My apologies, then. You can understand that I’m not used to your taking a sincere interest in my beliefs. 
Liberal’s trying to tell you that what he said is relevant to this thread. His comment about not being welcome in the thread is a bit of a joke, I think, that not only are you limiting the OP to Christians, but apparently, only certain types of Christians.
Dang, buddy. I’m with you 99% of the time, But **Lib **did answer the OP. When asked for a clarification, he responded. Politely and respectfully, I might add. He seems quite on topic to me.
Maybe you could have dialed in your definition of heaven a bit tighter and all this could have been avoided.
Nope, it’s open to anyone that self-identifies as Christian.
Right. I said it was a joke, based on his perception that his brand of Christianity wasn’t what you wanted to know about.
Never mind.
Again, I’m not saying he was off-topic. I’m saying that the subject of where heaven is and where the soul goes when one dies is a damn fine subject that deserves its own thread.
I understood, and was just clarifying my thread for others who might wander in.
I’m seeing that there are growing pains for all involved 
The vast majority of my theistic friends and family (including myself at one point) believed in the immediate reunification with God. However, my family has also always believed in the reunification of family members in Heaven. Though I haven’t been a believer in some time, I do know that we believed that Heaven was literally a kingdom of golden streets and whatnot.
To be honest, most of us were not so well educated on our own religion to expect anything different. This was the popular view. My mother fully expects to see my dad in Heaven, and that when we have all died and gone, we’ll all be there with her forever, much the same as we were on Earth. When my father died, I’m sure that she considered him to be “in Heaven” after his death and not in some stage of limbo.
We were Southern Baptists, but now my family leans Methodist.
My own guess (and I don’t think the Bible ever gets clear enough about this topic for anyone to qualify for a belief rather than a guess) is that subjectively, you appear before the judgement throne immediately, but objectively, everyone is judged together at the “end of time”, when the Kingdom of God is revealed in its fullness.
As for where the “soul/spirit/you-ness” is between the two times - the Old Testament talks of Sheol (the grave) which, as I understand it, is more a nothingness place than any kind of Revelation-style Hell, so could perhaps be understood as some sort of suspended animation state pre-judgement?
As I said, my guess - based on some study I did over 20 years ago, so I don’t have the scriptural backup to hand…
Grim
Missed the edit window…
Having said that, when my daughter died last year, people told us that they had had visions of her in heaven with my Grandmother who’d died two years before that. Now I believe that God can grant prophetic visions to people, and if these were genuine (which we believed them to be) then it would seem that she is already there - which contradicts my own view… so I don’t really know… perhaps we accepted them as real because we desperately needed the comfort such a message would give? Perhaps that was the point of the vision, to comfort us rather than dictate doctrine?
Who the fuck knows - now I miss my baby again…
When I will have been forever in heaven, I didn’t think to check my watch.
Tris
I was taught this and that only Catholics think you go to heaven immediately. I suspect that there are other religions who believe it too, though.
Eternity is a tense subject, isn’t it.
Don’t worry-he’ll get over it in time.
“Before Abraham was, I am.” — Jesus 
Growing up as a Mormon, I was taught that the next stage is an afterlife that is separated into two; a place where the spirits of the good go, and a spirit prison where the spirits of the bad go.
People (just their spirits) go to this place when they die and wait there for Christ to come again. There are Mormon missionaries there who work to convert people (sorry folks, if you think you’re through with missionaries now, it doesn’t look like it).1
When Christ comes, IIRC, those who have accepted the Church will be resurrected and the Millennium will begin. During this 1,000-year period, temple ceremonies for all the remaining dead will be performed and everyone will have a chance to accept or reject the gospel.
Next comes the great judgment and people are send off into three kingdoms, but that’s a different thread.
Note: 1 Spirits can be converted but can’t receive the physical ordinances, including baptism and temple marriage, so Mormons perform these ceremonies for the dead in their temples. One misunderstanding is that the ceremonies don’t make the person a member, they are only an option for people in the spirit world to either accept or reject.
Please avoid any hijacks concerning this. I only included this information as it’s relevant to the timing of the resurrection and how long one stays in the spirit world.
Yes, I did.
Tris
Shodan and liberal come closest to expressing what I believe. And because it’s outside of time, it is a different reality and sometimes maybe we get glimpses of a state of bliss that may be something like heaven or nirvana. “There” I think we will have a way of realizing that everything is one thing.
That’s why I have no problem believing that atheists will “go to heaven” too. But I don’t really think about it as “heaven” now. I don’t know that I give it a name.
Yes. I see no contradiction between the ‘now’ and ‘later’ views - (assuming lots of stuff here just to simplify the statement) - from the point of view of the person dying, the transition is instantaneous - death, head hits pavement, Hello Jesus. From the point of view of those of us still here, alive, there’s a dead body, and there’s an interval to be endured.
It only really becomes problematic if you have people peeping out of the windows of Heaven to look at things going on in the world at the same time.
But what about the point of view of the people left behind? If your child says,“Is Grandpa in Heaven right now?”, what do you think the correct(in your opinion) answer is?