human race believes in some sort of divine being, which by all accounts, is roughly the same percentage throughout human history.”
Yeah, I thought to myself, 90% are sheep and only 10% use their brains.
“Now as I was saying, all this maybe interesting from an academic perspective,” Aaron continued, as the Professor appeared to be punching in coordinates into his iPad, and the light on each of their time cylinders blinked on. “But it doesn’t really tell us anything about how the science of the 41st century has influenced our understanding of the divine.” Aaron, Jacob, and the Professor now each placed their time cylinder over their heads. “And before we can even talk about how science has influenced our understanding of the divine, we first need to bring you up to date on some of the key scientific advances of the day. And the best way to do that is to show you. Professor, if you please.”
The Professor nodded his head and pushed a button on his iPad. There was another flash and suddenly we were in a different dimension.
Journal Entry: Out of Time
The porch had vanished and we were now floating through space, with twinkling stars shining around us. At least I thought they were stars, but as I studied them I realized they were not stars at all. Instead they were tiny balls of light that grew and shrunk in size to a rhythmic pattern that I couldn’t hear, but somehow could feel.
It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Trust me when I say my description isn’t doing it justice. Perhaps if I was a poet I could describe it better. But a poet, I am not. The best I can come up with is that it was kind of like being at a bar, half tanked, dancing to your favorite song. Like I said – I‘m no poet.
As I continued to study the lights, taking in their almost hypnotic rhythm, I began to get the impression of people and places coming from each of the lights. As if they were in fact doorways to faraway places, and all I had to do was will myself towards one to go through.
I don’t know how long we floated there before I finally ask, “What is this place?”
“We are floating in the time stream,” Aaron replied. “We just projected out of our universe.”
“Out of the universe?”
“Well, more the fringes out it,” Aaron amended, motioning to the balls of light all around us. “This is another one of those concepts that your 21st century mind can’t fully comprehend, but in essence, we are floating in time.”
“Wow,” was all I could mumble, as my mind tried to soak it all in.
The Professor chuckled at my response and said, “OK Aaron and Jacob, I think you have adequately proved your point. Now let’s take James to the observation station, he should find the station to be a little less overwhelming.”
“Right Professor,” Aaron replied, and the Professor pushed another button on his iPad device.
There was another flash, and suddenly we were standing on the observation deck of some sort of space station, looking out a huge panoramic window that had to be at least 60 feet high and twice as long.
Staring out the window I could still see the rhythmic flashing lights of the time stream, but they were now transparent, like a thin veil that separated two distinct halves. On one side of the station, I could see galaxies of stars. Literally galaxies – I could see the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, plus thousands more. On the other side, there appeared to be waves of rolling energy. It kind of reminded me of pictures I had seen of the aurora borealis.
“Welcome to the Alpha & Omega Observatory,” Aaron stated, gesturing to the window.
“This observatory,” Aaron continued. “Is located in the time stream, which borders the two halves of the universe, but it was constructed slightly out of phase so that scientist can better study the time stream and it’s interaction with the universe.”
“Because it is slightly out of phase,” the Professor stated, “You will probably not find it as overwhelming.”
Well that was an understatement, I thought to myself. Compared to the overwhelming sensory stimulation of floating in the time stream, this felt dull by comparison. The fact that there were tour groups walking around, or in some cases floating by, reinforced my pedestrian impression. Sure, in retrospect, this was easily the second most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life, but there was a big drop off between number one and two. Now of course the up side of this was that since my brain was no longer getting overloaded, my mind was able to kick back into gear.
“What do you mean the two halves of the universe?” I asked. “Are you referring to matter and anti-matter?”
“No,” it was Jacob that responded. “Matter and anti-matter are both components of the Physical plane. Which in your time is what mankind thinks of as the entire universe, but shortly after the Great Reunification of 2029, scientists began to seriously explore a meta-physical model of the universe. It apparently had started back at the turn of the 21st century with String theory, but really exploded after the Great Reunification. You see String theory, and other scientific theories, would mathematically breakdown at a certain point; that is, unless you factored in another plane of existence. Some scientists also began to seriously explore how certain religious concepts, like the soul, might work.”
“Please note,” the Professor interjected. “This was not the misguided attempts of the Intelligent Design movement that you might be familiar with, which was primarily just an attempt to get equal footing in schools. What Jacob is referring to was a sincere scientific approach of exploring the workings of the universe. In this case, scientists started hypothesizing that if man really had a soul, then there would have to be some connection between a person’s physical body and their spiritual. If there was no connection, then a person’s memories would be completely lost when they died. So, if man does have a soul, then it has to be connected to its physical body in some way. There was other phenomenon, like mob mentality, that suggested human beings could be influencing one another on a non-traditional physical level. So, some scientists began to seriously explore how this might work.”
“Right,” Jacob said, taking back over the dialogue. “In the year 2155, Professor Madison Jordan, published her ground breaking theory that she titled the Harmonic Actuality Model, which was later nicknamed by a critic as the Spirit plane theory. In her theory, Professor Jordan detailed out a mathematical model of the universe which contained two overlapping, yet independent halves – planes. While her theory had its fair share of critics, it took off and ironically the name Spirit plane stuck. Professor Jordan’s theory wasn’t universally accepted until the year 2545, when Physicist Eliza Olivia, managed to detect and record the Spirit plane echoes that Professor Jordan’s theory predicted.”
“When you say, Spirit plane, do you mean she proved Heaven exists?” I asked, my mind was starting to go numb at the idea.
“No,” Jacob replied. “But that is what many people initially speculated the Spirit plane was. However modern scientific theory has provided us with new insights into the Spirit plane. As we said before, your 21st century mind cannot really grasp the physics of the Spirit plane, but for simplicity sake let’s just say that our universe is actually comprised of two overlapping planes. The Physical plane, where your body, trees…the moon and etc. reside, and then there is what you might think of as the metaphysical or Spirit plane. Even in the 41st century our understanding of the Spirit plane is limited, for while we can observe its behavior, we cannot directly study it. However we do know that we are connected to it.”
“Connected to it?” I asked. Honestly, I found the concept a little overwhelming, and quite frankly if I wasn’t standing there, looking out the window at the two distinct planes of existence, I wouldn’t have believed it.
“Yes,” Jacob replied. “Scientists have proven that we are connected to it, and in a way to each other. Our connection to it is one of the reasons that mankind can now fly, and absorb energy from the Sun. Now this doesn’t mean that we have proven that we have a soul, just that our
brains are connected to something in the Spirit plane. And that it appears that information flows from our brains into the Spirit plane, and recently we have found evidence which indicates that information may indeed be flowing back into us. Now while this does not prove that we have a soul, it is consistent with modern theories on how a soul would interact with our physical selves. But like I said, there are other explanations as well.”
“Such as?” I asked, sincerely curious.
“Well,” Jacob replied. “The hardcore agnostics would point out that this could just be the equivalent of a Physical to Spirit plane echo. We, higher intelligent life forms, could simply be creating ripples in the Spirit plane, and all that we are really observing is our mental energies reverberating back to us. There are other explanations as well. As we stated before, we still do not understand all the universal constants. So it could turn out that none of these theories are correct, or even that they are all partially correct.”
“Be that as it may,” Aaron broke in. “We didn't bring Grandfather to the observation station to discuss 41st century physics, which quite frankly he won't be able to fully grasp.”
“Instead,” Aaron continued gesturing again to the panoramic view of the two halves of the universe.