The issue has further outworkings in terms of what we believe about the state of people who have died until the resurrection of the dead. There is a conflict here between protestant and catholic. The Catholic understanding is that they are in heaven (or hell) and conscious and therefore able to pray to God about what is happening on earth - thus the whole 'Mary pray for us' thing. By contrast there is a strand of protestantism that argues that when Paul speaks of sleep he means it literally - i.e. a period of no consciousness pending the final judgement. The advantage of this is that it removes the question of how the decision as to whether the person is in heaven or hell is made before the final judgement... The waters are somewhat muddied by two passages from the gospels: the first is Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16 v19f) where Jesus suggests that Abraham, Lazarus and the rich man are talking in the present, whilst the second is Jesus' word from the cross promising the penitent thief that he will be with him in paradise 'today'. This one can be finessed by arguing that Jesus meant that he was saying it to him 'today' - i.e. when I am the cross with you rather than saying that it will be today. The other biblical passage that challenges this is the 'Harrowing of Hades' in 1 Peter 3 v 19 which can be interpreted to have Jesus descend to the 'place of the dead' and announce his victory over sin, thus enabling the righteous souls of the past to ascend with him to heaven. Of course protestants have an alternative interpretation...

At the risk of extending this forever: there are only two people who are bodily taken into 'heaven' in the Old Testament, Enoch and Elijah. Yet at the transfiguration it is Moses and Elijah who are talking to Jesus, despite Moses' having died and been buried.

The conclusion for me after all this is that we are, eventually, resurrected into a body; we don't continue as disembodied spirits. We will then live on 'a new earth'. I think this is important: it emphasises that the body is fundamentally good, not something we should treat with contempt as being inherently evil - a strong tendency in church teaching. Rather we are free to enjoy the 'pleasures of the flesh' as long as this is done appropriately - i.e. not against how God tells us to. Which means for me as a BL that it is legitimate for me to look at a boy and enjoy his beauty as a gift from God, whilst (trying to) not drift over into seeing him as an object of lust. Not an easy balancing trick, though one that I find best achieved by consciously turning the energy of my appreciation into immediate prayer of thanksgiving to God for his beauty.

Which leaves open the questions as to whether there are boys on the new earth and whether we still appreciate them as we do now... To which the answer to the pre-teen asking about whether he can eat chocolate when having sex (when he's old enough) seems appropriate... it's unlikely you'll be interested in doing so because it will all be so more wonderful than you can understand now!

PS it is the Sadducees who said there is no resurrection - see Mt 22:23. ;)