“Great Debates” seems to be where most of the religious questions go, so while I don’t think this question will spark a debate, I’ll ask it here. Being raised Catholic (I’m not anymore), I was told that, on Judgement Day, Christ will come again to judge the souls of the living and the dead. Alright, but if you do believe in this, I was wondering where the souls of the dead are supposed to be now. According to the bible, can they not ascend to heaven until final judgement? Secondly, I remember in Dante’s Inferno that some great philosophers were in hell(a good circle, comparatively, but still in hell) because they were not alive when Christ was and therefore did not accept Christ as their savior. Do fundamentalists believe that anyone that lived before Christ is in this position?
They’re kept in a storage facility in Cincinatti, Ohio, on a temporary basis until the savior returns. The souls are transported there on the soul train, and during the trip, they can listen to soul music. One time, the soul train derailed and there was only a soul survivor. An attempt is made to keep soul brothers together, but only those who pass muster with James Brown - the godfather or soul - can go there, and you have to want to go with all your heart and soul. All others become lost souls, causing the caretakers of the facility to go soul searching to find them. Sometimes the souls befriend other souls at the storage facility and they become soul mates, who bare their souls to each other. While there, the souls dine on chicken soup for the soul. Souls which have not been good enough, however, are banished to the soul asylum.
Well, all except the followers of Frisbeetarianism, who believe that after you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
(Ok, ok, I’m sorry. But it had to be done.)
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peas on earth
judgement day refers to the day (according to the teachings from jesus)when he comes to earth to judge the living and the dead. that means the day of resurrection. everyone will rise from the dead, like jesus was supposed to have done, and be judged for actions performed.
so according to the bible they do go to heaven or hell, or something
Bantmof, you’re a riot. Well done.
Before Christ appeared on the scene, souls of the good went to a place called Sheol (the equivalent of the Greek concept of Hades), which the King James Bible calls hell. Souls of the bad went to a place which for lack of a better term, we’ll call Gehenna. In Old Testament terminology, both of these places were in “hell”; they were close by one another, but divided by a gulf so nobody could swap sides (see the story of Lazarus and the rich man, Luke chapter 16, for more details). Sheol was a “storage facility” for souls of the righteous, where they waited in serene comfort until the Messiah should appear. The damned, over on 'tother side, were in torment. When Christ died, He came to this place to set the good souls free and take them to a completely different place which for lack of a better term, we’ll call Heaven. (This is what’s being described in the Christian Creeds when we say “Christ descended into hell.”) The bad souls stayed right where they were.
Since that time, the good go to heaven, and the bad go to hell. This is the immediate judgement. At the end of time, when Christ returns, there will be a resurrection, where every soul will be raised from the dead and reunited with its body. Christ will then judge “the living and the dead”: i.e., if you’ve been bad and have been in hell, you’ll go back, and if you’ve been good and you’ve been in heaven, you’ll be judged at how good you were, but shown how you might have done better; and after that, the good will remain on a re-juvenated Earth to rule with Christ forever.
That, in a nutshell, is a very simplistic explanation of the First and Final Judgements. If it sounds far-fetched, don’t feel bad. It does to some scholars at times, too, but you must realize that any time you get into interpreting eschatological hermeneutics (which is a $5.00 theological term for what we’re talking about here) you’re getting into an area where not much is firmly known, only hinted at; and there are dozens of schools of thought. Basically, you just have to take it on faith that you’re going to be taken care of if you’re trying to do what you think God wants you to do. Which fits, because really that’s what faith is all about anyway. 
Sheol of a job,bant. And your right that Frisbee line "had to be done’. It is the funniest thing I have ever seen,(aside from my last post) but why did you cheapen that scholarly explanation by adding that one last line of humor?
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
Pickman’s Model wrote:
So what you’re saying is, if you were good, you went to hell.
I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.
No, I didn’t say that, the guys who misinterpreted the original Hebrew into the Elizabethan English of the King James Bible said that. I said you went to Sheol, which wasn’t “hell” in the manner that we think of hell----it was a pleasant area. In fact, when Christ said to the dying thief on the cross next to his (cf. Luke 23:43), “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise”, He was talking about Sheol. How hellish can anyplace called Paradise be??? (Unless it’s a small town in southwest Texas, anyway…)
Dante’s Inferno is an excellent book, and if you read it closely, there’s an explanation of what happens to the souls that lived before the time of Christ. The poet Virgil, who is leading Dante through Hell, lives in a place called Limbo. That’s where the good people that lived before Christ go. He also makes a few references to a King, who visited Limbo, and took some souls to Heaven with him. He (Virgil) never mentions Jesus by name, nor does he mention the names of the folks he took. But it’s implied that these were Biblical characters.
It’s an interesting theory…if you believe in Hell, of course. 
Yeah, but didn’t the RCC pitch limbo last spring? Decided it was doctrinally inaccurate or something?
Actually, Limbo was never an official doctrine of the Church—it was a theological concept that was thought up by medieval theologians who adhered to an extremely legalistic interpretation of Catholic doctrine. I.e.; you must be baptized to be saved. But what happens to children who die at birth? They can’t be baptized. God is just, and can’t send these small souls to hell. But they’re not baptized, so they can’t go to heaven. So what becomes of them? The best that these guys could come up with was that they go to some sort of a storage area for the “odds and ends” that don’t fit, and God’ll figger out what to do with 'em later. Vatican Council II oficially put an end to any speculation about Limbo, stating that it did not exist and never had—it was all a construct by some individual theologians 700 years ago, even though in the popular mind, many accepted it as official dogma.
bantmof, what about Aretha Franklin? Isn’t she the queen of soul? I would expect the queen of soul to rank right up there with the godfather of soul.
The Cat In The Hat
Pickman’s model wrote:
Hmmm … So, now, after Vatican II, where does the Catholic church say all the unbaptized dead babies go?
I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.
Heaven.
Tom~
According to the revised Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 1261), children who die unbaptized are entrusted unto the mercy of God, Who will provide a way of salvation for them. This isn’t so much of a stretch, since they pass away before the age of reason and thus have not committed any sins, and it equates with “baptism of desire” (somebody who dies before they can be baptized, but yet desire to be baptized very much), and the teaching of the Church that even people who are not Christians can be saved if they believe with all their heart that the path they are following to God is right and true.