# Is Fred Phelps in Heaven now?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 15, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193 "2014-04-15T18:32:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CheeseDonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheeseDonkey)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/1 "2014-04-15T18:32:48Z")
Does God agree with Phelps’ message and let him past the Pearly Gates?
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/2 "2014-04-15T18:34:57Z")
His God, and his heaven? You bet.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/3 "2014-04-15T18:35:19Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#):
>
> Does God agree with Phelps’ message and let him past the Pearly Gates?
If this god under discussion wanted to, he could _dis_agree with Phelp’s message and still let him into Heaven.
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### Author:  [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/4 "2014-04-15T18:36:26Z")
If there’s any justice, he’s in gay heaven.
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/5 "2014-04-15T18:58:03Z")
I read somewhere part of his belief is that he _has_ to make people hate him to do God’s will, so I suppose he’s got a bonus coming, for sure.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/6 "2014-04-15T18:59:04Z")
As a Unitarian Universalist, I say he ain’t in Hell, at any rate, because nobody is. That’s the one point of doctrine no UU will dispute.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/7 "2014-04-15T19:11:15Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#):
>
> Does God agree with Phelps’ message and let him past the Pearly Gates?
Next time I see him, I’ll ask.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/8 "2014-04-15T19:14:54Z")
For me, the “now” part is tricky, but I do think Phelps will be in heaven. But he will realize he was tragically wrong about a lot of things.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/9 "2014-04-15T19:21:12Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#):
>
> If there’s any justice, he’s in gay heaven.
And turned gay.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/10 "2014-04-15T19:27:28Z")
IMHO not exactly but also not out of the question.
I consider the possibility that Phelps was visited by God at the last moments and God said ‘this is what you wanted to try my child and now you see fully where it leads’, with the child saying yes ‘thank you now I see that I made a mistake’.
But without that, Phelp’s eternal world will slowly collapse. Since he has people basically worshiping him that should continue beyond the grave (people will be reincarnated in that position of Phelps worship), so for a while his glory will remain, but eventually those who worship him (in whatever form exists) will start to waver and question and leave, through many lives Phelps recognition will fade and without him turning to God for help will find himself in ever decreasing levels of lives.
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### Author:  [@buckgully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buckgully)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/11 "2014-04-15T19:27:52Z")
Due to a heavenly clerical error, he’s in the heaven of the nURRkinga-daaaban people of Gliese 581 d, where he has one hundred and twenty three nubile Skabllannts gently massaging his colon while he enjoys a pleasant, everlasting methane breeze coming off the beautiful sulfur swamps of Grrkin’a.
He’s one lucky Flarge.
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/12 "2014-04-15T19:29:41Z")
Just how much “Heaven” is there when you are made to understand, in excruciating and exacting detail, just how wrong you were and how much harm you did in life? At a certain point, being forgiven by God would be meaningless in the face of comprehending just what a bastard you were, through pure truth, unleavened by excuses and white lies.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/13 "2014-04-15T19:33:02Z")
Fred Phelps is in a Heaven where the streets are paved with gold…which means that gold is common enough to make it worth nothing, and the roads are so soft that they are constantly in need of repair.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/14 "2014-04-15T19:38:48Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> But without that, Phelp’s eternal world will slowly collapse. Since he has people basically worshiping him that should continue beyond the grave (people will be reincarnated in that position of Phelps worship), so for a while his glory will remain, but eventually those who worship him (in whatever form exists) will start to waver and question and leave, through many lives Phelps recognition will fade and without him turning to God for help will find himself in ever decreasing levels of lives.
That does seem like the most obvious answer.
@Czarcasm, so the streets in my city are in constant need of repair but made with some oil compound. Am I in purgatory you figure?
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/15 "2014-04-15T19:44:45Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#):
>
> Does God agree with Phelps’ message and let him past the Pearly Gates?
Why don’t you go ahead and ask God? I doubt anyone on the SDMB can give you an inside on the unfathomable of God’s ways. Anyway it’s not like he was the incarnation of evil. Or even particular bad. For instance, as far as I know he never actually killed anybody. Just a general nuisance. His Wiki says he had thirteen children. He sure was a busy man.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/16 "2014-04-15T19:50:57Z")
To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens about Jerry Falwell, “Of course he’s not in heaven and it’s a pity there’s no hell to send him to.”
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/17 "2014-04-15T19:57:24Z")
I’ll pretend that there is a heaven, and a merciful God, and the possibility of redemption. So based on that, no, he’s not in heaven.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/18 "2014-04-15T20:10:34Z")
While I do stand by my former post this came to mind: This is usually reserved to if Hitler is in heaven, my answer if Hitler actually got to heaven I have a much better shot at it.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/19 "2014-04-15T20:16:34Z")
If Hitler getting in to Heaven doesn’t ASSURE you getting in, then maybe lay off the puppy torture or whatever.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fred-phelps-in-heaven-now/686193/20 "2014-04-15T20:19:50Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> If Hitler getting in to Heaven doesn’t ASSURE you getting in, then maybe lay off the puppy torture or whatever.
I prefer to believe Hitler got reincarnated as a prize-winning bonsai tree. Think about it.
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