Heaven and hell

• What happens after God's judgement

  • After God’s judgement, Christians believe they will either experience eternal happiness in the presence of God or experience eternal suffering and be unable to experience God’s presence 
  • Knowledge about Heaven and Hell (and Purgatory) is limited and linked to imagery from the past

  
• Beliefs about Heaven


  • Heaven is thought to be either a physical place or spiritual state of peace, joy, freedom from pain and a chance to be with loved ones  
  • Traditional images of heaven often show God on a throne with Jesus next to him and angels all around him, or a garden paradise

  
• Beliefs about who is allowed into Heaven vary

  • Some people think only Christians (believers in Jesus) are allowed 
  • Others think Christians and other religious people who have pleased God by living good lives are allowed 
  • And some think people who are baptised, regardless of how they lived their lives, are allowed into the kingdom of heaven

  
• Many Christians is a reward for both faith and actions , not just one of these (as the parable of the Sheep and the Goats seems to show)

  
• What is Purgatory

  • Catholics believe some people might enter purgatory (Purgatory is a Catholic belief)
  • Purgatory is an intermediate state where souls are cleansed in order to enter heaven

  
• Ideas about Hell

  • Hell is seen as the opposite of heaven - a state of existence without God 
  • It is often pictured as a place of eternal torment in a fiery pit ruled by Satan (a name for the Devil) , who is the power and source of evil

  
• Christian beliefs on why God allows Hell to exist?


  • Many people question whether a loving God would condemn people to eternal torment and pain in hell 
  • Christians who believe God would not do this to see hell as an eternal state of mind of being cut off from the possibility of God 
  • Hell would then be what awaits someone who did not acknowledge God or follow his teachings during their life