Heaven and Hell, or where do we go from here?

[agricola]

Well, good for the management! (and how surprising)

We have a standard that it is wrong to say upsetting things to mourners in the immediate aftermath of a death. Whatever they say, you just agree with them.

[OneStrike_ur_out]

True story. Today, a woman in my apartment building has a brother who was in an accident, not expected to live. Her coc "family" came to comfort her and instead had the woman in hysterics, taking several people to calm her down. Because her brother was not a member of the coc, and not saved, he was going to hell, and it was ... get ready for it ... her fault! She condemned her own brother to hell because she had a lifetime to convert him, and didn't. Wait! There's more! Because of her "sin", she's going to hell, too! Needless to these people were asked to leave the building (all this took place in the lobby) and told by management not to come back. I literally had to go vomit.

The cOC is sounding more and more like the Westboro Baptist Church every day.

[illuminator]

Seriously.

[Lev]

Most CoCers won't come right out and say that only CoCers will get to heaven. Instead they say that only the people who follow a doctrine precisely mirroring CoC doctrine can be sure in their salvation. It's the obnoxious passive aggressive way of saying the same thing.

I'm not saying we're the only ones going to heaven, but we're the only ones going to heaven.

Lev

[Lev]

The Cofcer is just making a "technically correct" argument on semantics...it is a form of deception and a refusal to engage honestly. In fact the statement itself may or may not be true (about cofcers being only ones to go to Heaven) but to pretend the notion is not "in play" in some for or fashion is dishonest. You can pretty much pick any cofc congregation and at some point in the past there was a "split" over something. And at some point those "other people at the other congregation" are never engaged or considered again...these other folks even have the name CofC yet they must be abandoned to their error....how much more is this the case for Baptists, Methodists, DoC, RCC, LDS, JW, etc. Go check the tract rack at most any congregation and you will find one on the need to use an authorized name like CofC and you will find various booklets on the error of infant baptism, faith only, and several specific denominations.

Good point. If it's only COCers, then which COCers?

[Turtle]

In my experience, c of c discussions of heaven and hell are amusing. "All that stuff about mansions and gold are not literal. Heaven is existing in the presence of God. But... We will have memories and sing praises. But.... We won't be sad, even if we realize that most of the people we knew aren't there. We will have 'spiritual' bodies and breath celestial air. (I'm not making that up, I heard it last Sunday.) We will be able to recognize each other, especially our sainted aunts and grandmothers who were not members of the church but were so good God has to let them into heaven, even though other people can't get in just by being good. ( whew!) Heaven is a wonderful place."

Do they realize that most of the people who have died in human history were under the "age of understanding?" , including those who died before being born. (Just keeping it real.) By their own reasoning, Heaven should be full of souls that have no idea what they are doing there.

[OneStrike_ur_out]

From a cOC standpoint, Heaven sounds like an inescapable prison. At least in this life, we have freedom. Can the same be said of Heaven? It sure doesn't sound like there is any freedom there. If anything, it sounds like slavery. Yet, the cOCers "can't wait to die so they can get there"? Anytime one of them talked about how "jealous" they were of those that had passed on, I doubted their sincerity in such statements. I mean, the people who would say things like that were the ones who loved life here on earth the most! One guy who used to say that quite often was also an avid water skier, hiker, sky diver, you name it. I could not imagine someone like that actually looking forward to the cOC's version of Heaven.

[Moogy]

Davy Crockett supposedly said (after losing an election in Tennessee), "You can all go to HELL. I'm going to Texas!"