In the begining ..........

 The Meaning and Origin of ‘In the Beginning Was the Word’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ These are among the most famous lines in the New Testament: they begin the Gospel of St. John. But what does ‘In the beginning was the Word’ mean? Let’s take a closer look at the meaning of this famous opening sentence.

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It’s perhaps helpful to begin by setting out the difference between the Gospel of John and the three other gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel of Mark is thought to have been composed the earliest of the four gospels, with Matthew and Luke basing their own accounts on it.

The gospel of John was written later still, and of the four, has the strongest claim to actually having been written by one of Jesus’ apostles. (It’s been speculated, though we cannot know for sure, that John may have written his account in the late first century AD, when he was an old man of nearly 90.)

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are grouped together as the ‘Synoptic’ gospels, from a word meaning ‘seeing together’. These three accounts all reflect each other to varying degrees.

But the Gospel of John is quite different. Right from those opening words, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’, John is signalling that his account of Jesus’ life will be treating Jesus as much more than a human being.

This is not to say that the other gospel writers don’t also acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah (as well as a human being), but that John’s Jesus is supernatural and ethereal – otherworldly, almost – right from the beginning.

‘In the beginning was the Word.’ But what does John mean by ‘the Word’? The original Greek text has Logos, for which ‘the Word’ is our English translation.

But Logos is a word that comes with a lot of meanings packed into it, and ‘the Word’ is only a partial reflection of this densely significant word. This term, ‘the Word’, is not found in the Old Testament, and its use in the New Testament is down entirely to John.

In his endlessly informative Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: The New Testament: 002, the author and all-round polymath Isaac Asimov links John’s ‘In the beginning was the Word’ to the Greek philosophy of Thales of Miletus, who lived in the seventh century BC.

Thales argued that, contrary to the idea that the world was largely erratic and unpredictable in its operations, it was actually subject to rigid laws of nature, and that these laws could be discovered using reason and observation. This is the beginnings of both rationalism and empiricism, if you will.

This meant that God – or, depending on which belief system you subscribed to, a whole pantheon of gods – created the world upon some clear and knowable principle, and that this principle is constant rather than changeable and arbitrary.

One of Thales’ followers, Heraclitus, used the term ‘Logos’ to refer to this rational principle. ‘Logos’ means ‘word’ but it also denotes the entire rational structure of knowledge as Thales and Heraclitus had theorised it.

And as the term ‘Logos’ was taken up by more and more philosophers, it came to refer not to some abstract entity but to a thing, even a person: the person who had created this orderly system of knowledge and principle in the world. Logos, if you will, became personified.

This tradition spread beyond the Greek world, and was taken up by the Jewish followers of Yahweh, or the Old Testament God. In Jesus’ time, a man named Philo the Jew popularised the term Logos as a reference to the rational aspect of Yahweh.

So when John begins his gospel by taking us back to the very beginning – of time and of the world and the universe – he is using the term Logos in light of this thinking.

So ‘In the beginning was the Word’ means ‘In the beginning was Logos’ which means ‘at the beginning of everything, there was the entity we know as God, who embodied, and created, the rational principle on which everything is founded’.

So much for ‘In the beginning was the Word’; but what about the next part of John’s sentence? How was ‘the Word’ with God as well as being God?

Well, as Asimov explains, at the time John was writing there were some philosophers who tried to keep God and Logos separate. Logos was not synonymous with God, but merely one power that he possessed, if you will.

God, being spiritual, was removed from the rational and scientific processes of the world: he could not be associated with material things, as an elision of ‘God’ with ‘Logos’ would imply. These philosophers and mystics were known as ‘Gnostics’, from the Greek meaning ‘to know’.

For these Gnostics, because the world is material, God could not have been directly responsible for creating it. Instead, they believed some sub-divine and more malevolent entity had done that.

Because the world is full of evil, the Gnostics reasoned, an evil being must have had a hand in its creation.

Plato famously called this being the ‘Demiurge’. And for Gnostics, Yahweh – the Old Testament version of God – was really the Demiurge, this inferior being to the true God, and the Demiurge was the one who had brought the (flawed) world into being.

For the Gnostics, Jesus was the true God, as opposed to Yahweh, the creator and Demiurge. And the Gospel of John, and those opening lines, set themselves against such a Gnostic interpretation of God and Creation. God and Jesus, God and Logos, Logos and Jesus: all are one and the same.

Or, as John more poetically (but obscurely) puts it: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ That is, at the beginning of all things there was Logos, the creator of everything. And Logos was not only with God, but Logos was God. As the succeeding two verses of the Gospel of John make clear, Logos and God are the same being:

The Parable of the Mustard Seed - the kingdom not to be!!!

kingdom of God

kingdom of God

30 Andkingdom of God he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” - the kingdom not to be33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. 34 He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

We see this parable as something positive if we take it in the wordily sense but if understand the reality we know that the mustard seed never becomes a tree in reality. It is a shurb and no bird lives on a shurb. The natural growth is a shurb but the unnatural growth is a big tree. So

Seeking the lost - God's eternal plan

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Easter - a spring festival

 

As spr

2. White House Easter Egg Roll – USA

Believed to have started in 1814, the White House Easter Egg Roll takes place on Easter Monday every year. For this fun tradition, children gather in Washington D.C. on the White House lawn to roll eggs across the grass with wooden spoons, competing to see who can cross the finish line first. Kids taking part in the competition can win Easter eggs and small prizes, so, with the promise of sweet treats fresh in their minds, morale is usually sky-high. The festivities are overlooked by the US President and their family as well as a giant Easter bunny. With everyone in good spirits and colorful decorations peeking out from every corner, the event is a an annual highlight.ing surfaces to drive out the last gloomy traces of winter, we can finally start to look forward to sunnier days. Part of the beauty of spring’s arrival is how differently it’s celebrated around the world. Every country has its own unique way of welcoming the new season, be it through a festival, parade, or communal meal.

Curious as to how exactly these festivities go down? We’ve got you covered. Dive into all things spring and learn about some of our favorite spring traditions from around the world.

1. Songkran Water Festival – Thailand

This annual festival takes place shortly after the spring equinox. Songkran stems from the Sanskrit word for “astrological passage” and is celebrated within Thailand as New Year’s Day. Festivities involve going to a Buddhist monastery, visiting elders, and, of course, throwing water. The northern capital of Chiang Mai is the setting for the biggest celebrations, with festivities lasting up to six days. Locals and tourists alike take to the streets, equipped with cannon-sized water guns, pressure hoses and buckets, ready to drench anyone in their path. Children, adults, and the elderly take part in the tradition, dancing in the streets to loud music.

Cherry Blossom Festival, Japan

Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, is a centuries-old tradition in Japan that celebrates the beauty of cherry blossoms, known as sakura. The festival typically takes place from late March to early April (March 20 to April 14) when the cherry trees are in full bloom. People gather in parks and gardens to enjoy picnics beneath the flowering trees, participate in traditional tea ceremonies, and attend concerts and performances.

3. Holi – Northern India

Undoubtedly one of the most colorful festivals in the world, Holi is celebrated by Hindus across Northern India. It involves throwing colored powder at one another, which pays tribute to the many hues of the spring season as well as events from Hindu mythology. Usually lasting a full day and night, the festival is a gloriously colorful and happy celebration of the end of winter and the spring growing season. It can, however, get quite crazy, so doing your homework before attending is advisable!

Holi, Nepal

Kathmandu's Holi is a vibrant celebration that takes place in the heart of Nepal's capital. Thousands of people gather in public squares and parks to participate in the festivities, dancing to live music, enjoying street food, and covering each other in brightly coloured powders. The Holi in Kathmandu is a joyful and inclusive event that brings people from all walks of life together to celebrate unity, diversity, and the spirit of renewal.

Holi, India

Holi (March 25), also known as the Festival of Colors, is a Hindu spring festival celebrated primarily in India and Nepal. It signifies the victory of good over evil and the arrival of spring. It's a joyous occasion that brings people of all ages and backgrounds together in a riot of colour and camaraderie.

4. Nowruz – Central Asia

Nowruz means No (new) and rouz (day). Celebrated as the first day of the first month of the Iranian calendar and coinciding with the spring equinox (usually around March 21st), this “new day” symbolizes new life, new beginnings, and the rebirth of nature. While it differs country to country, the multi-day celebration often starts with people cleaning their homes but quickly escalates into a multi-day festival of bonfires, costumes, and family remembrance, until the 13th day of the New Year when everybody leaves their homes and joins friends and family members outside for music, dancing, and food in the cities’ public spaces.

5. Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake – Gloucester, England

Every year, during the second bank holiday weekend, the Gloucester cheese-rolling takes place on Cooper’s Hill. Located just an hour by car from Bristol, the innocuous-sounding event is, in fact, a lot more dangerous than the name would lead you to believe. A wheel of cheese is thrown down the (very) steep hill and one second later competitors throw themselves down after it. The first one to cross the finish line wins. Bruises, bloodied knees, and broken bones aren’t uncommon side-effects of this intense tradition. A slightly rougher way to welcome Spring, but the 200-year-old tradition is proudly upheld by the community, attracting both old and new competitors every year.

6. Cimburijada – Bosnia

Cimburijada, which translates to “Festival of Scrambled Eggs,” celebrates the first day of spring in the Bosnian town of Zenica. At the crack of dawn, people gather by the banks of the Bosna river, where a communal meal of of scrambled eggs is prepared. Together, people share their breakfast eggs with friends, families, and visitors while drinking and listening to music together to mark the first day of spring.

7. Spring Equinox in Teotihuacán – Mexico

Each year, thousands of people, traditionally dressed in white, gather at the enormous Teotihuacán Pyramid, located around 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, to celebrate the spring equinox. Taking place on either the 20th or 21st of March annually, many celebrants use the morning to climb the 360 steps to the top of the Pyramid to get closer to portals of energy. By raising their arms towards the sky and basking in the sun’s warmth, they “soak up” energy for the year.

From Vishu to Puthandu, here's all that you need to know about the spring harvest festival.

This is that time of the year when spring comes in and marks the end of the cold harsh winters. This is the time for celebration and festivities. This is also the start of the harvest season, and multiple states of the country bask in celebrations. The start of the spring harvest festival also welcomes the New Year in many states in India. Be it Poila Boishak in West Bengal or Puthandu in Tamil Nadu or Ugadi in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, to Baisakhi in Punjab, people bask in festivities and welcome the spring harvest festival with open arms. Special dishes are prepared during this time and relished with loved ones.

Be it Poila Boishak in West Bengal or Puthandu in Tamil Nadu or Ugadi in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, to Baisakhi in Punjab, people bask in festivities and welcome the spring harvest festival with open arms. (PTI)

Be it Poila Boishak in West Bengal or Puthandu in Tamil Nadu or Ugadi in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, to Baisakhi in Punjab, people bask in festivities and welcome the spring harvest festival with open arms. (PTI)

ALSO READ: Ugadi 2024: Date, history, significance, celebrations and everything that you want to know

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Interesting facts to know about the spring harvest festival

Poila Boishak: Poila Boishak marks the start of the fresh Bengali New Year. On this day, people start the festivities by visiting the temple and offering their puja. Then they prepare Poila Boishak-special dishes at home which are then relished with friends and family.

Baisakhi: It is a traditional festival celebrated all over in Punjab. People make kadha prasad with sugar, wheat flour and ghee and distribute it among others. They also celebrate the day with Gidda performances, folk songs and by attending the Langar.

Bohag Bihu: One of the main festivals of Assam, Bohag Bihu is a traditional festival marked with songs and dance. This is celebrated over a period of seven days in Assam.

Vishu: The day starts for people at sunrise by looking at the Vishu Kani. Vishu Kani is an arrangement of rice, flowers, coins, fruits, books, dhoti and other things that is made by the eldest member of the family a day before. The traditional metal lamp Nilavilakku is lit beside it.

Puthandu: The traditional Tamil New Year is celebrated with a lot of pomp and grandeur. People visit the temple and then prepare Pongal and Mango Pachadi at home.

ome.

First verse of the Bible

  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

First verse says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". The verse can be dived into two parts - in the beginning and God created the heavens and the earth.  What we mean by "in the beginning?" So the words “in the beginning” mean: before there was any created matter,  In the begining was the God and God was the word and word created everything out of nothing by the word of God..

In rhe begining God existed and God only existed in the begining. Then the creation and creation starts with the word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him there was not any thing or (nothing) made that was made.

  In him was life,and the life was the light of men. - life of God (Christ as the Holy spirit) in us becomes light in us. God is our light and life too. Without this we have no spiritual existence. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. We with the light of God can shine in the darkness that we experience all around us. Darkness we see all around us but the life of God in us becomes the light  for our path even though darkness is all around us. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path

 The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. There is darkness all around us tod but the light of God can lead us completely in the darkness. Imagine going through a jungle road in the darkest night and we can see the light of the car pierce through the darkness and leads the car through the darkest road. Imagine that the light malfunctions - can the car move another inch. No not at all. This is our condition in this world. The car can also move forward with out light but it may not reach the correct destination bit hundred percent destruction. Thisis the effect of our life without God on this earth. We will are destined for destruction with out the light and life of God. For a car to move forward in darkness it needs an engine, body, horn, petrol and light. Engine is the soul - body is the physical body - horn the warning to the rest around us - petrol is the life inside the car and light is The light of God that leads us to God.

When we come to the new testment in the gospel of John ee see Christ as the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world from God. God. God's light was brought into the darkness world polluted world - polluted by the disobedience of Adam and Eve through the second AdamThen Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Christ. Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

When we come to the new testment in the gospel of John, we see Christ as the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world from GGod.Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12). Christ as God"s son - came us a man to save the mankind from their sins - has all the attributes of God. Christ is God came in the form of man to save man - fully man and fully God  - a perfect blend to save mankind from satanic destruction originated in the garden of Eden. 

We can clearly see the difference between Christ and John in the first chapter of John's gospel. Christ came as man to die for our sins and give us life but John came as a witness to Christ.like all othe prophets. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. Christ is the light -The word of God that guides us. Like John we are not the light but the light of God in us testifies through us about Christ tovthose in darkness. We are in this world to be the witness of Christ - the light inside us shines in the darkness or should shine in the darkness. Then only we become witness of God. We have a burden to shine in the darkness as we have seen the light. May the Lord help us to shine to the world in darkness around us.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know himhiPeople could not recognize the almighty God who created the heaven and earth. They became corrupted in their mind and did everything against the will of the Almighty became sinners. God became angry on his creations and sons of adam disobeyed God and they filled the earth with all kinds of ungodliness and was walking according to the will of satan. Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, continually, in a way that leads to God’s judgment and holy wrath being shown in the flood that follows. Yet right here, sandwiched in between this picture of sin and judgment, we find a picture of mercy, of grace, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

After the finality of God's statement in the previous verse, verse 8 catches us by surprise. In light of the great wickedness of humanity, the Creator has just expressed the pain His creation of mankind has caused Him. Even worse, He has announced His plan to wipe humanity, along with birds and animals, from the face of the earth.

Now, however, we are told that one man, Noah, has found favor in God's eyes. The rest of the chapter will explain exactly what "favor" means. It won't stop God from carrying out His plan to destroy so much of His creation. It certainly won't mean that Noah's life will be perfect, or easy, or painless. However, it will mean that humanity will continue. The end of civilization will be followed by a new beginning. Noah will not only survive the upcoming judgment, along with his wife and children, but he will carry on the survival of the human race.

Today some of us have found favour with God and that is why we are today seeking the Lord and his ways. Others have not found favour with God and God only knows the reason for that so we should not boast about it because it is His mercy and not by our righteousness or by our good works. We should not despise others who have not found favor with God. 

He came to his own,[b] and his own people[c] did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, w

Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, continually, in a way that leads to God’s judgment and holy wrath being shown in the flood that follows. Yet right here, sandwiched in between this picture of sin and judgment, we find a picture of mercy, of grace, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

ho believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor ofThen Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son[d] from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.[e] 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God,[f] who is at the Father's side,[g] he has made him known.

The Testimony of John the Baptist

there was the Word, the Son of God. Remember: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31)

Heavens is nothing but the space outside the earth, which includes all the constellations stars and our sun the smallest star in the smallest constellation the milky way and theThen Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

 huge stars the the huge constellations and everything that is separated by millions of light years and the dark spaces and all which no one ever knows. includes all stars plants and everything in the space realm. Compared to Earth - the heavens form a very vast space.  space is basically what lies beyond the Earth's atmosphere. the sun planet galaxies - all these things are in outer space.

From our Earth-bound perspective, outer space is most often thought to begin about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level at what is known as the Kármán line. This is an imaginary boundary at an altitude where there is no appreciable air to breathe or scatter light. Passing this altitude, blue starts to give way to black because oxygen molecules are not in enough abundance to make the sky blue. On the second day the creation of Light and separation of light and darkness has some meaning in the above context because Oxygen has something to do with the blue and darkness. Oxygen is life and God was happy with the amount of oxygen for the existence of life on the earth.  

No one knows exactly how big space is. It's difficult to determine because of what we can see in our detectors. We measure long distances in space in "light-years," representing the distance it takes for light to travel in a year (roughly 5.8 trillion miles (9.3 trillion kilometers)). 

From the light that is visible in our telescopes, we have charted galaxies reaching almost as far back as the Big Bang, which is thought to have started our universe about 13.8 billion years ago. This means we can "see" into space at a distance of almost 13.8 billion light-years. But the universe continues to expand, making "measuring space," even more challenging. 

Additionally, astronomers are not totally sure if our universe is the only one that exists. This means that space could be a whole lot bigger than we even think.

But how the Bible says the heavens and the earth. What an odd comparison?  That is "heavens and earth  heavens" We cant compare heavens with earth but Bible compares this small earth with all the heavens in the outer space.  

Black holes

Stars, planets, asteroids and comets

Galaxies and quasars

We often refer to our expanding universe with one simple word: space. But where does space begin and, more importantly, what is it?

Space is an almost perfect vacuum, nearly void of matter and with extremely low pressure. In space, sound doesn't carry because there aren't molecules close enough together to transmit sound between them. Not quite empty, bits of gas, dust and other matter floats around "emptier" areas of the universe, while more crowded regions can host planets, stars and galaxies.

From our Earth-bound perspective, outer space is most often thought to begin about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level at what is known as the Kármán line. This is an imaginary boundary at an altitude where there is no appreciable air to breathe or scatter light. Passing this altitude, blue starts to give way to black because oxygen molecules are not in enough abundance to make the sky blue.

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No one knows exactly how big space is. It's difficult to determine because of what we can see in our detectors. We measure long distances in space in "light-years," representing the distance it takes for light to travel in a year (roughly 5.8 trillion miles (9.3 trillion kilometers)). 

From the light that is visible in our telescopes, we have charted galaxies reaching almost as far back as the Big Bang, which is thought to have started our universe about 13.8 billion years ago. This means we can "see" into space at a distance of almost 13.8 billion light-years. But the universe continues to expand, making "measuring space," even more challenging. 

Additionally, astronomers are not totally sure if our universe is the only one that exists. This means that space could be a whole lot bigger than we even think.

SPACE RADIATION INVISIBLE TO HUMAN EYES

The majority of space is relatively empty, with just stray bits of dust and gas floating around. This means that when humans send a probe to a distant planet or asteroid, the craft will not encounter "drag" in the same way that an airplane does as it sails through space.

In fact, the vacuum environment in space and on the moon, is one reason why the lunar lander of the Apollo program was designed to have an almost spider-like appearance, as it was described by the Apollo 9 crew. Because the spacecraft was designed to work in a zone with no atmosphere, it didn't need to have smooth edges or an aerodynamic shape.

In addition to the bits of debris that speckle the "emptier" regions of space, research has shown that these areas are also home to different forms of radiation. In our own solar system, the solar wind — charged particles that stream from the sun — emanate throughout the solar system and occasionally cause auroras near Earth's poles. Cosmic rays also fly through our neighborhood, stemming from supernovas outside of the solar system.

In fact, the universe as a whole is inundated with what is known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is essentially the leftover radiation from the explosion mostly commonly known as the Big Bang. The CMB is the oldest radiation that our instruments can detect. 

Infographic: Cosmic Microwave Background Explained

DARK MATTER AND ENERGY

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There remain two giant mysteries about space: dark matter and dark energy. 

While scientists have provided extensive evidence for the existence of dark matter and dark energy, they are each still poorly understood as, so far, scientists cannot directly observe them and can only observe their effects. 

Roughly 80% of all of the mass in the universe is made up of what scientists have dubbed "dark matter," but it's not known what it actually is or if it is even matter by our current definition. However, while dark matter doesn't emit light or energy and cannot, therefore, be directly observed, scientists have found overwhelming evidence that it makes up the vast majority of the matter in the cosmos.

Dark energy might have a similar name to dark matter, but it's a whole different component entirely. 

Thought to make up nearly 75% of the universe, dark energy is a mysterious and unknown force or entity that scientists think is responsible for the universe's ongoing expansion.

Smaller black holes can form from the gravitational collapse of a gigantic star, which forms a singularity from which nothing can escape — not even light, hence the name of the object. No one is quite sure what lies within a black hole, or what would happen to a person or object who fell into it – but research is ongoing.

An example is gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time that come from interactions between black holes. This was first predicted by Albert Einstein at the turn of the last century, when he showed that time and space are linked; time speeds up or slows down when space is distorted.

As of mid-2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration has announced three black-hole interactions and mergers detected through gravitational waves, in just two years.

The team found these three events in about two years, indicating that when LIGO is implemented at full sensitivity, the observatory may be able to find these sorts of events frequently, scientists said in May 2017. Should a bunch of these black hole events be detected, it could help scientists learn how black holes of a certain size (several tens of sun masses) are born, and later merge into new black holes.

Stars (like our own sun) are immense balls of gas that produce their own radiation. They can range from red supergiants to cooling white dwarfs that are the leftovers of supernovas, or star explosions that occur when a big one runs out of gas to burn. These explosions spread elements throughout the universe and are the reason that elements such as iron exist. Star explosions can also give rise to incredibly dense objects called neutron stars. If these neutron stars send out pulses of radiation, they are called pulsar stars.

Planets are objects whose definition came under scrutiny in 2006, when astronomers were debating whether Pluto could be considered a planet or not. At the time, the International Astronomical Union (the governing body on Earth for these decisions) ruled that a planet is a celestial body that orbits the sun, is massive enough to have a nearly round shape, and has cleared its orbit of debris. Under this designation, Pluto and similar small objects are considered "dwarf planets," although not everyone agrees with the designation. After the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto in 2015, principal investigator Alan Stern and others again opened up the debate, saying the diversity of terrain on Pluto makes it more like a planet.

The definition of extrasolar planets, or planets outside the solar system, is still not firmed up by the IAU, but essentially astronomers understand it to mean objects that behave like planets in our neighborhood. The first such planet was found in 1992 (in the constellation Pegasus) and since that time, thousands of alien planets have been confirmed — with many more suspected. In solar systems that have planets under formation, these objects are often called "protoplanets" because they aren't quite the maturity of those planets we have in our own solar system.

Asteroids are rocks that are not quite big enough to be dwarf planets. We've even found asteroids with rings around them, such as 10199 Charilko. Their small size often leads to the conclusion that they were remnants from when the solar system was formed. Most asteroids are concentrated in a belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter, but there are also many asteroids that follow behind or ahead of planets, or can even cross in a planet's path. NASA and several other entities have asteroid-searching programs in place to scan for potentially dangerous objects in the sky and monitor their orbits closely. 

In our solar system, comets (sometimes called dirty snowballs) are objects believed to originate from a vast collection of icy bodies called the Oort Cloud. As a comet approaches the sun, the heat of our star causes ices to melt and stream away from the comet. The ancients often associated comets with destruction or some sort of immense change on Earth, but the discovery of Halley's Comet and related "periodic" or returning comets showed that they were ordinary solar system phenomena.

Among the biggest cosmic structures we can see are galaxies, which essentially are vast collections of stars. Our own galaxy is called the Milky Way, and is considered a "barred spiral" shape. There are several types of galaxies, ranging from spiral to elliptical to irregular, and they can change as they come close to other objects or as stars within them age.

Often galaxies have supermassive black holes embedded in the center of their galaxies, which are only visible through the radiation that each black hole emanates as well as through its gravitational interactions with other objects. If the black hole is particularly active, with a lot of material falling into it, it produces immense amounts of radiation. This kind of a galactic object is called a quasar (just one of several types of similar objects.)

Large groups of galaxies can form in clusters that are groups as large as hundreds or thousands of galaxies bound together gravitationally. Scientists consider these the largest structures in the universe.

Romans 3:11–12 

11 There is none that understandeth,

There is none that seeketh after God;

12 They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable;

There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one:

1Kings8:30 Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear in heaven Your dwelling place; hear and forgive.

heaven vs heavens

"Heaven", especially when capitalized, is a single place, generally spiritual or religious in nature, and typically referring to the afterlife

"the heavens" is similar to "the skies", and refers to the area far above the ground

As far as I can get it, capitalized Heaven stands for "paradise" and is sort of a proper name, so that it doesn't require "the".

"Heavens" in plural originates in ancient jewish religious ideas that there are several skies above us, not just a single one. See, e.g., in Paul, 2Cor. 12:2. So, "the" before "heavens" is used to indicate a specific known identity, an imaginary supernatural place where the God and all his divine superpowers reside.

But as far as I can see, "heaven"/"heavens" are somewhat interchangeable in English. E.g., Lord's Prayer in English uses singular: "Our Father which art in heaven", whereas in Latin version, it's in plural, "heavens": "Pater noster qui es in caelis", so that it's translated in some other languages, like Russian.

Many European mythologies from countries which have influenced modern (English-speaking) cultures have the concept of not one but multiple heavens. In Norse mythology, for instance, everyone remembers Valhalla, where all the warriors who died in battle go to await Ragnarok, but no-one remembers Folkvangr (where Freyr chooses half of the warriors to go instead of Valhalla) or Hel (where you go if you don't die in battle - not actually a bad place to go in spite of the name).

Because of this, "the heavens" are sometimes used in writing to refer to generic post-life peacefulness.

heaven

 Heaven in Islam is described as the following:

• There is no evil or harm, just eternal relaxation and peace.
• There are rivers of honey, milk and wine.
• Heavenly fruits which have the taste of all the fruits in one fruit and many others.
• You are sitting on a comfortable seat which moves whereever you want and you can walk if you want it even run.
• You have pure wives There, those who had bad wives in life will get the best wives and those who had bad husbands in life will get the best husbands in heaven.
• Depending on the good acts you did, you will have a hut, a house, a palace or a palace made out of pearl, gold and diamond.
• Angels and servants serve your needs and do for you whatever you want to do.
• You can visit your loved ones and anyone you know since the beginning of creation to the end of it.
• You can ask God to bring a loved one out of hell which will reduce their punishment and decrease their time on heaven which will make the time of them coming to heaven after finishing their punishment closer.
• You will wear soft and comfortable clothes made out of green silk.
• You and all the others will be in their 30s or in their young years which is agreed upon to be 30 in age.
• You don't need to urinate or pass stool.
• You will be able to see the face of Allah SWT as he will lift up his veil to the believers or the people of heaven and paradise.
• And finally, literally anything you want.

These were some of the things that Allah promises us of in heaven and indeed Allah knows best and I hope that answered your question.

one of us likes thinking about death, but there are times when we have little choice. The virus spreads, hospitals fill, and systems become overwhelmed. Our greatest concerns, personal and national, are for survival. But for many people – even the otherwise healthy — the crisis has unexpectedly raised the specter of death itself, our constant companion even if, most of the time, we do our best to ignore it. Or, in more normal times, try to laugh it off. The most recent and memorable effort was NBC’s smash hit comedy series The Good Place; but the humor even there was rooted precisely in terror, as Eleanor Shellstrop and her companions desperately worked to avoid the afterlife they deserved in the Bad Place and its eternal torments.

The fear is as ancient as civilization’s oldest surviving records. The hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh writhes in agony at the prospect of spending eternity groveling in dust being eaten by worms. Few people today may share Gilgamesh’s terror of consciously living forever in the dirt. Plenty, however, tremble before the possibility of eternal misery. Possibly this is a good time to help people realize that it simply will not be that way.

The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught. But that is not true. Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain.

Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” The first human God created, Adam, began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Ancient Jews thought that was true of us all. When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.

The Hebrew Bible itself assumes that the dead are simply dead—that their body lies in the grave, and there is no consciousness, ever again. It is true that some poetic authors, for example in the Psalms, use the mysterious term “Sheol” to describe a person’s new location. But in most instances Sheol is simply a synonym for “tomb” or “grave.” It’s not a place where someone actually goes.

And so, traditional Israelites did not believe in life after death, only death after death. That is what made death so mournful: nothing could make an afterlife existence sweet, since there was no life at all, and thus no family, friends, conversations, food, drink – no communion even with God. God would forget the person and the person could not even worship. The most one could hope for was a good and particularly long life here and now.

But Jews began to change their view over time, although it too never involved imagining a heaven or hell. About two hundred years before Jesus, Jewish thinkers began to believe that there had to be something beyond death—a kind of justice to come. Jews had long believed that God was lord of the entire world and all people, both the living and the dead. But the problems with that thinking were palpable: God’s own people Israel continually, painfully, and frustratingly suffered, from natural disaster, political crises, and, most notably, military defeat. If God loves his people and is sovereign over all the world why do his people experience so much tragedy?

Some thinkers came up with a solution that explained how God would bring about justice, but again one that didn’t involve perpetual bliss in a heaven above or perpetual torment in a hell below. This new idea maintained that there are evil forces in the world aligned against God and determined to afflict his people. Even though God is the ultimate ruler over all, he has temporarily relinquished control of this world for some mysterious reason. But the forces of evil have little time left. God is soon to intervene in earthly affairs to destroy everything and everyone that opposes him and to bring in a new realm for his true followers, a Kingdom of God, a paradise on earth. Most important, this new earthly kingdom will come not only to those alive at the time, but also to those who have died. Indeed, God will breathe life back into the dead, restoring them to an earthly existence. And God will bring all the dead back to life, not just the righteous. The multitude who had been opposed to God will also be raised, but for a different reason: to see the errors of their ways and be judged. Once they are shocked and filled with regret – but too late — they will permanently be wiped out of existence.

This view of the coming resurrection dominated the view of Jewish thought in the days of Jesus. It was also the view he himself embraced and proclaimed. The end of time is coming soon. The earthly Kingdom of God is “at hand” (Mark 1:15). God will soon destroy everything and everyone opposed to him and establish a new order on earth. Those who enter this kingdom will enjoy a utopian existence for all time. All others will be annihilated.

But Jesus put his own twist on the idea. Contrary to what other Jewish leaders taught, Jesus preached that no one will inherit the glorious future kingdom by stringently observing all the Jewish laws in their most intimate details; or by meticulously following the rules of worship involving sacrifice, prayer, and observance of holy days; or by pursuing one’s own purity through escaping the vile world and the tainting influence of sinful others. Instead, for Jesus, the earthly utopia will come to those who are fully dedicated to the most pervasive and dominant teachings of God’s law. Put most simply, that involves loving God above all things despite personal hardship, and working diligently for the welfare of others, even when it is exceedingly difficult. People who have not been living lives of complete unselfish love need to repent and return to the two “greatest commandments” of Jewish Scripture: deep love of God (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) and committed love of neighbor (Leviticus 19:18).

This may be simple, but it is not easy. Since your neighbor is anyone you know, see, or hear about, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, true love means helping everyone in need, not just those in your preferred social circles. Jesus was concerned principally for the poor, the outcasts, the foreigners, the marginalized, and even the most hated enemies. Few people are. Especially those with good lives and abundant resources. No wonder it’s easier to push a camel through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom.

Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.

In traditional English versions, he does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30). But these passages are not actually referring to “hell.” The word Jesus uses is “Gehenna.” The term does not refer to a place of eternal torment but to a notorious valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem, believed by many Jews at the time to be the most unholy, god-forsaken place on earth. It was where, according to the Old Testament, ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice to foreign gods. The God of Israel had condemned and forsaken the place.

In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial. Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet. Jesus did not say souls would be tortured there. They simply would no longer exist.

Jesus’ stress on the absolute annihilation of sinners appears throughout his teachings. At one point he says there are two gates that people pass through (Matthew 7:13-14). One is narrow and requires a difficult path, but leads to “life.” Few go that way. The other is broad and easy, and therefore commonly taken. But it leads to “destruction.” It is an important word. The wrong path does not lead to torture.

So too Jesus says the future kingdom is like a fisherman who hauls in a large net (Matthew 13:47-50). After sorting through the fish, he keeps the good ones and throws the others out. He doesn’t torture them. They just die. Or the kingdom is like a person who gathers up the plants that have grown in his field (Matthew 13:36-43). He keeps the good grain, but tosses the weeds into a fiery furnace. These don’t burn forever. They are consumed by fire and then are no more.

Still other passages may seem to suggest that Jesus believe in hell. Most notably Jesus speaks of all nations coming for the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). Some are said to be sheep, and the others goats. The (good) sheep are those who have helped those in need – the hungry, the sick, the poor, the foreigner. These are welcomed into the “kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The (wicked) goats, however, have refused to help those in need, and so are sent to “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” At first blush, that certainly sounds like the hell of popular imagination.

But when Jesus summarizes his point, he explains that the contrasting fates are “eternal life” and “eternal punishment.” They are not “eternal pleasure” and “eternal pain.” The opposite of life is death, not torture. So the punishment is annihilation. But why does it involve “eternal fire”? Because the fire never goes out. The flames, not the torments, go on forever. And why is the punishment called “eternal”? Because it will never end. These people will be annihilated forever. That is not pleasant to think about, but it will not hurt once it’s finished.

And so, Jesus stood in a very long line of serious thinkers who have refused to believe that a good God would torture his creatures for eternity. The idea of eternal hell was very much a late comer on the Christian scene, developed decades after Jesus’ death and honed to a fine pitch in the preaching of fire and brimstone that later followers sometimes attributed to Jesus himself. But the torments of hell were not preached by either Jesus or his original Jewish followers; they emerged among later gentile converts who did not hold to the Jewish notion of a future resurrection of the dead. These later Christians came out of Greek culture and its belief that souls were immortal and would survive death.

From at least the time of Socrates, many Greek thinkers had subscribed to the idea of the immortality of the soul. Even though the human body dies, the human soul both will not and cannot. Later Christians who came out of gentile circles adopted this view for themselves, and reasoned that if souls are built to last forever, their ultimate fates will do so as well. It will be either eternal bliss or eternal torment.

This innovation represents an unhappy amalgamation of Jesus’ Jewish views and those found in parts of the Greek philosophical tradition. It was a strange hybrid, a view held neither by the original Christians nor by ancient Greek intelligentsia before them.

Still, in one interesting and comforting way, Jesus’ own views of either eternal reward or complete annihilation do resemble Greek notions propagated over four centuries earlier. Socrates himself expressed the idea most memorably when on trial before an Athenian jury on capital charges. His “Apology” (that is, “Legal Defense”) can still be read today, recorded by his most famous pupil, Plato. Socrates openly declares that he sees no reason to fear the death sentence. On the contrary, he is rather energized by the idea of passing on from this life.

For Socrates, death will be one of two things. On one hand, it may entail the longest, most untroubled, deep sleep that could be imagined. And who doesn’t enjoy a good sleep? On the other hand, it may involve a conscious existence. That too would be good, even better. It would mean carrying on with life and all its pleasures but none of its pain. For Socrates, the classical world’s most famous pursuer of truth, it would mean endless conversations about deep subjects with well-known thinkers of his past. And so the afterlife presents no bad choices, only good ones. Death was not a source of terror or even dread.

Twenty-four centuries later, with all our advances in understanding our world and human life within it, surely we can think that that both Jesus and Socrates had a lot of things right. Jesus taught that in this short life we have, we should devote ourselves to the welfare of others, the poor, the needy, the sick, the oppressed, the outcast, the alien. We should listen to him.

But Socrates was almost certainly right as well. None of us, of course, knows what will happen when we pass from this world of transience. But his two options are still the most viable. On one hand, we may lose our consciousness with no longer a worry in this world. Jesus saw this as permanent annihilation; Socrates as a pleasant deep sleep. In either scenario, there will be no more pain. On the other hand, there may be more yet to come, a happier place, a good place. And so, in this, the greatest teacher of the Greeks and the founder of Christianity agreed to this extent: when, in the end, we pass from this earthly realm, we may indeed have something to hope for, but we have absolutely nothing to fear.

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