Even the big guy needs middle-management sometimes.
I’ve never heard about Peter judging or the gates etc. in all my religious upbringing and didn’t realize this was an actual belief.
I just knew this pearly gates thing as a movie cliché, from Tom and Jerry to modern shows copying that idea.
Nope. Lots of stuff commonly believed by Christians isn’t from the Bible. (Though sometimes they’ll do a lot of mental gymnastics to assert that what they believe is from “the only reasonable interpretation” of the Bible.)
Just a few other things commonly believed by Christians not (or at least only dubiously) from the Bible:
- The seven deadly sins
- The nine circles of hell
- The seven levels of heaven
- Transubstantiation
- The trinity
Fire and Brimstone Hell is also commonly believed, but not actually in the bible, if I recall right.
Most of the punishment around Hell in the Bible is less about Hell itself, and more about not being able to enter Heaven and join God, and all of that, as oppose to Hell itself being punishment.
my favourite misbelief is that people are already in heaven, and that hell is a ‘place’.
What the bible claims will happen: second coming of Jesus happens; believers are resurrected, believers are raptured, and then war breaks out. Jesus fucks off with the angels and everyone left on Earth is “in hell” (permanently separated from God).
Everything about hell being a demonic underworld is from Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Oh so we are all already in hell. Got it.
That humans eventually become angels.
Though, there was one human who did, in an apocryphal book. And then was elevated yet again to being a second diety; there were apparently strains of Christianity which were DUOtheistic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch
Want a rabbit hole of apocryphal knowledge, start digging into gnosticism. It’s like more internally consistent Christianity. Also depending on which flavor and particular interpretation, you could arrive at such truths as: Satan runs the church. God(old testament) is an asshole and a fool. Jesus (specifically the divine aspect Christ) is on a rescue mission to save God’s mom, Sophia, from the prison world that is earth, that God made specifically to trap her. Judas is a tragic hero who has to kill his friend, Jesus, so that Christ can escape the prison world.
It’s wild, it’s a more interesting story than Christianity, and I can ABSOLUTELY see why most of these books were branded heresy.
Matthew 20:30
“At resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
I think that’s where the sentiment comes from. It’s explicit in Mormonism (I think). In mainstream Christianity the saved don’t become angels, they become like angels.
… they become like angels.
In the sense that they no longer have sexual or romantic urges, would be my reading of that passage. Angels have no belly buttons!
Yes that’s the context - Jesus saying no one will be married in heaven. Either angels are asexual or they’re all male. The latter is a little more likely given all angels in the bible are presented as male. Which if that’s the case has weird implications for what female Christians become when they’re resurrected. Some weird male equivalent? So now we’re “all like the angels”?
All male. So no marriage, only sex.
Ha that was my thought too. Joking aside, it’s actually one of the weirder anti-gay arguments from the new testament, that the reason Jesus is saying “obviously” there’s no marriage in heaven is that everyone is like the angels, who are all male. So Jesus was appealing to the “absurdity” of male-male marriage.
Not the strongest argument but definitely one of the weirder ones I’ve heard…
Wow, haven’t heard that one yet, yeah, that’s pretty weird. What would even angels be male for? Oh, I’m thinking too much, this is not meant to be logical, right? Thanks for showing me another bizzare corner of religious thoughts.
Transubstantiation is kind of in the Bible. Matthew 26:26-28
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
The discussion of transubstantiation is just how literal “my body/blood” is.
Transubstantiation is the doctrine that it ceases being bread and wine. Which St Paul kind of debunks in his first letter to the Corinthians at Chapter 11, where he refers to it as bread.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
What you’re talking about is consubstantiation, which is where the body and blood physically coexist in the bread and wine, which can be derived from the Bible.
The Trinity is clearly taught in the Bible. Sure, not in explicit Athanasius creed form, but Jesus even said “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
Notice how “Name” is singular, implying the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one thing, or at least equal. Jesus is referred to as God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are also. And it’s made clear that there is one God. The Athanasius Creed is just the Trinity clearly defined in a single text. Clarifying interpretation (like the Nicene Creed).
Seven deadly sins are based off of various sins listed in the Bible, but most of it has kind of been overhyped and overemphasized. It’s useful for giving a rough idea of what sin is, but it’s been meddled with over time.
Like watching people argue fanfic canon in here. 😅
That’s exactly it, and I’m surprised more people don’t see it that way. For such fiction, there will almost always be a bigger nerd that eclipses your own knowledge on any particular aspect of canon, and yet someone pays half-attention to a child’s curriculum or reads a Dawkins or Hitchens book and it’s treated as an insult to their intelligence to politely inform them of something they may have missed.
At least fanfic arguments tend to lean more civil, and are generally seen as an expression of zeal between peers who all enjoy the same thing, albeit with differing opinions on the details.
St Peter doesn’t judge you! He’s always depicted with a book that already contains the judgements. He has no real authority, he’s just the gatekeeper.
So, Peter at the gates comes from a more or less literal interpretation from the passage where Jesus was making Peter the first pope. “To you I hand the keys to the kingdom of heaven….”
What Jesus was saying is that Peter got to decide who was in the Blood Ritual Cannibal Club,
Keep in mind, the books were written well after Jesus died, and the scriptures weren’t canonized until 300 years later; at the council of Nicaea- which was called specifically to “unify” the church. A lot of the choices about what was canon or not was specifically made to protect the bulk of the bishop’s authority (by drawing a straight lineage of succession from Peter.)
Aren’t you staying dead for millenia until the second comming and the judgement day ? To my understanding the reason why Christian burry their dead rather than burning them is that they need to resurrect on jugement day
Many Christians cremate.
There was a time, not that long ago, when cremation was not an option for Catholics. At some point, the church changed its mind. Maybe in the seventies or eighties?
Most Christian think of it like a cartoon. At least from what I can tell. Nobody actually seems to believe Peter is at the gates, but it is sometimes fun/useful to pretend that is what happens instead of trying to figure out what the judgement day really means (we often think of that like a court room with God as the judge and jury, but the scripture is not clear and so it isn’t really any more correct that Peter at the gates)
Can’t speak for Catholics but most reformed protestants (evangelicals) will be being taught their sins are already washed away and any judgement for the ‘saved’ after death is only about their quality of walk with god and quality of reward in heaven, it’s not a heaven/hell judgment. That’s only for the ‘unsaved’.
Fascinating. Classism, in heaven. Work yourself to death so that you can enjoy a better neighbourhood of heaven than your neighbour.
Mormons have three tiers of heaven. According to some, even Hitler would make it into the lowest tier. I’m not sure what you’d have to do to actually go to hell, which is supposedly just lonely infinite darkness away from the presence of God.
hell, which is supposedly just lonely infinite darkness away from the presence of God
So, “days ending in a Y”
I mean, sure, you could argue we’re already there.
