Return to Answer

I.

It is self-evident, unless one wishes to twist the quoted text at will and whim, based on their doctrinal-ideological agenda, making a totally inadmissible eisegesis: because it is clearly written in Rev.6:11 that those persons are given to each white robes and they are asked to 'rest for a while', ἀναπαύσονται, until the others would also die just like them. That is to say, when they rise their voices, they are already out of their bodies, and are given the white robes, the sign of their dignity, not of their annihilation, and asked to be at rest until fulfillment of time when all will suffer the same as they have suffered, i.e. death, that again means that they rise voice after that fact, i.e. the fact of death. Then why have we to quibble any longer whether they are alive/conscious or have disappeared with death? Nobody who disappears is given white robe, is soothed by a command to be reposed etc.

Below I shall give a history of the issue with some lucid arguments for repelling of heretical and soul-damaging and gloom-creating unbiblical ideas.

I.

Yes, 100%.

And, moreover, what is that what survives a bodily death in humans? Of course, the intelligent soul and the very core-personality of this human, the un-decaying inwardness that is not reducible to body (2 Cor. 4:16) or the "inner man" (Romans 7:22-23). Now, this intelligent essence surviving biological death is or is not of the same essence as that of angels? Yes, it is, for angels are also created bodiless intelligent essences. Now, do or can angels sleep? No, they do not and cannot sleep. The same with the souls of the deceased saints! If even in this life a good and devote ascetic monk reduces hours of his sleep, i.e. the bodily necessity, sometimes to even to two hours per 24hrs (like e.g. st Shio of the Cave who did this feat for 15 years) in order to pray without interruption, then when bodily necessity is out of picture at the physical death of this person, then what will hinder him praying incessantly like angels do? Besides being ontologically wrong, also how rustic and graceless, lacking all taste and entirely non-elegant is to think about God putting to a sleep an ardent soul of a deceased saint whose only desire was to engage in as intense communication and prayer with God as possible while in this life!

Yes, 100% - they are the persons (souls, spirits) of the passed away saints, who await for the final resurrection in the End of History, and in this interim state between their physical death and the final resurrection, are alive, conscious and most intensively awake ardently praying to God.

And, moreover, what is that what survives a bodily death in humans? Of course, the intelligent soul and the very core-personality of this human, the un-decaying inwardness that is not reducible to body (2 Cor. 4:16) or the "inner man" (Romans 7:22-23). Now, this intelligent essence surviving biological death is or is not of the same essence as that of angels? Yes, it is, for angels are also created bodiless intelligent essences. Now, do or can angels sleep? No, they do not and cannot sleep. The same with the souls of the deceased saints! If even in this life a good and devote ascetic monk reduces hours of his sleep, i.e. the bodily necessity, sometimes to even to two hours per 24hrs (like e.g. st Shio of the Cave who did this feat for 15 years) in order to pray without interruption, then when bodily necessity is out of picture at the physical death of this person, then what will hinder him praying incessantly like angels do? Besides being ontologically wrong and heretical, also how rustic and graceless, lacking all taste and entirely inellegant is to think about God putting to a sleep an ardent soul of a deceased saint whose only desire was to engage in as intense communication and prayer with God as possible while in this life!

Wrongness of the heresy of "thnetophsychism" (a 6th century Byzantine heresy claiming that souls die together with bodies)

Wrongness of the heresy of "thnetophsychism" (an old heresy, officially condemned in Byzantium in 6th century, claiming that souls die together with bodies)