Why Catholics Do Not Believe in "Soul Sleep"

I have a strong Seventh Day Adventist influence in my family. My Grandmother and Grandfather and one of my aunts and uncles are Seventh Day Adventist. My mother even went to a Adventist school for a time. My grandfather though did not convert to the Adventist faith till late in life.

Thus most of my family somehow escaped and became Southern Baptist. Despite my Grandmother's almost daily and weekly Seventh Day Adventist propaganda. My grandmother is a strong woman :). However she did all this while raising her kids baptist, as was pa pa's wish, though she surely got Adventism through the back door as much as she could.

In her latter days she did convince my Grandfather and one Aunt and Uncle as I mentioned.

One day , before my Grandmother loses her mind( a event that might be happening and is causing me grief), I need to ask how all this Adventism came into the family.

Seventh Day Adventist are real strong in parts of the country. Especially Tennessee and Georgia and other deep South States. It is also a very multi Racial affair. Lot of African Americans and now sadly Hispanics are in the movement. They are also so so so so anti Catholic. When I became a Catholic, I think my Grandmother about died. But she still loves me and I her.

Adventist are a unique much. They are very focused on the end of the world and into health and not eating meat(at least the real devout ones are). They also believe in Soul Sleep. That is when one dies that one does not go to Heaven or Hell but just there till the second coming. Sometimes this doctrine seeps into other Christian faiths as well. Oh a word on Hell. Seventh Day Adventist are unique among Conservative "Protestants" in that they believe that the non saved will not suffer eternal torment in hell, but instead will be permanently destroyed

Anyway David Armstrong has a good piece here on why Soul Sleep is a much of balderdash here.

See his update here that goes into the reformers views.