While kind of a morbid subject, this is one that is still good to talk about every once in a while. I wish to speak on everything that happens after one's personal death. Over history, there has been a development of different views which I will objectively present before stating my own thoughts. I'd love for you to comment which one you think is true and why.

The earliest starts with the Jewish concept of "Sheol". The ancient Jews were never revealed an afterlife until Ezekiel (chapter 37, if you wanna look it up). This means Moses knew nothing of a resurrection or anything of the like. However, they did think they would go to "Sheol", literally meaning "the grave". This is not a spiritual place, this is literally the tomb/burial chamber/whatever they put you in. Isaiah mentions "Gehenna", which is the trash heap outside Jerusalem where the Canaanites used to perform child sacrifice to Molek. This is where the bad go after death. This, while a physical place in name, is not simply a physical place. Gehenna is a place of suffering. The last mention of an after-death state is in Ecclesiastes, where it mentions the meaninglessness of various things because, at death, those do not come with us. Ezekiel revealed an afterlife, but did not reveal some place that the soul goes to upon death. This vision was simply a promise of bodily resurrection at the end times. Tiny tid-bit of cool info: the biblical Pharisees did believe in a resurrection, but the Sadducee did not.

As we enter into the Christian era, we have 3 different main views that emerge. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, the most common belief was Purgatory. In a purgatorial system, while all sins are forgiven, penance is still necessary. Purgatory provides the ability to do penance after death by "suffering" temporarily for sins. After the sins have been, in a sense, "burned out of you", you go to heaven with the other saints. Some Christians that suffer lots during their life here or by other means make up for their sins may go straight to heaven and skip Purgatory all together. This is the system currently used by both the Roman Catholic and entertained by some in the Eastern Orthodox church.

The majority of Protestants believe in a straight shot to heaven. Once dead, heavenward you go, where you have no body and live happy getting all the stuff you want. Heaven is the place of happiness and communion with God. Anything necessary for one's own happiness is there, including family, pets, cheesecake, or whatever they need. They also have the ability to watch the people on earth. I know no biblical reference for this, nor a set point in time where it most evidently emerges.

Another, less common but notable view is of a 5 part reality (and everyone should know this has multiple variation, depending on the pastor. I am also not as well versed on this concept as the others). The five, in order of worst-to-best, goes as follows: Hell, Prison, Earth, Paradise, and Heaven. Using the Greek words of the NT, the system words as so: Hell is currently unoccupied, but a bad place to be. Prison and Paradise are the same place, but they are "different states of minds". Therefore, the thief on the cross could be in paradise with Jesus while Jesus had "descended into Hades (prison)". Heaven is where the Father has his throne, accompanied by the angels. This, to my experience, has always been tied up in rapture theology, and at the end, everyone will end up in Heaven or Hell.

Then we come to my thoughts. The concept is called soul sleep, and while has the necessary theological supports, I argue for using philosophy. A person goes into surgery. She waits 45 minutes before getting in the chair and prepped. It feels like 45 minutes. The prepping takes another 30 minutes. It feels like 30 minutes. She is given anesthesia and is worked on for 3 hours. It feels like 3 seconds. The anesthesia has affected her ability to perceive the passage of time. This would lead me to believe time is physical. Even more so, theory of relativity also says time is a physical component of the universe and has multiple examples of time being affected by speed and the like. So, if we conclude time is a physical thing, when we lose our physical body at death, can our immaterial soul still perceive time? No. Anesthesia proves it. The soul does not comprehend time. Therefore, when we die, we aren't going to feel the passage of time. Basically, we will "sleep" until we wake up at resurrection.

Note: There are some people who think they agree with me but actually don't. Jehovah's Witnesses and 7th Day Advents think that the soul only "sleeps" because it no longer exists. That is not the case. The soul doesn't just magically disappear. The atoms that made the body are still around, they just aren't in a functioning body any more. I do not preach annihilationism.

Thank you for reading my extremely long post! State your belief, state why my belief is wrong, state why I should be the next pope, and, most importantly, correct any mistakes I may have made.

I think there is a heaven and a hell, and nothing else. Jesus used the word gehenna. Also there were various references to a burning and torment in Isaiah, depending on how literal you take it. There are references to it in various places by various people in the New Testament as well. As for heaven, there are several references to it as well. I agree completely with your "sleep" idea. Assuming you believe in heaven and hell, we are in agreement completely.

I believe in neither heaven nor hell. I think once we die, our minds go blank, and there is nothing left. This is a rather grim outlook, but I really cant picture any other case.

ender44 : Then you're not Christian. And, if you take your view and add Christianity, you'll actually end with mine. In Christianity, you get a body again. If God has the power to poof matter into existence, surely he can re-assemble a body.

Eirinn : Yes, I believe in a heaven and a hell. However, just to specify, while the goats go to hell, Christians do not go to heaven. Heaven comes to us. New Jerusalem will descend. We'll have immortal physical bodies, and God will dwell with us on Earth rather than we dwell with God in heaven. Heaven still exists through this whole time though.

Edit: @eirinn, think garden of eden, rebuilt. God was with Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve weren't spirit beings in heaven with God.

Txgangsta : Oh my goodness...you did NOT just say that! lol I believe the same thing! Until now I'd never heard anyone say that. Sweet. Smart man, you are. lol

Eirinn : Awww.... I love you too! =)

I don't quite know what happens right at the moment when we die, but I do know that at the end of all things in Revelations 20-21, the spiritually dead will be cast to hell for eternity. For believers, there will be a new Heaven and new Earth and the our current earth will be gone. This will be an eternal state and time will be no more. Also there is some evidence to suggest we will have new bodies as well.

Txgangsta: I have the tendancy to give long answers when only a short one would do, especially in cases like these, so please bear with me.  Like Eirinn also said in a previous post: "You have been warned."

We are all sinners.  We have all broken God's law (10 commandments).  If we stand before God's judgement seat and gets judged according to His law and because God is holy, perfect and just, we would all be found guilty and be fined to a place of eternal torment, called hell.  Here's the amazing thing.  God does not want you or me to perish, whether you believe it or not, so He made a way.  He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the fine that was meant for you and me by suffering and dying on a cross.  So by this legal transaction, His life's blood, we are set free and can have everlasting life to whoever REPENTS of his transgressions and BELIEVES in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  If you keep on living in sin, are full of pride, throwing God's grace back in His face and are just stubborn and rejecting God's free gift of eternal life, you first of all will be blind to sin and the consequences thereof and heaven and hell will thus have absolutely no meaning to you.  You won't care if you die or what will happen to you after you die.  So there are 2 options:
1.  Believing in Jesus Christ and that He is the only way to everlasting life = heaven.
2.  Utterly rejecting no.1 = hell.

I believe that when you have chosen, and are living with all your heart according to no. 1 and die, you will immediately stand in the presence of God, which is of course in heaven and everlasting life.
The Bible spends a lot of time describing the glories of Heaven, but the irony is that hell is mentioned or described more times in the Bible than heaven. Jesus mentioned hell and of coming judgement more than 70 times!  He had more to say about hell than about heaven. Jesus made it very clear that people who refuse to repent, who turn away God’s provision of forgiveness and salvation, will spend eternity separated from God in a place of conscious torment that He often called "Hell".  Check out Matthew 5:29.

Now the "father of lies", Satan, has already deceived millions of people into believing that there's not really a place of eternal torment and he gave them more "acceptable" options, that's a bit "softer" on the ear:

-As Txgangsta already mentioned, millions of Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists believe in annihilationism where God will completely annihilate the unrighteous and they will simply cease to exist.
-Buddhists, Hindus, Hare Krishnas, and those who hold to the teachings of the New Age Religion believe in reincarnation where, as most of you know, is the belief that upon death, the soul will move on to inhabit another life form
-The Mormon Church also denies the Biblical teaching on Hell, and teaches that all, even the worst of sinners, will find a place in the lower levels of Heaven.
- The "Emerging" Church movement are buying into something called Universalism where it is the belief that because of Jesus' death on the cross, all people will eventually be saved.

There are a wide variety of beliefs that people have bought into. The lie behind all of these unbiblical beliefs is this:
"There's no need to be concerned about what awaits you or others after death."

I believe once you die if you believe in Jesus as your you go to Heaven and if you don't have Jesus as your Saviour you go to hell and are thrown into the lake of fire

SoL@R : Not that anything you said was un-Christian, but I do think that some things are false.

I'd like for you to explain the jump in your logic train. You go from "believing in Jesus Christ.... = heaven" to "...when you have chosen.... and die, you will immediately stand in the presence of God..." Could you give me a bible verse that says that? Because I can think of a few that say the exact opposite.

Ecclesiastes 9:2 "It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten."

Ecclesiastes 9:10 "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (the grave), to which you are going."

Since Qoheleth (writer of the book, traditionally given to King Solomon) is speaking about "all" people, its not just unbelievers. This is what happens to everyone upon death. You can claim the book is false, but that might be less than Christian.

I do believe after you die, you are in a sleep like state. I think it said in the bible that someone named Lazarus was dead for 3 days, but Jesus refereed to him being asleep. There is also a scripture saying that the living are conscious they will die, but the dead are conscious of nothing at all. But eventually because of Jesus sacrifice Jehovah God will resurrect us, there is more to it than that but after awhile, those people who remain faithful will live in a earthly paradise forever, there is a scripture that says that there will be no mourning, or outcry, or pain be any more, the former things have passed away( That might not be the whole scripture), and there are also a chosen 144,000 people who will go to heaven. Anyway that is what I believe, like I said there is more to it but I have to leave pretty soon, but that is a general idea of what I believe.             

If I remember right according to the bible when you die you just wait until the Armageddon. Before that you don't go neither to heaven or hell. You just wait like you would not exist. Then you wake up, line up to be seen if you are in the book of life or not. If you are, you go to the kingdom of heaven and if not, to the damnation. Those who sided with the antichrist though will spend a thousand years in a lake of fire.

Sorry, its been long since I read the book of revelations at whole.

But that is what the priest in all funerals I have witnessed says. "Ash to ashes, dust to dust. On the last day our lord and saviour Jesus Christ will resurect you." Nothing about going to heaven or hell or turning into an angel or such.

Txgangsta :  Sorry for the delayed response.  I have been running and jumping around at work, like my thoughts    I apologise if my comments look a bit confusing.  English is not my first language and although almost everything I do on a day to day basis is in English, I sometimes struggle to put thought to word.  Anyhoo, I'll try and answer your question.

I don't know if this is the answer you're looking for, but I simply meant that if you are a believer in Christ and you die, you, or rather your spirit, will be with the Lord:  "Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." - Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Jesus himself promised the dying robber on the cross that he would be with Him immediately after death:  "And Jesus said to him, 'Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise'." - Luke 23:43.
The Apostle Paul also taught that believers would be in Christ's presence upon their death:  "For we know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed, we shall not be found naked. . . We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." - 2 Corinthians 5:1,2,8.

I dint know much about it but i believe that the 18 puranas says that if we help others it will bring us close to god.

noone will ever know

SoL@R:
Txgangsta:
Another verse that I can think of is Hebrews 9:27: "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,"

You also have to keep in mind of the context of Ecclesiastes when quoting it. It is writing in the viewpoint of someone who is living their life on temporary worldly pleasures. It is from this that the author states that "there is nothing new under the sun" and "everything is meaning." It wasn't until the end of the book that it talks about how we must follow Him in our lives, for every deed that we do will be judged by God. So when it talks about how everything that we do will go to the grave or that what we do will be forgotten, it is taking a materialistic pessimistic viewpoint of what happens to our achievements or tasks when we die, like there is no hope. Again, this is written as if someone were to put all their hope on worldly things. Many even suggests that this is when Solomon was going through the time of not being obedient to God.

So, I wouldn't use the main body of Ecclesiastes to frame an "after death" theology. It's not meant to be used that way.

SoL@R :
play4fun :

Actually, Ecclesiastes 12:7 fits perfectly with my soul sleep stuff. I don't equate a soul and a spirit. In Latin, these are the animus and spiritus (body is corpus). The soul sleeps, and body decays, and "the spirit will return to God who gave it". However, this spirit that returns doesn't sense any thing. Its not like it can see God; it has no eyes. There's nothing in our "spirit" for memory or anything that could comprehend that we were in the presence of God. Our soul could through "intellectual/beatific vision", but it's napping.

The thief on the cross also supports my assertion. Jesus went to Hades for three days, how can he be with the thief in paradise at the same time? If the thief had soul sleep, subjectively, the time would be the same day.

2 Cor. 5:8 is not a statement of "I'll be happier while dead because I'm with God", but rather a of how they currently have no fear of death because absent of the body does not mean non-existence. Corinth was a town of Epicureans, those who sought as much pleasure as possible while avoiding as much pain as possible. This is not the Lord's call. This is supported by verse 6: "So we are always of good courage..." and by other translations of verse 8: "Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Death has no fear. Death to a Christian only means no more work and eternal life is nigh.

Hebrews 9 works in my system as well. The judgment is not when you die, but at resurrection, in correspondence to Revelation.

The main argument against me is that I should not use Ecclesiastes as I do. That is so large an interpretational difference I don't quite know how to attack it. I haven't known for 3 years. However, within my understanding of philosophical metaphysics, I have no objections in my system and many objections in the other.

Txgangsta : I didn't read your full position in your first post (because I haven't got the chance to sit down and read it). From what I understand, the soul when a person dies is to go to heaven if they are saved. They will be with Christ until the end times as well as the saints who died in the Great Tribulation (Revelation 6:9-11, 7:14, Chapter 6 described those saints as souls). When Christ returns a second time and the saints with Him, they return down to the New Earth, and to have their new bodies that are resurrected. 


Like I said, I just don't think you can use Ecclesiastes as a way of formulating an afterlife theology. The main focus of the book as a whole is the view of putting their hope on temporal things. He isn't wrong in what he says in that context. Everything IS meaningless if we live by those pleasures, even the epilogue said the Teacher is wise. But again, we cannot use what Solomon said here when his viewpoint is in this point of view.


My other issue is ignoring Christ's words on the cross. Just because Jesus went to Hades for three days does not mean the "today" makes no sense, nor should we ignore what Christ said. That same day is when the thief died, so when Jesus said today he will be with Christ in paradise, it can just mean that the thief will be with Jesus when He ascended to heaven. The word "paradise" is also used in 2 Corinthians 12, when Paul describes a vision of someone in Christ being caught up to the third heaven. Both cases are describing something that is upward and that the spirit would ascend.



It was Aquinas who said "The words of The Lord (This day....in paradise) must therefore be understood not of an earthly or corporeal paradise, but of that spiritual paradise in which all may be, said to be, who are in the enjoyment of the divine glory. Hence to place, the thief went up with Christ to heaven, that he might be with Christ, as it was said to him: "Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise"; but as to reward, he was in Paradise, for he there tasted and enjoyed the divinity of Christ, together with the other saints."


If your philosophy does not match up with scripture, you need to double check on both revelations and figure out what is missing.

Believing in Jesus Christ is essential in order to get into heaven, but don't be deceived to believe that's all that it takes. Even demons and the Devil himself believe in Jesus, and they tremble in fear. You have to love him with all of your heart mind body and soul. 2 John 1:6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
It takes Love and Obedience unto God's will to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matt 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Matthew 7:14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

In my walks with the Lord, he's proven Himself to me more than once, and has never proven his word wrong.
There is a life after this one. Believe it.

play4fun :

I deny any truth to a rapture theology. Revelation is a complex book that does not need to be read and given a 6 year old interpretation. Nothing makes me angrier than a really, really bad interpretation (I'm looking at you, Jehovah's Witnesses!). However, I'll ignore it for the time being.

"They will be with Christ until the end times as well as the saints who died in the Great Tribulation..."

This is a vision. John sees souls crying out, "How long? How long?". That does not mean the souls actually cry out. That means John sees souls crying out. Big difference. This is no deception by God though, as some would claim. I personally cry out, "How long? How long?" as do Christians around the world. This is a pressing issue. John answers the question. "...Rest a little longer, until the number of (your) fellow servants and (your) brothers should be complete."

The main focus of the book as a whole is the view of putting their hope on temporal things."

Isn't your, "...the soul when a person dies is to go to heaven if they are saved" temporal? Heaven has a timeline in your mind. If it doesn't, you never get out of heaven and you contradict scripture. If you have a timeline, heaven is a temporal good. God is the only non-temporal good. This is what Qoheleth speaks of. We can only have a relationship with God eternally through a resurrection. This is what Paul speaks of. This is what everyone then spoke of! This is what no one understands today.

"That same day is when the thief died, so when Jesus said today he will be with Christ in paradise, it can just mean that the thief will be with Jesus when He ascended to heaven."

Is that "today"? No... That is 53 days later. Maybe if the thief on the cross was... SLEEPING?????? =)

Aquinas is also already assuming that there is a spiritual paradise. If Aquinas were here, I would challenge his metaphysics first. Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that we are composites of body and soul. However, if Txgangsta were to lose his body, Txgangsta would have a "change of substance" and not actually be Txgangsta any more. Therefore, when Txgangsta loses his body, he can't go to a spiritual paradise because he does not exist. I don't think you believe that, so I cannot attack your metaphysics. Aquinas and I would have fun. He's also my favorite. =)

"If your philosophy does not match up with scripture, you need to double check on both revelations and figure out what is missing."

I think my philosophy matches perfectly with scripture. Its just such a foreign concept that no one really understands it. Everyone believes in rapture or some variant of heresy and refuses to examine such thoughts because I'm the tiniest minority there ever was.

Edit: I am having major formatting issues...
Edit2: Old Post Editor is wonderful =)