(April 7, 2011 at 3:27 am)Cinjin Cain Wrote: Yesterday, I was lightly debating an aquaintance of mine about Heaven. I of couse feel that Heaven (according to the Bible) is a ludicrous idea and he obviously believed that Heaven is a very real place where a soul goes to spend eternity provided he or she has payed the proper homage to Jesus Christ.
What amused me the most about his argument was his continued use of the phrase, "the pearly gates". i.e. "getting through the pearly gates", "when I stand at the pearly gates", "you're gonna be wishing you were on the inside of those pearly gates with me" ... and well, you get the idea.
I ask you - Why the hell does HEAVEN need to be a gated community??!? Are people sneaking in? Is Heaven in a bad neighborhood? Do all religions have gates and/or metal detectors at their entrances to their blissful afterlife???
Anyone?
Better yet, if the Bible says, "...the dead in Christ shall rise first" (which it does) when Jesus returns for the rapture in the sky, than are all these dead souls meandoring around outside the Pearly Gates waitin to get in????
That's gotta suck, loitering at the Pearly Gates for 2000 years now!
Anyone at all???
Sincerely, I have no idea when "the gates of heaven" have been invented. I suppose in the middle ages or later. Anyway, the whole concept of "heaven" is understood and preached erroneously (i.e. different than what the bible says about it): e.g. the "heaven" is not "paradise", but the whole spiritual realm; the 'good' people are promised living on a new earth, rather than living in the sky on the clouds, etc.
