Ask Me Help Desk - What and where is Heaven? Do people go there immediately after death?

What and where is Heaven? Do people go there immediately after death?

When someone dies, we say things like, "She was such a loving and giving human being. Certainly she's in Heaven now!" Is she really?

Do we really go to Heaven immediately after we die? The body and soul are separated. The body is buried or cremated or whatever, but still on Earth. The soul, containing the essence of that person, is free of the body. Isn't Judgment Day when body and soul are reunited, we are judged, and THEN, hopefully, we go to Heaven?

"To be absent from the body and present with the Lord". - Some guy named Paul

Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some others talk about a "soul sleep", which is to say, no consciousness between death and resurrection, so it seems instantaneous. Why they feel the need for such an idea, I'm not sure, but apparently they do.

I didn't know you were asking about what Paul and others believe, so I'll add to DW's answer by giving the Catholic answer.

"The body, which shared in the good and evil of the soul, will likewise share in the rewards and punishments".

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Originally Posted by Athos

the Catholic answer.

"The body, which shared in the good and evil of the soul, will likewise share in the rewards and punishments".

But when? Immediately after death or are soul and body separated as I described in Post #1? If they are separated until Judgment Day, we know where the body is, but where is the soul?

Side note: the soap opera, "Days of our Lives" has a parallel story going about characters who have gone to Heaven or Hell and their interactions with each other and with characters on Earth.

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Athos
I didn't know you were asking about what Paul and others believe, so I'll add to DW's answer by giving the Catholic answer.

I really don't understand why you do that. I quoted Paul with approval, so it should be plain to see that that is my view as well.

Another question: I'm wondering if heaven is big enough for all the united bodies-and-souls that are destined to be there. AND how will I find anyone??? -- my parents, my younger son who died five years ago, my relatives and friends?

Considering that when we talk about heaven we are also trying to describe the indescribable using familiar imagery, how do we know our new bodies will even look like these? I wouldn't mind one with a straight nose, thank you very much! Seriously, when we hear or read the word "body", what do we have to define it by? A very narrow range of experience and observation that can tell us zilch about what another plane of existence is like.
I figure if Jesus is there, that'll be good enough for me. If I can go walking with my dad again, even better. And I figure God is smart enough to figure out how to help us find each other.
I know that sounds like a cop-out, but in actuality it's an extremely verbose way of saying "Idunno".

That's exactly what I've always been taught and believed. But now I'm close to that time and am thinking more about heaven and what it will be like.

All I'm hearing is - you don't know where you come from and you don't know where you're going.

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What and where is Heaven?

What meaning does it hold for you?

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what I've always been taught and believed

taught by whom...believed in what?

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Do people go there immediately after death?

Not sure it is a place we go to, being much more a place we come to durring rebirth.

The Kingdom of heaven is pretty much the same program as we have here on Earth. Different Kingdom, different King, different Laws, etc. We are commanded to seek the Kingdom of heaven while we are living. Those who search and ask will find it. The Bible shows a clear picture of where heaven is...in fact, it literally tells us where heaven is. I could tell you but it would most likely be understood as an allegory or parable, a story...not anything that can be taught or simply believed in.

I know what I know and that is all that I know or want to know. Jesus becomes life itself...his life is everything to me. I think we've been here (ask me [desk]) too long. We all seem to read the Bible as if it is something that can be taught or learned...instilling, in us, the sole desire to teach others what we have learned.

I definitely want to meet you, waltero. I'll be in the celestial kitchen, helping put together a heavenly feast. Look for me there!