Who Goes to Heaven? 

A real good question with probably a variety of answers, none of which are probably correct.

Somewhere in the Holy Bible I seem to recall that it says that only 144,000 souls will ever get to heaven.  That is not a very large number when one considers that there are now over 6,000,000,000 people on the planet, and perhaps additional populations of people on other planets that we on Earth do not yet know about.  The 6 billion or so only include those alive at this time (2008) and do not include all those who have died since the beginning of time.  At least several additional billions of people have already died.  Perhaps Heaven is already filled with the 144,000 from those who have already died.  Does that mean the there is no room left for the rest of us?

I have heard that the 144,000 may not be the correct number and that it was only used to indicate a large number of people.  This has been told to me by various Catholic Priests, and by others.  Who gave them the authority to interpret the Holy Bible?  If this is true then how much of the rest of the Holy Bible does not mean what it says?

How does one know which statements in the Holy Bible are correct and which ones mean something else?  Who gets to say what is 'correct' in the Holy Bible.  If it is the priests then they must be hiding knowledge from the rest of the people. How do they know what is correct?

Christians seem to think that only Christians will get to Heaven. Muslims seem to think that only Muslims will get to go be with God whom they call Allah.

I, the author of this site, have been told by two Catholic Priests that I cannot get to Heaven because I am not a member of the Catholic Church.  Since only about 1/6 of the population, or about 1,000,000,000, is a member of the Catholic Church then all those who get to Heaven must come from that group, if one agrees with the view of these Catholic Priests.  Even if all 144,000 residents of Heaven can come only from the Catholics then only 1 of every 6944 Catholics alive now could ever get to Heaven.  This would mean that most of the Catholic Priests will not even be able to get into Heaven.  There is not much hope for any of us to be 'saved'.

Something to think about!