No.5
What sort of heresy would it be to see Heaven as the world of ideas, and not a physical place? There is something about the way one is spoken of after their death, where they are here but not here. Evidence and experience of them is still here, but they themselves can no longer be the cause of anything. I find it fascinating that the living can be moved by the dead, or moved by the ideas of the dead. After death, the living gather to share ideas and memories of the dead, and to learn about the dead. That is the "after life", isn't it?
As for the belief of Mary being assumed into heaven, and Jesus ascending into heaven: I don't understand. What is the difference between one's soul entering into heaven (the hope for most of us), and one's body *and* soul entering into heaven (as for Mary and Jesus)? Does a heavenly body allow one to interceed in earthly affairs, "from" heaven? But people pray for the intercession of the saints, and I don't think their – well, apparently saints do have a heavenly body, or are joined in the body of Christ. As for the notion of "praying to living saints"…. it's interesting. I suppose that is the realm of the miraculous, where a heavenly body does create an effect on earth, where my naive belief would be that only an earthly body would be able to effect something, having itself been affected by the ideas of a saint or some other being not physically present here on earth.
