Can Science Explain Heaven?

There are those who believe that science will eventually explain everything—including our enduring belief in heaven. The thesis here is very simple: heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event. It’s something that happens in your brain as you die.

I first encountered this idea as I was researching my new book, Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife. I was having lunch with my friend and colleague Christopher Dickey, who told me that his father, the writer James Dickey, had a fantasy of heaven in which all of his closest friends were sitting around a swimming pool, chatting. “There was nothing special about the pool itself,” wrote Chris in Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son. “Nobody walked on the water. And he never told me who the friends were … But what he took away from the dream was a sense of contentment, of being at ease with himself and the world, as if he had gotten a preview of heaven. He called that place ‘The Happy Swimming Pool.’ ” Chris believes that everything we think we know about heaven happens in the moments before death. After that, there’s nothing.

3 thoughts on “Can Science Explain Heaven?”

  1. I believe we are spirit beings living a 3 dimensional existence. Upon physical death,we leave our physical bodies and enter a higher plane of existence. Heaven “yes” for those of the right mind and earthly actions towards others. Love of God and Christ I believe, will strongly implement your going there…Hell??? Well..Perhaps.If you die Godless with an evil earthly existence.Our spirits are living energy that is transfered,not destroyed. Albert Einstein theorized this.I believe that the existence of human “ghosts” proves our spirits live on. Earth bound spirits who haven’t left this plane.”Death” is physical.Our true selves move on. So I definitely believe in Heaven. Hell “may” exist. Perhaps in the minds of the departed evil doers. Or maybe..Dante’s inferno.A grim thought indeed….

  2. READ THE BIBLE!! Here’s a thought.. Believe in the Word of God! What happens to us when we pass on is not merely a process in the brain shutting down, our energy or spirit moves on to a new plain.Einstein even proved this theory that energy cannot be destoyed but rather transfered into another state. So therefore, there is more after our meager existance here on Earth is over. MUCH MORE! It’s outlined in God’s Great Plan! How can anyone be so arrogant to presume otherwise?… Self obsorved ignorance I guess…

  3. I agree with both comments. I know that at my final moment I am going to be conforted by those spirit beings we loved as human beings on this earth, they will come and help me go to that higher plane of existance, I will obey God’s command and I know I am going to be better than I have been.

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