ETA: I blitz-googled second hand info about a World Values Survey 2000: 50 % of Finns believe in heaven, but only 25 % believe in hell. 74 % believe in god.
In a 2012 survey done by our church only 1⁄8 believe in “the Christian promise of eternal afterlife”.
The funny thing is that Jesus is very very specific that more people will end up in hell than in heaven :-D
Matthew 7:13-14: “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: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
I wouldn’t call that “very very specific”, since the words are destruction (I think it can also be “lost”) and life, rather than Heaven/the Kingdom or Gehenna/Hades/everlasting punishment. It does, however, make it abundantly clear that the overwhelming majority is doomed in some fashion.
I wouldn’t call that “very very specific”, since the words are destruction
True, here Jesus is speaking about the alternative to the everlasting life. But I don’t know—is there a branch of Christian theology which holds that it’s heaven or nothing—as in, if God doesn’t let you into heaven you don’t go to hell but just cease to exist?
P.S. As far as I remember there are mainstream Christian interpretations of hell as nothing more than absence of God’s love/grace.
Seventh-day Adventists appear to be annihilationist as well. Then there are Universalists, who insist that Aeonian in the first Century CE could not possibly mean “eternal”, so that everyone eventually gets out of Hell.
Do I correctly suspect they have polyamory in heaven?
ISTR that someone asked Jesus what happens if a widow gets married again, after everyone dies and is resurrected—which husband does she get back with? I can’t remember the answer, though.
He ducked the question, I think, in simply saying that non-marriage was superior and/or in heaven no one is married maybe: Luke 20:27-38:
Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”
Do I correctly suspect they have polyamory in heaven?
I bet minority of people who believe in heaven actually believe in hell, or at least believe that you have to be really evil to go there.
Kinda: 62% of Americans believe in heaven and 53% believe in hell (source). I bet there is more data in Pew reports.
Those silly Americans :)
It seems I live in heaven already.
ETA: I blitz-googled second hand info about a World Values Survey 2000: 50 % of Finns believe in heaven, but only 25 % believe in hell. 74 % believe in god.
In a 2012 survey done by our church only 1⁄8 believe in “the Christian promise of eternal afterlife”.
The funny thing is that Jesus is very very specific that more people will end up in hell than in heaven :-D
Matthew 7:13-14: “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: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
I wouldn’t call that “very very specific”, since the words are destruction (I think it can also be “lost”) and life, rather than Heaven/the Kingdom or Gehenna/Hades/everlasting punishment. It does, however, make it abundantly clear that the overwhelming majority is doomed in some fashion.
True, here Jesus is speaking about the alternative to the everlasting life. But I don’t know—is there a branch of Christian theology which holds that it’s heaven or nothing—as in, if God doesn’t let you into heaven you don’t go to hell but just cease to exist?
P.S. As far as I remember there are mainstream Christian interpretations of hell as nothing more than absence of God’s love/grace.
Some Jehova’s witnesses who I tried to deconvert at my door seemed to believe that. It was eternal life in paradise on earth or nothing.
Ah, yes, it seems Jehova’s Witnesses do have a “doctrine of annihilation” and for them it is heaven or nothing.
Seventh-day Adventists appear to be annihilationist as well. Then there are Universalists, who insist that Aeonian in the first Century CE could not possibly mean “eternal”, so that everyone eventually gets out of Hell.
I like the Eastern Orthodox version: Heaven for everyone—like it or not.
There is (still) in Mormon heaven (at least polygamy).
ISTR that someone asked Jesus what happens if a widow gets married again, after everyone dies and is resurrected—which husband does she get back with? I can’t remember the answer, though.
He ducked the question, I think, in simply saying that non-marriage was superior and/or in heaven no one is married maybe: Luke 20:27-38:
Golly, that sounds to me as if the people of this age don’t go to heaven!