What is Paradise?

I may have mentioned this a long time ago. Every week, God impresses a particular Scripture to me. This passage will appear multiple times: on the radio, in Sunday's sermon, other places.
Last week it was Luke 23:43 where Jesus says to the thief on the cross "today you will be with me in Paradise." First of all, the thief exhibited all the requirements for salvation. He recognized Jesus was who He said he was - Messiah, he feared God, he recognized that what he did was wrong and he deserved punishment (repentance), he asked Jesus to remember him. He did not get baptized, nor did he need to.
Now Paradise is in the Earth - it is the place of the righteous dead in Hebrew understanding. They would both be there immediately, not after Jesus was resurrected. Why? Because he was a Jew who was under the law of Moses - not a gentile being saved with his faith by grace through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul describes himself in 2 Cor. 12:2-4 as having been taken up to paradise. He also calls it the third heaven. Paradise is often used as a metaphor for Heaven. The Garden of God (on the Earth in Eden) is called paradise as is the Promised Land (a beautiful place flowing with milk and honey).
The first Heaven is the air that the birds fly in. It is in the natural realm. The second Heaven is the rest of outer space (the heavenlies) - also in the natural realm. The third Heaven is in the supernatural realm. It is everywhere. Mathematicians would call it the 4th dimension where there is no time and distance dimension.
God dwells in the throne room located in the supernatural realm. Elsewhere in the supernatural realm, there are good spirits (angels) and evil spirits (demons). They are in the same realm, but not in the same place in that realm.
The supernatural realm is real. The apparent real world is an illusion. That chair you are sitting on is really mostly empty space, with some atoms flying around in it. God understands Quantum Physics (He invented it).
If you have seen the movie "The Matrix," you have seen a picture of how the apparent natural world is an illusion. In the movie, it is a computer program that creates the illusion. In my world, it is God.

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