Eternity, Supernovas, and the giant vacuum

So, Small Brother has apparently been terrified of eternity for a few months. Eternity is for him (and everyone else here) a hard thing to fathom, but he knows that it goes on forever. It's not so much the first 9 billion years of eternity that scares him, but the 10th billion year of eternity. That one's the clincher. For a while he would not tell me why, but the other day, he let me in on the deep, dark secret of his 11-year old life:

The 10 billionth year of eternity is when we will all be blasted to oblivion by the sun.


If you are as confused as I was, here's the story: Apparently Small Brother had a talk with Vili a few months ago that has haunted Small Brother ever since. Vili was (like the good RM he is) concerned about Small Brother's eternal salvation, so they had a chat, where apparently Vili explained such things as the Second Coming, the Millennium, and finally the Earth, in it's perfected state becoming our Celestial Kingdom.

All good and well until Small Brother remembered something he saw on the Science Channel (obviously the most reputable source on the subject =) that disturbed him and shook his faith. In roughly 10 billion years, the Sun is supposed to supernova, but before it does, it will expand well past Earth's orbit, engulfing our planet in gaseous flames. In the midst of all this spiritual talk Small Brother could imagine nothing but a whole bunch of Celestial beings/prisoners of Earth, burned to a crisp by the growing gasses of the Sun.

Well, as you can imagine, it took about all of my self control not to burst into laughter when I heard that. I calmly set the record straight with Small Brother that, no. The sun would not engulf us all in flame in the midst of our eternity.

I laughed long and hard after Small Brother left, until I remembered my own visions of the Second Coming.

I imagined a Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-esque scene, where a giant vacuum would descend out of heaven and Heavenly Father would suck everyone else into heaven. (luckily, I had a plan. I would hang on to the dining room table's legs, which were obviously stronger than any vacuum I'd ever seen, and avoid being sucked into Heaven.)

Somehow, I think the saying (or is it scripture?) "Out of the mouth of babes" is not always quite accurate. =)