Alright, I've got a practical question...

[originalpckelly]

When people talk about hell, they usually imply that it's general direction is down, right?
When people talk about heaven, they usually imply that it's general direction is up, right?

But technically, if you keep going down, won't you go through the Earth, and won't that down actually be up on the other side of the Earth?

So, in other words, isn't down there really just someone else's up there?

This would, of course, be a question for the people on DU who believe in such nonsense, logical folks may step aside on this question.

[MineralMan]

1. Up is down and down up

Depending where you are.


Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, you know.

[frebrd]

2. If you have a practical question.......

You've come to the wrong place for an answer.

:)

[westerebus]

5. DU zzy nomination for sure.

[mrcheerful]

3. You have to put that concept into context. That belief came about when the earth was thought to be

flat with nothing on the other side, these same people believed that earth was the center of the universe, the sun revolved around the earth and the heavens were unobtainable to man kind. Also religion barrows from each other so a lot of the old god myths placed the gods up in the heavens. So because these people had no concept that anything other then dirt, which was bottomless because their world beliefs told them that they were not sitting on a ball in space, hell had to be below their feet because nothing was above the god domain heaven. Just goes to show that beliefs once started never die out they just get more complex to the believer, I have met some who think heaven and hell are actually 6th dimensions worlds.

[Tunkamerica]

4. no, it's supposed to be in the center of the earth which is down for everyone here.

and this is far from practical

[originalpckelly]

6. No, they don't say that.

No one says "Be good, Bobby, or else, you'll go to the center of the Earth."

That sounds like the plot to an awesome sci-fi novel, not a way to keep a kid from doing something wrong.

No, people say, "I have a feeling he's down there."

They don't say where you stop, they just say down. These people need to take fucking geometry, they're talking about a ray, when in fact they mean a line segment with one end being the surface of the Earth, and the other being the center of it.

[Tunkamerica]

11. see this picture. the top is jerusalem.

[notadmblnd]

7. If you think about it, we are all really upside down

the only thing that keeps our feet on the ground is gravity.

[rug]

8. Bring your physics textbook with you. Let us know if it holds up.

[Warpy]

9. Hell was down because that's where primitive souls found the worst terrain

meaning at the bottom of a volcano with a lava lake or the Phlegraean Fields, Dante's inspiration. It was hot and it stank. It just became a part of the mythology.

All they knew of "up" was silver rimmed clouds, rainbows, and the rain that made their crops grow. It was pretty, so it had to be heaven.

Contrast that with the old Irish stuff, wherein the other world of the spirits was within the earth and that burying a body was literally sending it to heaven.

In any case, it's all myth. If believing any of it gets a person through a dark and lonely night, so what? As long as the rest of us aren't forced to pretend we share it, let them be.

[zeemike]

10. I think it practically is a question

And you obviously did not expect a serious answer but I will try to amuse you some.
If down is taken to be toward the center of gravity then Hell must be a black hole...and so the center of the earth would not be the lower reaches of hell.

[Goblinmonger]

12. Read Metaphors We Live By

and it will explain it all for you. Of course, we then get into the arena of heaven and hell being metaphoric and that might get ugly.

[Silent3]

13. At the risk of taking such a question too seriously...

...the up/down concept of the direction of heaven and hell likely greatly predates the roundness of the earth being known, or at least being well known in common culture. What was once perhaps literal for many people has simply survived metaphorically. People don't generally require their metaphors to withstand the rigors of dogged literalism.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. It's ancient cosmology

People today who believe in heaven believe that it's a separate dimension of existence, not a collection of clouds in the sky.

I don't believe in hell, but actually, if you kept going down into the earth from whichever location on the surface, you'd eventually reach the molten core, so that bit of pre-modern cosmology actually works in a sense.