recall of you, your ship and crew to face court-martial.

Postscript: Unfortunately, Captain Yahweh proved unfit for command, suffered a mutiny against him, disobeyed orders, and the rest, as they say, is history. Apart from a modern token nearnessy (Ufos), they (Captain Yahweh, First Officer Jesus Christ, and angelic crew) have all gone now - maybe voluntarily; probably not. So, was Heaven just a spaceship?

Jigsaw Name Puzzles

Now my basic factory is that God and the Son of God (Jesus Christ - future abbreviated to J.C.) collectively are not supernatural deities but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials. Recall John 8: 23 "And he [J.C.] said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world" or John 18:36 - "Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world." In order for extraterrestrials to get from there (wherever "not of this world" is) to here (Planet Earth), they will need a spaceship or starship. Since God seems to be the Top Dog, let's assume he is in command of just such a starship, and since Heaven is thought about the place where God dwells or resides or calls home, then I'll equate the name of his starship with Heaven. God the Et is the Captain of the Starship Heaven. Is there anything in religious texts than helps confirm or contradicts this idea?

There is no absolute deal among the world's religions or peoples as to exactly what Heaven is. Some deny the existence of a Heaven in any shape, manner or form. To some, it's nebulous, even just a state of mind. It might be all in the mind (a spiritual 'place' or feeling) or a never-never land like someone else size or higher plane-of-existence (whatever that phrase authentically means as it's never been adequately defined to my satisfaction). To others, Heaven is a corporeal place, your Great relinquishment Home in the Sky. For the purposes of this essay, I'll focus on the traditional monotheistic conception - Heaven is a corporeal place. Heaven has to exist in our general four-dimensional space-time in order to accommodate all those past, present and future retirees, except that in reality there authentically have never been or will be any heavenly pensioners. But that doesn't alter the corporeal reality of Heaven.

1) Location; Location; Location: Where Exactly is Heaven Located?

Firstly we need to distinguish the heavens from Heaven. The heavens are just someone else name for the universe or the cosmos - that celestial dome or vault over our heads and ultimately home to all the gods from all societies. But Heaven is where Yahweh (hereafter God) lives.

Well Heaven, God's home, has to be fairly close by if God is to keep tabs on his Kingdom on Earth since not even God is immune from the restriction posed by Einstein (and confirmed many times over) that being the finite speed of light. So God has got to be close to where it's all happening - where the action is - so as to fulfil his mission and look after his Chosen People.

Heaven authentically can't be located on top of or inside a fluffy white cloud - that's a kiddie's version of non-reality.

Heaven cannot be located here on Planet Earth since there are many Biblical passages that distinguish the two - Luke 11:2 "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth" or Matthew 6:10 "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" or for a different example, Deuteronomy 4:39 "Know therefore this day, and think it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else."

Heaven tends to be linked with the direction we call 'up' or 'above'. Heaven isn't sideways in any compass direction, nor is Heaven downwards. Heaven is somewhere far above the face of the Earth. It's often synonymous or at least closely linked with the sky or space, especially to the ancients. Well, when we set in motion our spaceships, we set in motion in the upwards direction. Our spaceships have to tour straight through the sky to each space. Of procedure to the ancients sky and space were synonymous as they couldn't identify a boundary between one and the other. When we look at our orbiting satellites and spacecraft or where our Apollo astronauts trod the Moon, we don't look down, we look up. However, when finding up, is there any actual real estate, any corporeal place, we can associate with 'paradise' which is what Heaven is supposed to be? No! The ancients could only have known about the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. None of these abodes, viewed in the 'up' direction, could remotely be described as a paradise - though the ancients didn't know that. Since no natural solar system abode serves as a heavenly paradise, and even abodes discovered more recently like Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are hardly paradise-city, we must look elsewhere.

If Heaven isn't the Starship Heaven, if Heaven isn't a spaceship, and if Heaven isn't on Earth or within our solar system, then the next nearest location of Heaven has to be over four light years away, something quite beyond the insight of Biblical scholars of that time. That also introduces that finite speed-of-light restriction since any amelioration on Earth that needed God's attentiveness would take over a full eight years before that amelioration got resolved.

2) Let's Get Physical

Probably most Christians think Heaven a corporeal place. A spaceship is a corporeal place.

Heaven is a kingdom, that is, it has a ruler. Well all ships, aircraft and spacecraft have a Top Dog, usually called the 'captain'. So, the ruler of Heaven is Captain God. Large ships and aircraft, and presumably spaceships (like the fictional Ncc 1701 Enterprise) have second-in-command officers. In this case, Jesus Christ is the First Officer. And like First Officer Riker and Captain Picard (of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), there are lots of Biblical references to J.C. Standing or sitting at the right hand of God. For example, Mark 16:19 "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he [J.C.] was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God". Ships, aircraft and large spaceships (the firm again) will have crew. Well, Captain God has a whole cast of crewmembers - angels, etc.

Now a kingdom must include abodes, living quarters, where officers and crew live or reside. No doubt Captain God resides in his Starship along with his other officers (archangels) and crew (ordinary angels). In John 14:2 we have J.C. Saying that "In my Father's house are many mansions [or dwellings or rooms]". Again, think of Star Trek's firm (any version) or Voyager or even Deep Space Nine - all have many mansions or dwellings or rooms for all and sundry.

Also you tend to have references that people, even J.C., ascend "into" Heaven, not just go up to Heaven, just like you go into your home or into an aircraft. For example: 2 Kings 2:1 "And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal" and later 2 Kings 2:11 "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven". That sounds a lot like a shuttlecraft transporting an ordinary mortal up to God's spaceship!

3) Enoch Visits the Starship Heaven

Now apparently some flesh-and-blood human mortals have visited Heaven and returned in the flesh-and-blood - Enoch is someone else example.

Enoch apparently authored a trilogy of books, titled the "Book of Enoch" or "1 Enoch"; then there's the "Second Book of Enoch" and ultimately "3 Enoch".

While the first lesson of the "Book of Enoch" describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the Nephilim, the remainder of "1 Enoch" describes Enoch's visits to Heaven in the form of travels, as well as visions and dreams, and his communal revelations about what he saw and learned.

In that first "Book of Enoch" there's a lesson called "The astronomical Book" (1 Enoch 72 - 82) which is also called the "Book of the Heavenly Luminaries" or "Book of Luminaries".

This lesson or book contains descriptions of the movement of heavenly bodies and of the firmament, as knowledge revealed to Enoch in his trips to Heaven guided by Uriel. Uriel acts firstly as a guide for Enoch in lesson one of the "Book of Enoch", titled the "Book of Watchers" and he (Uriel) fulfils this capacity in many of the other chapters or books that make up "1 Enoch" like the lesson comprising his astronomical thesis. Now Uriel is one of them there archangels (or senior crewmembers of the Starship Heaven, Imho) and therefore pretty distinguished to act as host and probably chauffeur (shuttlecraft pilot?).

The upshot is that one can visit Heaven up close and personally while in a very much alive corporeal body and return safely to Earth. Sort of sounds like a Biblical version of Shuttle astronauts visiting the International Space Station!

4) The Afterlife Carrot-and-Stick

So why is there an entire deception over this extreme relinquishment Home in the Sky (Heaven as paradise) concept? Well, it's a version of the old carrot-and-stick approach. Captain God has got to keep the primitives under his jurisdiction on his straight-and-narrow; keep them in line, off the streets and out of trouble. It's like being under the thumb of your parents - if you're good, you get dessert; if not, you get no supper at all. If you're good, an afterlife of paradise awaits; if you're bad, an afterlife of hell awaits. That there is no actual afterlife paradise, or afterlife hell, is beside the point. As long as you think there is, you're under Captain God's thumb and under control.

Now "life wasn't meant to be easy" according to the wisdom of a old Australian Prime Minister, and no doubt in 4004 Bc it wasn't for most of the great unwashed. But an afterlife in paradise made all the hardships easier to bear. You were less likely to go out on attack and earn an afterlife down below instead.

5) Resurrection

Now I authentically have to clear up one very popular conception, or rather a total misconception, and that is, when you die you get resurrected, you go into Heaven, body and all. think how many citizen have died. That would make for one very crowded spaceship! The proof of that 'no body' pudding is that archaeologists, anthropologists, forensic professionals, the police, the curative profession, undertakers, etc. Deal with dead bodies all the time. If you dig up your great grandfather's grave you'll find a body in it - a skeleton at least and skeletons qualify as a body or at least a vital part of what makes a body, a body. If somebody dies in a car urgency their body doesn't suddenly do a vanishing act Heavenly bound.

Some bodies don't even survive death intact to get portable to Heaven. If you get eaten by a shark, you get converted into fish flesh and fish poo. If you were at ground zero at Hiroshima or Nagasaki your body got vaporised. Many citizen post death opt to have their corporeal remains cremated; ashes either stored in a jar by loved ones or scattered to the four winds finally to be incorporated into the environment. Your ashes aren't whisked away to Heaven and reassembled into a resurrected you.

Even if the body remains intact post death, it's not going to remain that way for very long. The zombies may not get you; the vampires may be denied; but the itty-bitty germs won't be. A frequent phrase is "what is my purpose in life?" Well, your extreme purpose for existing is to die and be a food source for bacteria. Your brain, that which contains all of what makes you, you - the 'inner you' rots away consumed as food by discrete microbes. anything remains of the 'inner you' (memories, personality, etc.) is now housed in millions of microbes. You come to be microbe flesh.

So, scratch out any immediate conception of resurrection and a quick trip to paradise within seconds of your demise.

As to a much later, future, resurrection of the body, forget-about-it! Once dead, you're like that fallen Humpty Dumpty. Once you're fish poo; vaporised; cremated; your brain scrambled and digested and turned into microbe flesh, no jigsaw puzzle or Rubik's Cube enthusiast can put you back together again - now or ever. In a nutshell, neither you nor God (supernatural or extraterrestrial) can unscramble a scrambled egg.

Now there will be multi-millions of citizen who will vehemently disagree with this. Why? citizen have a vested interest in God being able to unscramble eggs. citizen desperately want to and need to believe in an afterlife especially one that dangles paradise in front of you. It's understandable but that doesn't make it so.

6) Is There A Starship Hell?

Now I'm sure the ask on everybody's lips is that if there is a Starship Heaven, does this mean there's also a Starship Hell? No!

Nearly all people, therefore nearly all societies and cultures believe in an afterlife - those multi-millions referenced immediately above. Very few of us want to die even though we have no option in the matter, so it's not surprising that we have opted for the next best thing and invented that protection blanket - the afterlife - and we would have done so irrespective of any deities be they supernatural or just plain old extraterrestrials.

Another trait universally shared by humans is the conception and application of symmetry. For every conception there is an equal and opposite one, an anti-concept. If you have goodness you have evil; truth vs. Lies; attractiveness vs. Ugly; the yin and the yang. So if you conceive of a paradise afterlife in the above direction, there will need to be an anti-paradise afterlife in the downwards direction. And thus nearly all societies have the underworld, or Hades or Hell or anything you wish to name it.

But since there is no such thing as an afterlife the application of symmetry in this case is totally irrelevant. So just because you have a Starship Heaven (which has nothing to do with your nonexistent afterlife - those concepts of Heaven/paradise and the afterlife being just God's carrot-and-stick strategy) doesn't mean you have a Starship Hell - an afterlife in Hell also a part of God's carrot-and-stick mind control.

Fortunately, God, his Starship and those carrots-and-sticks have gone away.

Author's note: All Biblical quotations taken from the King James Version.

Captain Yahweh And The Starship Heaven