# A few questions about the Christian heaven

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 24, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643 "2015-10-24T17:26:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 256

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**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-few-questions-about-the-christian-heaven/735643/256 "2015-10-29T06:07:50Z")

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> [@Robert163](#):
>
> Well, religion is less popular than it used to be, so we are making some progress.
> 
> Call me ignorant if you want… but I do in fact know a lot about the bible… the talking snake… the talking donkey… the fact that the Israelites did not want a king but eventually wound up with Saul… the race of giants/angels… Jewish law coming from Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy… the prophets imploring Israel to return to Godly ways… the story of Caleb and Joshua… Moses not being eligible to enter the promised land… the magical powers of Elijah and Elisha…
> 
> Those are just a few random topics I thought up without pause and without having to look anything up. I could make a longer list for the NT, if you like.
> 
> Am I an expert on the bible? No. But you don’t need to be an expert to know that stories of talking snakes and talking donkeys and raining fire down from heaven are false, lies, made up stories… just like Mother Goose or Heracles or Thor. Or Spiderman.\*  
> \*Wait… at some point someone made up that story about the talking donkey. Just like Stan Lee did when he created the character of Peter Parker/Spider man.

No, you really don’t know a lot about it. You may have read the Bible. But your definition of who is and who isn’t a Christian leaves pretty much most Christians out. Do you really think you know more than people who have studied this for decades? By your logic, Catholics and Orthodox aren’t Christians. Do you really think you know more about Christianity than the largest and oldest sects of Christianity out there?

I’ll be blunt: nine years of Catholic school and three years at a Catholic college tells me you don’t know jack, kid. I believe I’ve suggested before you might want to see if you couldn’t get in touch with a Jesuit. They LOVE this kind of thing.  
(_Sola scriptura_, the idea that Christianity is based on the Bible alone is not a universal tradition. You really, really should take a Biblical studies course, or a history of Christianity class if you’re interested in this.)

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