I have been told ever since I was a little shit that when you die you go to heaven first wait in line for St Peter to judge you at the pearly gates? Is this in the Bible? I thought god did judging
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Nope. Lots of stuff commonly believed by Christians isn't from the Bible. (Though sometimes they'll do a lot of mental gymnastics to assert that what they believe is from "the only reasonable interpretation" of the Bible.)
Just a few other things commonly believed by Christians not (or at least only dubiously) from the Bible:
Transubstantiation is kind of in the Bible. Matthew 26:26-28
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
The discussion of transubstantiation is just how literal "my body/blood" is.
There's a surprising amount of modern Christian lore that actually comes from The Divine Comedy, the granddaddy of all ascended fanfic.
Don't forget Paradise Lost, also a great hit
That humans eventually become angels.
Though, there was one human who did, in an apocryphal book. And then was elevated yet again to being a second diety; there were apparently strains of Christianity which were DUOtheistic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch
Matthew 20:30
"At resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven."
I think that's where the sentiment comes from. It's explicit in Mormonism (I think). In mainstream Christianity the saved don't become angels, they become like angels.
... they become like angels.
In the sense that they no longer have sexual or romantic urges, would be my reading of that passage. Angels have no belly buttons!
Yes that's the context - Jesus saying no one will be married in heaven. Either angels are asexual or they're all male. The latter is a little more likely given all angels in the bible are presented as male. Which if that's the case has weird implications for what female Christians become when they're resurrected. Some weird male equivalent? So now we're "all like the angels"?
Women don't go to heaven. What a silly question
All male. So no marriage, only sex.
Ha that was my thought too. Joking aside, it's actually one of the weirder anti-gay arguments from the new testament, that the reason Jesus is saying "obviously" there's no marriage in heaven is that everyone is like the angels, who are all male. So Jesus was appealing to the "absurdity" of male-male marriage.
Not the strongest argument but definitely one of the weirder ones I've heard...
Wow, haven't heard that one yet, yeah, that's pretty weird. What would even angels be male for? Oh, I'm thinking too much, this is not meant to be logical, right? Thanks for showing me another bizzare corner of religious thoughts.
There is some logic to it.. or so the thinking goes:
In the bible maleness is a God thing before it's a human thing. It's not that God chooses to be male, it's the other way round, what we call male conveys something fundamental to the reality of God that has existed for all time and independent of everything else. When God makes the first human, he's male, because he's in God's image (not that God invented maleness to create Adam, instead God's imprinting something of his eternal self onto his creation, and we call that eternal quality "male"). Likewise when the Word becomes flesh, he's male.
Stands to reason that all the other heavenly creations of God (his messengers, "angels", including the "angel of the lord" which always appears as a man) are all what we'd call male. But this isn't in a procreation sense, that's something that was given to Adam. Rather the idea is that there's something fundamentally "ideal" about the pure essence of masculinity in ancient Jewish thought.
Want a rabbit hole of apocryphal knowledge, start digging into gnosticism. It's like more internally consistent Christianity. Also depending on which flavor and particular interpretation, you could arrive at such truths as: Satan runs the church. God(old testament) is an asshole and a fool. Jesus (specifically the divine aspect Christ) is on a rescue mission to save God's mom, Sophia, from the prison world that is earth, that God made specifically to trap her. Judas is a tragic hero who has to kill his friend, Jesus, so that Christ can escape the prison world.
It's wild, it's a more interesting story than Christianity, and I can ABSOLUTELY see why most of these books were branded heresy.
my favourite misbelief is that people are already in heaven, and that hell is a 'place'.
What the bible claims will happen: second coming of Jesus happens; believers are resurrected, believers are raptured, and then war breaks out. Jesus fucks off with the angels and everyone left on Earth is "in hell" (permanently separated from God).
Everything about hell being a demonic underworld is from Dante's Divine Comedy.
Oh so we are all already in hell. Got it.
If you're an atheist: we're in hell, literally.
If you're a Christian: we're where hell will be, when Jesus comes back with cigarettes and half a bottle of bourbon.
I already suspected as much.
I love transubstantiation. It's basically mandatory to believe it to be a catholic. A lot don't understand it though. But if you find one that does, ask them to explain why it's not cannibalism.
Well, you see, Jesus is all god, but also all man. And we literally eat his flesh.
But it isn't cannibalism because ... look it just isn't, OK?
What a weird fucking question!
Try this - We're humans, but Jesus is an aasimar. Depending on what rule set he's on, he's probably something like a divine soul sorcerer, too.
Because shut up, that's why.
This is much more of a list of stuff commonly believed by Catholics, not so much by Christianity as a whole.
Purgatory aswell
https://www.britannica.com/topic/purgatory-Roman-Catholicism
Presumably Limbo too, then
Limbo for unbaptized infants is a theological opinion that has fallen out of popularity in favour of other, more merciful theories.
The seven heavens is an extension of the seven named heavens of Judaism. Islam also has seven named heavens.
There is a reference to a third heaven in the Bible and a reference of ten heavens in a book that was not included by the Council of Nicaea.
Fire and Brimstone Hell is also commonly believed, but not actually in the bible, if I recall right.
Most of the punishment around Hell in the Bible is less about Hell itself, and more about not being able to enter Heaven and join God, and all of that, as oppose to Hell itself being punishment.