Eternity How long is it?

[I Eat Kittens 0]

Have you ever tried to think about how long an eternity would be? Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, have you ever tried to wrap your head around such an infinite amount of time? What is your opinion how it, on how to understand it? I saw this a few minutes ago and thought it was pretty cool-

"Try to imagine our whole country is a mountain of sand. A mountain of sand so high that it reaches to the clouds, and so wide that it stretches from one ocean to the other.... Now suppose across the ocean there is a Flat country. The ocean is very wide and it takes weeks to cross it, right. But you want to move this huge mountain of sand from here to there.... Let me tell you how you have to move that enormous mountain of sand. And it is not with a boat.... A little sparrow is going to move that mountain for you. It has to pick up only one grain of sand, fly all the way across the wide ocean, put down the grain of sand, then fly all the way back for another grain of sand. It takes the little bird weeks just to fly across the ocean, and each time it carries only one grain of sand." "Is that how long eternity is?" Agnes asked bravely. "No...when the little bird has moved that mountain of sand across the ocean, that is only the first day of eternity."

 

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[TypoMage 0]

Sorry but I am not really getting the point of this topic at all.

[kraizii88z 0]

Is this a joke? Well, i guess i'll go along with it...I think that time is an illusion created by humans.If this is the case, (time=illusion), then eternity cannot exist,Because eternity is a measure of time, as well. Now we have eternity=time,If eternity=time, and time=illusion, then eternity=illusion, and your question is nullified.Make sense? I think it's more of a mind bender than "how long is eternity?" You see, eternity hasno length, for it does not exist, so then what does exist? I think that everything that has ever happenedor is going to happen or is now happening, does so in an instant, unexplainable in human terms. It is obviouslymuch too large a subject for the human mind ever to grasp. So stop wondering, and get rid of the illusion of time. If you do that, then you will see that everything happens all at once. I do believe that on some level, we know everythingthere is to know about the universe, and one day we will again re-experience that knowingness. There is nothing to figure out in the meantime...

Edited March 21, 2007 by kraizii8z (see edit history)

[CinnamorollTK 0]

I believe an eternity can not yet be measured in time. It would be a very long time, but measurable. Think of a circle. You could walk around a race track forever. That race track would expand into eternity. Maybe eternity can be seen as living your short life of say 70 years forever. The only difference would be that when you are reborn, you know everything that happened to your in your past lives. You could understand things happening around you when you are two since you are living a soul eternity. I don't think anything, except maybe diamonds, could spend an eternity physically.So eternity would be a constant repetition of time where you see many things happening over. Perhaps you can record an eternity in your soul, but a physical Earth can not withstand it so you are thrown in a circle back in time to relive your life. The difference each time would be that since you know more, you can change the events in every lifetime.The problem would be that since you are repeating time, but your mind wont want to make sense of it, you will not know about your past lives unless a skilled person helped you realize what you've done before.

[hitmanblood 0]

Well we now think that in physical point of view time is like an infinite spiral. It is just circling but in fact going on forward that is the main reason why sometimes similar thing happen in history. And if we consider our current knowledge of universe and what we predict that might happen that is in other words we are predicting that it will condensate back into one atom after it has expanded till its end that is when it is expanded and starts collapsing to the one point in space time continuum however when it gets back to one atom it will probably starts expanding in its usual way. So We have to consider this as an infinite loop in space and time.And because of this infinite loop I would say that time that is eternity is not possible to reach or it is constantly expanding if we would look around time spiral we would reach one end what we tough that is end and tim ewould expended and eluded us furthermore and so we would go to infinity.But as a conslucion I would like to say that time or eternity for human being one which could live eternally. Is only till the point when universe collapses. So to say only until universe which we know today is not destroyed and back to its initial point.

[arza1 0]

that cannot compare to eternity. becuase eventually this bird that never dies is going to get to this last grain of sand. then eternity stops. eternity cannot stop it is on going. that is like saying that there is a guy that never dies and he has to count until he reaches infinite. it isn't going to happen but somehow he does. it doesn't deffine the word or the meaning. i know bad analogy but it is the best i could come up with.

[Dagoth Nereviar 0]

that cannot compare to eternity. becuase eventually this bird that never dies is going to get to this last grain of sand. then eternity stops. eternity cannot stop it is on going. that is like saying that there is a guy that never dies and he has to count until he reaches infinite. it isn't going to happen but somehow he does. it doesn't deffine the word or the meaning. i know bad analogy but it is the best i could come up with.

At the end of the quote it said that it is all only the first day of eternity. So no it doesn't stop the analogy is eternal. It is a stupid analogy really as said above eternity is a man made idea and it is impossible to put into context.


Everything is pointless. Don't think about it.

[encryptedwrath 0]

I don't think eternity is plausible. Nothing can last forever , even space is going to become insufficient matter. Time was invented , as was eternity

[Saint_Michael 3]

Yeah the concept of eternity is only going for the religious aspect and cannot be used with science because anything can disprove that theory especially with events such as the milk way galaxy crashing into Andromeda in a fill billion years. When that even happens what gets caught in the cross hairs will be destroyed instantly and then the domino effect will take over.

[jogarriot 0]

well, eternity can be applied in science but as infinite... it applies in math, it applies in science, even in mirrors when you put too mirrors reflecting each other you get an infinite-eternal reflection. its not only religious

[magic 0]

Eturnity is an unmeasureable amount of time cause it can never be measured do to there is no end.

[etycto 0]

well if you realy think about it we are living in eternity right now because eternaty does not have an end and there was no begining of eternity so eternity has nothing to do with time it's just what's going on now and what will continue going on forever.

[joeblogg 0]

its pretty simple how long eternity is. eternity is just forever. there is no end it is just never ending.

[mbafactory 0]

Eternity, the peaceful words are going to live forever! If you call it eternity, it is an unknown dimension in space-time frame and is continuous till any unknown further end. So likewise if you consider space to be infinite, time is also going to be infinity in this frame of reference.We have only developed our knowledge till the 3 dimensions of space, time and other unknown dimensions are yet to be explored.Till then, I believe eternity is infinite.

[networker 0]

I'm sure there is a lot of logic to how eternity works,and makes a lot of sense.We are just not smart enough to understand it.We are like dogs trying to understand calculus so to speak.