Introduction and Definitions

Religion is a sales activity and it is selling products based on the concepts of eternity and immortality. This page examines how religion attempts to sell these concepts, and why it is unable to deliver on its promises.

Eternity is defined as: infinite or unending time.

Immortality is defined as: the ability to live forever, which is also known as: eternal life.

Those are concepts of which most people are aware, however no person can fully appreciate them. The disconnect between the human perception of those concepts and the reality of those concepts is what religion is designed to address.

Human timelines

All people understand that they get a limited lifespan (70 to 90 years, give or take), however most people would probably like more time than that, especially to prolong various stages of life. There wouldn’t be many people who haven’t wondered what it would be like to have more time, as well as how they would use more time if they could get it.

As it stands, all people are destined to die. There is a suggestion about how science is nearing a goal of slowing or stopping the aging process, but at the time of writing, there is no doubt that all people will eventually die. That makes sense because humans are part of the animal kingdom and all animals that we know of have limited lifespans. If all other animals will eventually die, and because humans have similar structure and metabolic processes to the other animals, it’s not a surprise that humans should also age and die. And we do.

Humans are unique in that no other animal that we know of is aware that it will die. The awareness of a limited lifespan is a burden for most people because that awareness can bring into focus a sense of loss. Some people have a sense of loss that they will no longer be able to see family and friends, and some people mourn that they failed to achieve something or that they will miss something. Sometimes a sense of loss is amplified because of tragedy, for example if someone is missed because they died too early.

Many people regret that they failed to achieve something (e.g. in business, or music, or art, or language, or travel, or sport etc.) and the realization that time is running out to achieve that something can be hard to accept. For most people, the responsibilities of life (e.g. of family and work) mean that there are always some things that have to be left unfulfilled. For others, health may eventually become a limiting factor as certain activities are no longer easy or achievable due to the aging process.

As soon as the concept of needing more time is raised, the natural question becomes: how much more time is required? Would most people be satisfied if they had 10 or 20 extra years? No? How about 50? No? 100? 1,000? 10,000? Probably not. The issue being that no matter how much extra time was offered, there would always be another activity that could be achieved if more time was available.

Some people might need extra time to get another university degree, or to finally get a hole in one, or to invent a cure for an illness, or to read every book by an author, or to achieve an Elden Ring playthrough, however even if the extra time was used just to walk hand-in-hand with a loved one, why limit that to 10,000 years? If you were healthy and in your 10,000th year in the afterlife, wouldn’t you want 10,001 years?

That’s were the concepts of eternity and immortality come into consideration.

Timelines of the universe

All available evidence indicates that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. Anatomically similar humans (to us) have been around for at least 300,000 years however we know very little about those who lived more than 10,000 years ago. The earliest writings that we know about are from a little over 5,000 years ago. That brings us up to date, but what about the future? Here are some expected highlights – although the further out the years go, the more theoretical it gets. There are three main possibilities for the fate of the universe, and those are noted in blue in the following list.

• -13.8 billion years: The expansion of the present universe happens (the “big bang”).
• 0 years: now.
• 600 million years: Earth becomes uninhabitable due to an increase in the sun’s luminosity and a lack of photosynthesis, and therefore the elimination of the food chain. If humans have not left the planet by this time, they will become extinct.
• 1 billion years: The Earth becomes too hot to support liquid water, e.g. all the oceans will boil away.
• 4 billion years: The Andromeda galaxy has begun merging with the Milky Way.
• 5 billion years: The sun exhausts its hydrogen fuel and expands into a red giant, probably consuming Earth. If it does, the Earth will cease to exist.
• 5-10 billion years: The sun collapses into a white dwarf star, and most stars in the Milky Way finish their main sequence life cycle.
• 20-30 billion years: The earliest date for a “Big Rip“. That’s one possible outcome for the end of the universe in which the acceleration of the universe (driven by dark energy) becomes so violent that it overcomes all gravitational and binding forces. Over time, this force would tear apart galaxies, stars, planets, and finally atoms. There might also be a “Big Crunch” on or after this time whereby the universe collapses into a singularity. That might begin the sequence of another universe (the Cyclic Universe hypothesis).
• 100 billion years: The Virgo Supercluster (containing up to 100,000 galaxies) merges into a single elliptical galaxy.
• 150 billion years: Accelerated expansion causes all galaxies outside our local group to move away faster than light, becoming invisible from our local galaxy.
• 1-100 trillion years: The Stellar Era ends. All hydrogen is exhausted so no new stars form. Only dying red dwarfs, brown dwarfs and white dwarfs remain.
• 100 trillion (10¹⁴) years: The “Degenerate Era” begins. Most matter is locked in stellar remnants, which slowly cool into black dwarfs.
• 10¹⁴ – 10⁴⁰ years: Protons decay. All atoms gradually disappear into photons and leptons.
• 10⁴⁰ – 10¹⁰⁰ years: Only black holes remain, however they are slowly evaporating via Hawking radiation.
• 10¹⁰⁰ years: The “Heat Death” of the universe. The last black hole evaporates. The universe is a vast, cold, empty space of highly diffused particles and photons, reaching maximum entropy.
• Greater than 10¹⁰⁰ years: The “Dark Era”. Occasional random fluctuations might spark a “Big Bang” though the universe will likely remain a cold and dark void.

However there’s no need to go so far out on the timeline before real problems will likely develop for humans. We might render the planet unlivable due to global warming or due to nuclear war. Another ice age is due in the next 50,000 years and that might render the planet very difficult for life as we know it, e.g. due to the collapse of agriculture. There’s also the real likelihood that an extinction-level-event asteroid (something at least 6 miles, or 10 kilometers wide) will hit the Earth in the next 40 million years (give or take).

Do you know what hasn’t even started at a date like 10¹⁰⁰ years? Eternity. That’s because eternity involves the concept of infinity, and infinity is a difficult concept when it comes to time. For that reason, “eternity” is essentially a meaningless concept.

What religion says

So why was the above (detailed) list of years and events given here? Because that’s what science has started to determine is the fate of the universe. To be sure there will be refinements to the list as more research is done and discoveries made, but the current state of knowledge is extraordinary. Compare that unfolding list of events with what’s related by the various religious texts – which is next to nothing. That’s very surprising since the texts are the word of omniscient beings, aren’t they?

By the way, is your god going to ignore the physical laws (that underpin the above list of events) that he implemented when he created the universe containing your religion? For example, after (say) 10⁴⁰ years when all the atoms have decayed, will the righteous still be sitting around worshiping god? Why will their atoms survive when all the others in the universe have dissolved?

So that is where religion steps up to the plate, right? Well…

Remember that the various religious texts were written by superstitious and ignorant iron-age men, and it’s certain that no one who has written a word in a religious text has a clue about the nature of eternity or immortality. So, they just made up some stuff that they thought would placate the masses at the time of writing. Unfortunately, they are still achieving that.

And that’s the point: the religious texts are designed to try and fill the need that many people have to acquire more than the 70-90 years that they get in their real life. However those texts never embellish their promises with specifics. It’s always extremely vague and non-specific hints that there’s something terrific in the afterlife that is just waiting for the true believers. They assume that the believers will fill in the gaps by imagining paradise for all eternity. Just because a believer really wants something to happen in the afterlife, doesn’t mean that it will happen.

Books like the bible are incredibly lame when it comes to specifics. As anyone who has read “revelation” (a link to a page on this site) can attest, the best that is offered is a description of a huge golden city that contains a tree and a river and two thrones, and on those thrones are two guys (god and jesus) who must be worshiped. There is simply no description about what life will be like for the true believers as they start down the infinite path of eternity.

Unanswered questions about the eternal promise

So here are questions and issues that an omniscient god should have been able to address in the writing of a book about the eternal plan. This list is not pretending to be complete, but hopefully these are some issues that will make you consider the pros and cons of an immortal life. These are the obvious questions that your religious leaders never address because they have no idea about them.

• Do you have to be resurrected and stay at the same age you died?
  • If you died at an advanced age, do you have to stay at that age? Would many people like to stay looking like at 90-year-old instead of how they looked (say) in their twenties?
  • If a baby died at an age of one week, then would that baby be resurrected and stay at the age of one week? That hardly seems fair for all eternity. What does that baby get to experience for all time (since, like all babies, they have limited ability to absorb and process information)?
  • If you died as a child or younger teenager, does that mean that you have live for all eternity without the memory of a physical relationship or true love?
• If you died at a really old age and was given the ability to pick a younger age for all eternity:
  • Can you pick any age that suits? Can you change ages each (say) year?
  • How does it work when it comes to people you know recognizing you if you pick a younger age? Could you become younger than one of your children, or grand-children?
  • Do you lose memories that were gained at ages older than the final younger age that you select?
• If you died at a really young age and was given the ability to pick an older age for all eternity:
  • Can you pick any age that suits?
  • Does anyone else get a say in the age that you can pick? E.g. can your parent put a limit on how old you can be?
  • If you get older, do you get memories implanted that correspond to the various ages you pass through to get to your intended older age?
• Do you have to have the same physical characteristics that you did in life?
  • What if you were in a wheelchair or had a physical deformity or mental illness? Can you remove those for eternity?
  • Do Siamese twins or people with Down syndrome have to remain that way for all eternity?
  • If you can change your physical form, can you pick anything? Can you change gender or race? Can you pick a new form each day? Can you look exactly the same as someone else?
  • Can you lift your IQ to any level you want?
• Will you recognize others in the afterlife? This is a big one for many people because they want to believe in religion specifically because of the hope of being reunited with loved ones.
  • What if you recognize someone who you can’t stand, or who bullied you, or who murdered you or who killed or abused someone you loved?
  • What if you were married to someone you deeply loved but following their passing you fell in love with (and married) someone else? Which one do you have to pick for all eternity?
  • Will you be allowed to seek out stars and heroes, e.g. for an autograph?
  • Is there the concept of privacy for all eternity?
• Do you carry forward the experience you had in your life as memories in your immortal life?
  • What if you had a traumatic childhood? Do you have to be reminded of that trauma every day for eternity?
• Is there the concept of love and hate in the afterlife?
  • Can you fall in (and out) of love? If so, that suggests a whole range of issues to do with jealousy, fairness, revenge, etc.
• Can beings in the afterlife have children?
  • Do they get to see them grow up for (say) twenty years and then live for the rest of eternity at that age?
• Do you get to develop skills and interests throughout eternity?
  • What if you really enjoyed your occupation when you were alive? Do you have the opportunity to continue with that occupation?
  • What if your interest or occupation is one that isn’t relevant in the afterlife, e.g. a policeman or soldier or judge?
  • What if you were (say) a photo-journalist? Are there opportunities to document the components and activities involved in the eternal lives around you? Are there companies to still produce the equipment that you knew and loved to use?
  • If you want to try a different occupation, are there retraining facilities?
• Will god reveal all in the afterlife?
  • Will the concept of infinity be explained?
  • Will all unproven mathematical theorems be revealed?
  • Will the contradictions in the various religious texts be reconciled?
  • Will the need for childhood leukemia or eye parasites in children in Africa be explained?
  • How has the degradation of the human form (the same one as god, remember) been halted in the afterlife?
• What facilities are available in the afterlife?
  • Are there parks? Cafes? Cycle ways? Roads? Libraries? Internet? Television?
  • Movies? If so, what classifications will be permitted? Just the G-rated ones?
  • Will new facilities and entertainments be delivered?
  • Is there money? Inflation?
• Will there be pets and other animals in the afterlife?
  • Will you be reunited with the (potentially) dozens of pets you had in life? Do you have to look after them? Feed them? Walk them? Pick up after them? Do they revert to a younger age (than the old age that killed them)?
• Is there the concept of nourishment in the afterlife?
  • What if eating was a sense of great joy in life? Will you still be able to do that? If you eat in the afterlife, does it digest? Will you still have to poop the waste products of food?
  • Can you cook? Are all ingredients available?
• Do clothes have to be worn in the afterlife?
  • If so, why (see adam and eve)?
  • Will there be the means of production of clothes?
  • Will there be function to the clothes, e.g. will they help with heat or cold?
  • Will there be fashion or styles? Will people have to wear a uniform?
• Is there the concept of bodily functions in the afterlife?
  • Do you defecate and urinate and sweat? What about ejaculate? For what purpose?
  • Is there sex in the afterlife. If so, with whom? Just the people you had sex with in life or can you meet one or more new people? It is supposed to be heaven, so are there limits imposed on sexual activity? If you’re allowed to do a little bit, then why not just a little bit more?
• What responsibilities and opportunities are there in the afterlife?
  • About all that is ever suggested is the action of continual worship and adoration for the god figure. That would seem to get lame (for both parties) quickly. After you’ve said “You’re wonderful god and I worship you” on the ten-millionth day, does it mean much to say it on the following day?
  • Are some people required to serve others in the afterlife? E.g. do some people have to dust or clean things? The bible claims that the eternal city will be made from gold, so that might have some maintenance involved if parts of it get damaged?
  • Do some people have to cook and clean for others?
  • Will everyone have jobs and tasks? If so, for how many hours each day?
• Is there any crime and punishment in the afterlife? Sure, only the righteous are allowed into heaven, but it’s inevitable that someone is going to say or do something that upsets someone else?
  • Are there police?
  • Are there judges (besides the main guys)?
  • Are there prisons or fines?
• If you’ve had enough of the afterlife can you opt out?
  • Will that opt out be permanent or for a trial period?

Or to circumvent all of the above, do we all get a new generic look and age, with no memory of the life that we had? It’s true that would solve a lot of issues. However if that is so, what’s the point in the whole exercise because god could just have created little obedient dolls and saved everyone the time and grief? As soon as we have even the slightest memory of our actual lives, the problems listed start to tumble back into consideration.

Obviously not all of the above points will be important to each person, however it’s doubtful that there isn’t a single point of interest from the list, e.g. most people would probably like to catch up with at least one other person in an afterlife. The problem is that as soon as you accept one of the points as being important, you immediately inherit several others (if not all) of the points as becoming relevant (to a greater or lesser degree).

Summary

Are you aware of any religion that has satisfactory answers and descriptions for an eternal afterlife? Or are you wishing for an eternal afterlife and just trusting it to vague descriptions from your holy men, e.g. about “up there”, “playing a harp”, “on a cloud”, “paradise” and “worshiping god”, etc.?

Shouldn’t a real god have been able to put just a little bit more into the various religious texts to address some of these issues? It’s obvious what the fundies will be saying at this point: “Of course god knows the answer to those questions; he just chooses not to say”. Oh, really? That’s a guess of course (based on zero evidence), but what we do know for a fact is that god, despite being omniscient, didn’t say anything on the matter. The obvious point to note is that the approach taken by god is indistinguishable from that taken by ignorant iron-age men who knew nothing about an afterlife.

Be careful what you wish for because after the millionth day of worshiping god on his throne (or whatever), you might just wish you’d been extinguished in that lake of fire and brimstone (or whatever).

Perhaps it’s better to live this life without the thought that there is an afterlife that will deal with the issues you didn’t get around to in this life? It’s actually motivating to do so. Perhaps you’ll be more motivated to get around to doing more things in this life?

In other words, please don’t live this life waiting for the next life, because there is zero credible evidence for an afterlife, and no religious text gives the slightest bit of evidence to make the risk worthwhile.