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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 12, No. 4

Publication Date: August 25, 2024

DOI:10.14738/aivp.124.17343.

Gurevitz, M. (2024). The Unimaginable Conversion of Paradise into Hell. European Journal of Applied Sciences, Vol - 12(4). 238-

240.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

The Unimaginable Conversion of Paradise into Hell

Michael Gurevitz

Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Ecology

George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University

Ramat Aviv 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

PARADISE AND HELL

Our cognitive perception of ׳Paradise׳ usually portrays an attractive heavenly garden, ‘Eden’,

where Adam and Eve were created (ref. 1). Quite the opposite is our imaginary picture of

‘Hell’, a concept raised at early Christianity, describing an afterlife world of punishment in

flames of those being evil or living in sin during their life time. Both imaginary pictures are

shaped in our mind mostly by famous paintings and descriptions of religious preachers

threatening their ׳sheep׳ during prayers or other religious rituals (refs. 2,3). So, engraved in

human minds are these imaginations that upon visiting a fascinating place (e.g., seashore with

Palm trees and a nearby forest, colorful flowers and a small water stream), people tend to call

it ‘Paradise-like’, whereas a dry volcanic place with bubbly lava, no grass and poisonous

vapors resembles Hell. These two cognitive concepts are common to people of all religions

and ethnic origin due likely to thousands of years of conviction, mostly by sanctified

mediators (e.g., Priests, Imams, Rabbis). Astoundingly, religious people tend to consider

Paradise and Hell in a simplistic, almost realistic way, and are therefore worried about their

afterlife destination. Free-minded people, however, consider Paradise and Hell as conceptual

metaphors, part of the ‘reward and punishment’ discernment. The Paradise metaphor applies

to a wonderful place that meets our dreams, whereas the Hell metaphor describes torture,

pain, and despair. From a historic viewpoint, prior to the overpopulation of Earth and

pressurized industrial control over human life, many terrestrial natural regions could be

considered Paradise-like areas. However, as humanity populated almost every terrestrial

nich, destroyed forests, contaminated the environment, exterminated many speci, overused

most resources, and fought over control and dissemination of primitive ideas and beliefs,

most Paradise-like places have disappeared while fears, bloodshed, destruction, despair (Hell- like reality) have prevailed and became a daily reality (ref. 4). Interestingly, although the

metaphoric perception of Paradise and Hell sounds better to rational people, the simplistic

belief in these afterlife worlds by a large portion of humanity is intriguing, raising

uncertainties about the ‘advanced level of their cognition’.

ADVANCEMENT OF HUMAN COGNITION IS LIMITED BY RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS AND

PREJUDICE IDEAS

Despite the high self-esteem of humanity, there is a clear contradiction between the cognition

level of technologically-oriented minds (e.g., scientists, physicians) and that of religious

prejudiced minds, who ignore proven facts about the creation and age of Earth, as well as the

evolutionary process that raised Homo sapiens. This vast difference in cognitive perception

and leaning of so many people on mythic, irrational legends arose due likely to spiritual needs

and fears of death and the unknown. Not only that such a difference in cognitive perception

limits the practical as well as spiritual development of humanity, it provokes disputes, hatred,

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Gurevitz, M. (2024). The Unimaginable Conversion of Paradise into Hell. European Journal of Applied Sciences, Vol - 12(4). 238-240.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.124.17343

and aggression that distract our mind from the upcoming global risks. Unfortunately, a large

portion of humanity, particularly the religious fraction, is either apathic or skeptic about these

dangers and so they ignore warnings like that of Stephen Hawking, who suggested prior to his

passing away to expedite the scientific research aiming to develop means for intergalactic

travel to evacuate humanity to another life-supporting planet. The religious sector belives

that ‘God’ would save them in times of need, a belief, that could be tolerated much earlier in

human history, but not in the 21st century.

EXPECTATIONS

Although planet Earth is expected to last millions of years, the probability of a cosmic

catastrophe (e.g., hit by a large asteroid; detrimental irradiation wave; shift from orbit; some

damage to the Moon; a black hole effect), or some environmental disaster (e.g., gigantic

Vulcanic eruption; ice melting and flood), or a human-evoked tragedy (e.g., nuclear world

war; incurable microbial pandemic; extreme alterations in climax) may surprise us much

earlier (ref. 4). To minimize such global dangers, rational people are expected to actively

reduce the risk factors (e.g., remove from chair ignorant leaders whose personal and national

aspirations endanger the world; minimize the contamination of the environment; reduce the

green-house effect; stop developing risky biological warfare). Since very little was done thus

far, humanity is clearly stepping toward self-destruction (refs. 5,6). Under such increasing

pressures, it is time to consider (a) the suggestion of leading scientists to expedite the search

for another life-supporting planet enabling evacuation of humanity from the deteriorating

Earth; (b) take immediate measures to minimize the religious influence on our life and unite

all nations in a common project aiming at preservation of our species as well as protect

nature. The irrational belief of the religious sector that some divine power (‘God’) would save

humanity in times of need is obviously ‘utter nonsense’ and so the only way of minimizing the

dangers to humanity must get rid of all nuclear reservoirs; abort all efforts to create vicious

micro organismic weapons; prevent the industrial spills leading to climax changes and

greenhouse effect; and stop all environmental contaminations, while repairing damaged

habitats, mainly forests and sea plankton required for photosynthesis. In addition, all

advanced physical efforts that may risk our existence, like exploring the interaction of matter

with anti-matter should stop before a possible provocation by mistake of a disastrous

outcome. The energy requirements should instead be compensated by natural resources like

sunlight, wind, sea-waves, waterfalls, heat gradients or other safer means. All military

disputes must cease and the arms race between superpowers eliminated. Notably, fulfillment

of all these conditions do not guaranty secure future for humanity, but still may provide ample

time to figure out ways of colonizing other life-supporting planets (following S. Hawking

suggestion). Evidently, we should give up some unrealistic aspirations and understand that

the ‘experiment’ (if any) of developing a clever, highly cognitive super species (Homo sapiens),

within a relatively short galactic period, was unsuccessful.

IS THERE HOPE?

Clearly, as humanity advances technologically, its negative influences on Earth intensify. Since

people cannot settle down their endless fights over territories, resources, power and religion

(ref. 5), and despite the progress in various aspects of life, the survival prospects of humanity

are seemingly at descent, not to mention the possibility of a putative cosmic catastrophe (ref.

6). Rather than establishing a firm set of international rules to limit the human-directed

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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 12, Issue 4, August-2024

destruction of Earth, most attention is still being focused on daily needs, over-exploitation of

natural resources, continuous contamination of the environment, development of means for

mass destruction (refs. 4,7) accompanying loss of important ethical values (homo homini

lupus). Ignorant, quite primitive (even insane), leaders keep their power and control over

suffering populations, while threatening the rest of the world (ref. 8) and offering an insecure

reality and future. Within this messy situation, the continued religious control over

approximately half of the world population, just pours oil on the growing flame. The public

conviction about ‘Paradise’ and ‘Hell’ is just one example of the irrelevance of the religious

conviction. In using Axel Munthe’s last sentence in his book ‘The story of San Michele’, I allow

myself to declare that it would be a shocking surprise to find myself after death in either

‘Paradise’ or ‘Hell’. Furthermore, if we consider the rise of humanity as an experimental

exercise planned by either ‘God’ or some extraterrestrial civilization (refs. 9,10), the

upcoming results of this experiment do not seem promising (ref. 11), and so the concepts of

‘Paradize’ and ‘Hell’ might remain a temporary memory or completely disappear from the

galactic history.

References

1. Bible, Book of Genesis, Chapter 2.

2. Gurevitz, M. (2022) Religion - a sophisticated strategy to gain control over the masses. Annal. Depress.

Anxiety, 9(1), 1115.

3. Gurevitz, M. (2023) The creation of God in the mind of mankind - a spiritual need or hiding in a cave. Eur. J.

Appl. Sci., 11(6), 145.

4. Gurevitz, M. (2022) Has humanity reached the stationary phase of its growth curve? Eur. J. App. Sci., 10(5),

169.

5. Gurevitz, M. (2021) Self-extinction on verge - an illogical reality. Intern. J. BioMed. Res., 1, 1.

6. Gurevitz, M. (2023) Giant asteroid or nuclear winter - a 2023 menu. Eur. J. Appl. Sci., 11(1), 40.

7. Gurevitz, M. (2022) Reputed intentions behind the Corona outbreak. J. BioMed. Sci., 4(2), 1792.

8. Gurevitz, M. (2023) Leaders nearing the end of their career may endanger humanity. Eur. J. Appl. Sci., 1(5),

366.

9. Vonnegut, K. (1959) The Sirens of Titan.

10. Hoyle, F. & Wickramasinghe, C. (1982) Evolution from space: A theory of cosmic creationism. Simon and

Schuster, Publ., The University of Michigan.

11. Gurevitz, M. (2023) The rise and fall of Homo sapiens. Am. J. Biomed. Sci. & Res., 18(1), 867.