The Bird and the Sandpile
IllustrationAnalogy★★★★ETERNITY is never-ending. This concept can be hard to grasp. Think of it this way: If we were to empty the Pacific Ocean, the largest body of water in the world, we’d be left with a hole that’s beyond imagination. If we were then to fill that hole with sand and make a pile as high as Mount Everest, we’d be talking about a lot of sand because Mount Everest is the tallest mountain peak in the world.
Since the ocean is fairly deep and Mount Everest is fairly high, we’d have a fairly sizable sandpile! Now, if we had a bird that would take one grain of sand from that sandpile every 100 billion years, how long would it take the bird to finish the sandpile? I don’t know that in human language we have such a number. It is probably beyond numerical count.
Whatever that number is, when the bird finishes the last grain of sand, you will have been in eternity your first second.
The point
Eternity is incomprehensibly long; even filling the Pacific basin with sand and taking a grain every 100 billion years would barely begin.