Having descended into hell, resurrection was necessary, for it was unreasonable that the savior of mankind, the son of the supreme god, should remain perpetually in the place of punishment; and, as his life on earth was over, he could no longer abide there, and so the only plausible sequence was an ascension to heaven. Krishna, the crucified Hindu savior, rose from the dead and ascended bodily into the celestial regions, as did Rama, another avatar of Vishnu. Buddha also ascended bodily into heaven when his mission on earth was fulfilled, and marks on the rocks of a high mountain are shown as the last impressions of his footsteps on earth. Zoroaster and Æsculapius also had similar experiences, as did Elijah and Adonis. Osiris rose from the dead and bore the title of "The Resurrected One," his ascension being celebrated in Egypt at the vernal equinox, as is the Christ's and as was Adonis'. Other saviors who rose from the dead were Dionysius, Herakles, Memnon, Baldur and Quetzalcoatl.
Modern Catholics are still taught the fables of the bodily ascension of Jesus, Mary the Virgin, and Mary the Magdalene and many other holy persons, as actual miraculous truths, not to be questioned nor denied.
Very good, but how can educated Catholics of today reconcile such truths with their actual scientific knowledge? They know that the earth is spherical, that the stars and planets are members of solar systems, that outside the terrestrial atmosphere is nothing but vast space. There is no such place as a heaven anywhere in these celestial regions, and the zenith of any geographical situation changes every moment. Clouds are mere masses of vapor, not furniture for the repose of the glorified dead. Then whither did these adored beings ascend? Certainly, God in his love for them never flung them far into space to whirl about for eternity.
These Catholics also know the law of gravitation, which would not allow of such a method of transportation. But why ask these questions? No religious person is capable of thinking sensibly on the teachings of his faith, no matter how ridiculous. He accepts, as an adult, what he questions as a child.
While the idea of bodily ascension of the Christ was probably copied into his biography from that of Enoch (Gen. v, 24) and Elijah (2 Kings ii, 11), such stories form a large part of the annals of classical mythology, almost every hero of antiquity having been translated to the heavens when his earthly life was spent. The custom of converting the tombs of prominent Christians into shrines likewise aided this belief, as, it being impossible to discover the burial places of the most conspicuous, the idea arose that they had been physically removed to heaven.