It seems that ever since Copernicus we have been trying to justify religious text as actual fact, when, point in fact, they are not. How could they be? I'll give that fictitious student's "proof" some credit, as it is a rather ingenious fallacy that left me speechless. But really, there can be no Hell, at least not in the three-layered universe of the Bible. Of course, we know that the center of the earth is very hot; hot as hell. But religious fanatics try to use suspicious evidence like the legendary well dug in Siberia, that unveiled ("apocalypse"?) the screams of thousands of souls. Later Satan himself popped out of the hole to challenge someone to a fiddle match. Of course, this hoax is widely credited as literal proof of Hell's existence.
And just as a side note : aren't Christians being rather Pagan by using the name "hell"? The term "hell" comes from the Norse "Hel", who was the daughter of Loki and the Giantess, and is Queen of the Underworld (equivalent of the Greek Hecate and Persephone). She is half dead, and half alive, and very, very evil. Why didn't they just keep calling it Sheol like the Jews had been?
Nevertheless, it seems that in an age of science that religions need actual proof of things that are supposed to be based on faith anyway. Since the universe has become more and more understood in the past couple century, there really is no place left for God to hide, now is there? Now we start to say that God and Heaven (and Hell) are in another dimension... really? (Or with the Mormons God lives on another planet called Kolob). Where does it talk about parallel dimensions in the Bible / Koran / Torah? Enoch (great-grandfather of Noah) claimed Heaven was just beyond the Fixed Stars (being the celestial dome in which the stars revolve on). And since the Book of Enoch is non-canonical, we have to rely on Genesis, which gives a very brief and highly vague image of the universe. I can only imagine what Galileo was thinking when arguing with some Biblical scholars over these few vague sentences.
Well what if Heaven is just outside the confines of this universe-fish bowl we live in? Well, if that's true, then we have other problems. Two-thousand years ago Jesus died, went to Hell (wherever that is), then came back, danced around for a while, then ascended into Heaven. Since we are relying on evidence (which is often twisted to suit the purpose of whoever), nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. NOTHING. And note, this was a physical ascension, i.e. his body went with him. That must have been incredibly painful (more so than being crucified) if he was going the speed of light. If he was going the speed of light, then he is only about 1500 light years outside the Milky Way (assuming he went outwards perpendicular to the galactic disc. If not, then he is still in the galaxy), which means he is still in proximity of the galaxy. And the universe is about 18.4 billions old, and expands faster than the speed of light (which is not particle travel, and therefore does not violate relativity). The edge of the observable universe is about 47 billions light years away from us. 47,000,000,000 ly - 2,000 ly = 46,999,998,078 ly... Jesus has some distance to cover. Especially since it is still expanding, which means it will take longer than 47 billion years.
Quite frankly, if Jesus was going the speed of light, no one in the Bible ever gave any description indicating redshift. Which means he couldn't have been going that fast.
And you can't argue that Jesus is special and break laws of relativity because he is divine. If he was divine, then you cannot use your silly proof of some cloth with blood from Mary that got there from when the Holy Spirit impregnated her (see Bill Maher's Religuous). If there was proof, it wouldn't be divine.
"The Virgin Birth has nothing to do with biology. The Promise Land has nothing to do with real estate. The apocalypse is not a physical event. They are states of conscious being."
~Joseph Campbell
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