Posted on 03/25/2011 4:02:17 PM PDT by americanophile
After a burst appendix nearly cost 4-year-old Colton Burpo his life in 2003, his parents were thankful just to have him alive and well. But when he opened up about his brush with death a few months later, they were shocked when he described a very vivid trip to heaven, and spoke of matters about which he had no apparent way of knowing.
During an automobile trip, when Sonja Burpo asked him about his memories of being in the hospital, little Colton replied: “Yes, Mommy, I remember — that’s where the angels sang to me.” A sweet answer, to be sure — but then Colton made his parents’ jaws drop when he told them about sitting in Jesus’ lap, watching his parents while he lay seemingly near death, and meeting his great-grandfather.
But most poignantly, Colton described meeting a sibling in heaven — even though he had no way of knowing that his mother had miscarried two years before he was born, since his parents had never told him.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
“I, for one, do not believe that we’ll have physical bodies”
You are confusing physical body with perfect body. Jesus was seen in bodiy form, as was Moses and Elijah.
There is a heaven, i.e., God will bestow happiness and the richest gifts on all those who depart this life free from original sin and personal mortal sin, and who are, consequently, in the state of justice and friendship with God. Concerning the purification of those just souls who depart in venial sin or who are still subject to temporal punishment for sin, see PURGATORY. On the lot of those who die free from personal sin, but infected with original sin, see LIMBO (limbus pervulorum). On the immediate beginning of eternal happiness after death, or eventually, after the passage through purgatory, see PARTICULAR JUDGMENT. The existence of heaven is, of course, denied by atheists, materialists, and pantheists of all centuries as well as by those rationalists who teach that the soul perishes with the body — in short, by all who deny the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. But, for the rest, if we abstract from the specific quality and the supernatural character of heaven, the doctrine has never met with any opposition worthy of note. Even mere reason can prove the existence of heaven or of the happy state of the just in the next life.
We shall give a brief outline of the principal arguments. From these we shall, at the same time, see that the bliss of heaven is eternal and consists primarily in the possession of God, and that heaven presupposes a condition of perfect happiness, in which every wish of the heart finds adequate satisfaction.
•God made all things for His objective honour and glory. Every creature was to manifest His Divine perfections by becoming a likeness of God, each according to its capacity. But man is capable of becoming in the greatest and most perfect manner a likeness of God, when he knows and loves His infinite perfections with a knowledge and love analogous to God’s own love and knowledge. Therefore man is created to know God and to love Him. Moreover, this knowledge and love is to be eternal; for such is man’s capability and his calling, because his soul is immortal. Lastly, to know God and to love Him is the noblest occupation of the human mind, and consequently also its supreme happiness. Therefore man is created for eternal happiness; and he will infallibly attain it hereafter, unless, by sin, he renders himself unworthy of so high a destiny.
•God made all things for His formal glory, which consists in the knowledge and love shown Him by rational creatures. Irrational creatures cannot give formal glory to God directly, but they should assist rational creatures in doing so. This they can do by manifesting God’s perfections and by rendering other services; whilst rational creatures should, by their own personal knowledge and love of God, refer and direct all creatures to Him as their last end. Therefore every intelligent creature in general, and man in particular, is destined to know and love God for ever, though he may forfeit eternal happiness by sin.
•God, in his infinite justice and holiness, must give virtue its due reward. But, as experience teaches, the virtuous do not obtain a sufficient reward here; hence they will be recompensed hereafter, and the reward must be everlasting, since the soul is immortal. Nor can it be supposed that the soul in the next life must merit her continuance in happiness by a continued series of combats; for this would be repugnant to all the tendencies and desires of human nature.
•God, in His wisdom, must set on the moral law a sanction, sufficiently appropriate and efficacious. But, unless each man is rewarded according to the measure of his good works, such a sanction could not be said to exist. Mere infliction of punishment for sin would be insufficient. In any case, reward for good deeds is the best means of inspiring zeal for virtue. Nature itself teaches us to reward virtue in others whenever we can, and to hope for a reward of our own good actions from the Supreme Ruler of the universe. That reward, not being given here, will be given hereafter.
•God has implanted in the heart of man a love of virtue and a love of happiness; consequently, God, because of His wisdom, must by rewarding virtue establish perfect harmony between these two tendencies. But such a harmony is not established in this life; therefore it will be brought about in the next.
•Every man has an innate desire for perfect beatitude. Experience proves this. The sight of the imperfect goods of earth naturally leads us to form the conception of a happiness so perfect as to satisfy all the desires of our heart. But we cannot conceive such a state without desiring it. Therefore we are destined for a happiness that is perfect and, for that very reason, eternal; and it will be ours, unless we forfeit it by sin. A natural tendency without an object is incompatible both with nature and with the Creator’s goodness. The arguments thus far advanced prove the existence of heaven as a state of perfect happiness.
•We are born for higher things, for the possession of God. This earth can satisfy no man, least of all the wise. “Vanity of vanities”, says the Scripture (Ecclesiastes 1:1); and St. Augustine exclaimed: “Thou hast made us for Thyself (O God) and our heart is troubled till it rests in Thee.”
•We are created for wisdom, for a possession of truth perfect in its kind. Our mental faculties and the aspirations of our nature give proof of this. But the scanty knowledge, that we can acquire on earth stands in no proportion to the capabilities of our soul. We shall possess truth in higher perfection hereafter.
•God made us for holiness, for a complete and final triumph over passion and for the perfect and secure possession of virtue. Our natural aptitudes and desires bear witness to this. But this happy goal is not reached on earth, but in the next life.
•We are created for love and friendship, for indissoluble union with our friends. At the grave of those we love our heart longs for a future reunion. This cry of nature is no delusion. A joyful and everlasting reunion awaits the just man beyond the grave.
•It is the conviction of all peoples that there is a heaven in which the just will rejoice in the next life. But, in the fundamental questions of our being and our destiny, a conviction, so unanimous and universal, cannot be erroneous. Otherwise this world and the order of this world would remain an utter enigma to intelligent creatures, who ought to know at least the necessary means for reaching their appointed end.
•Very few deny the existence of heaven; and these few are practically all atheists and epicureans. But surely it cannot be that all the rest have erred, and an isolated class of men such as these are not the true guides in the most fundamental questions of our being. For apostasy from God and His law cannot be the key to wisdom.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm
Well I’ve had several times where my blood sugar has went to nothing and while waiting for the ambulance to arrive I’ve told my husband some pretty incrediable things about what the angels have said to me atleast that is what he says.He refuses to tell me exactly what I’ve said I think it scares him.I do remember seeing my Dad I almost got to him but then was pulled back to here.
He may have mistaken the way they speak for singing.I know what I have seen and witnessed and though I haven’t read his book I can’t argue with what I’ve heard so far.
My point - which of course is 100% indisputable to those of us that continue to dwell on this earth - is that nobody - NOBODY - here has the slightest clue as to what awaits us when we die. There is no 'near death', if you know what I mean.
We can quote biblical prophesy and all the soothsayers we want that make us feel better to try and make sense of it all -- but the bottom line is the bottom line. We're here, and NONE of us has the slightest clue as to what awaits us when we're not here.
/Break transmission.
Yes! For being i as bad of shape as I was the 3 times I can remember I was amazingly calm and happy afterwards. I can’t explain it except to say yes there is more.
“Not only do humans in scripture never have wings, neither do any angels......”
What kind of an edited bible are you reading? There are two type of angles mentioned in the bible having wings Cherubim and Seraphim - Exodus 25:20 and Ezekiel 10. These two types are thought to be the among the highest of angels, so there are quite possibly other types of angels, who may not have wings.
Now will humans have wings? I don’t know, but it is not beyond God’s Power to let you have a pair of beautiful ones if you asked for them.
I’d like to hear about such commonplace things like the decor, food, accomodations, and all we hear are the fairy tale details.
My now dead friends promised to contact me (and I promised to contact them) should they croak first. No one has contacted me yet. Something’s fishy about this heaven thing. Is it a totalitarian dictatorship, from which there is no escape and no contact with other realities?
Houdini and his wife had a pact where he would try and contact her. He gave her a code that only he and his wife would know. She tried to contact him for years and finally gave up. However, contact of the living by the dead is different, by definition, from reported near death experiences. What is it like after death even theologians differ. The cliche no one knows is really accurate in this case.
“My now dead friends promised to contact me (and I promised to contact them) should they croak first. No one has contacted me yet.”
You’ve got to fill out a form first, then you wait in a line.
“In theory at least, people in heaven should not need wings...”
Yes, it’s not like they are sent flitting about to and from the Earth, that’s the angels’ job. Also, there are instances in Scripture where the departed, who are (or can be reasonably assumed to be) in either heaven or paradise are seen, and they aren’t described as anything other than men.
“Not only do humans in scripture never have wings, neither do any angels......”
Well, it depends on how you are using the word angel. In the strict usage, referring to that specific class of messengers, then no, they are not described that way. Seraphim, who are often lumped in to the more general meaning, like “angelic beings”, do have wings, though I doubt anyone seeing them would mistake them for humans, glorified or otherwise.
I agree with you.
We did buy the book and my daughter is reading it first. From what I’ve gathered, he did reveal things that he would not have anyway of knowing (like he had a sister who died before he was born), so that makes me think there is truth in what he says. HOWEVER, kids are kids and embellish and give discriptions that either they think we want to hear or match what they know of. So I’m not equating everything this boy said as the Gospel truth, but a glimpse “through a glass darkly”.
Yeah, I noticed on the GMA interview the kid even says it’s hard for him to remember all the details, so it wouldn’t surprised me if he felt he needed to stretch things a little to make a good story.
“but angels do not sing ..”
Well, I don’t know abou that, they do speak, shout for joy, and say praises, and often, saying praises involves singing psalms. The Bible doesn’t specifically say they sing, but it doesn’t say they don’t. It does seem to be something a child would associate with Heaven from folklore though.
I do find these stories interesting though. I stumbled across some stories the other night on TV about these people who died and came back. Most of them talk about a wonderful experience, but one talked about being imprisoned in a dark, hot, prison. When he was revived, his image was that of a giant hand plucking him from his prison.
Now whether or not these stories are completely accurate discriptions or blurry discriptions, they definately had an impact on the people who went through the ordeal.
As a Christian it reinforces my desire to see Jesus and helps remove any fear of the dying process. I like the image of death being the birth panges of a new life (for those who have accepted Jesus’s gift through faith).
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