How practical are the very popular depictions of heaven or paradise by some of our major religions? Aren't the popular promises of the hereafter not merely wishful thinking arising from an immediate need or longing for more pleasant conditions in life?

One of the activities that kept my little friends and myself entertained when I was a lad of about ten, was to drill a small hole through a corn kernel and tying it to a thin string. The kernel was then fed to the neighbour's chickens who came running to peck it up. Once they had swallowed it, the string would be gently tugged, and back came the kernel. Of course after we had cheated the chickens for the fifth or sixth time, there was no more fun to be had. The next item on the list was to raid the huge bag of candy 'hidden' in the wardrobe of my friend's father. This was a rather major adventure because the bag which was nearly as tall as we were at the time, was supposed to be off-limits. For me, more so because I would have the opportunity of entering a house made of corrugated steel sheets. Our own house was built with bricks but the neighbour's was still from a previous era, and it fascinated me endlessly but without judgement or prejudice .

As one entered through the door of the the 'forbidden' bedroom, a picture greeted one, of the broad and narrow road leading to hell and heaven respectively. It was hung over the huge double bed. "Fascinating," I remember thinking, "why would it be made so easy for a human person to follow the path to the obviously painful, inferno-like underworld; full of demons, fire, darkness and fiery redness." There were a good number of happy, dancing figures on this wide path. The other, narrower path, only had two bent-over and sickly looking figures, leaning on walking sticks, obviously having difficulties reaching the pretty picture beyond the end of that narrow winding path.

Although I have seen similar pictures again and again in later years, that first one, in that dark gloomy bedroom with the large candy bag, left a lasting impression. It never made sense, and for nearly two decades I felt, not the fear of god, but the irrationality of what the concept of god represented in the minds of men.

It is my earnest wish for every person's vision and wish for a paradise be granted - and why not? I extend this wish to all living beings in the animal world and possibly elsewhere. However, some of the believed nature of what paradise or heaven is like, is totally incomprehensible and difficult to conceptualize. Frequently it seems that people have a momentary vision of a peaceful or blissful place or state, of which they make a polaroid picture in their minds. And that's it: a single heavenly moment fixed in the mind of man - presto, by extension we have a heaven - In Perpetuam! It seems that little thought is given whether such conjectures actually make everlasting sense. Neither is it ever considered if others would find such a personalized heaven at all attractive or even useful.

The first of my two examples is a Christian version on a booklet that I was once presented with. It is a serene, picturesque tableau of a lion lying in a field with a lamb and some children playing next to the lion. In the background are sunny mountains and a bright, shining sun.  Of course, that is a blissful scene, one that most of us perhaps have envisioned at some time or other. But the picture raises more questions than I can raise in these pages. Well, just one or two then?

Let's assume you arrive in the mentioned paradise today. Nobody has yet given an indication if there would be a day and night cycle in heaven. Personally, I can't see the need for a night-time. Thus we'll have one single, long, unending, humongous day and the whole day will be spent with the lions with very large, but now obsolete teeth, lambs and other animals, and assumingly many children. Everybody loving everybody. One moment though, those little children - where do they come from. Oh, I suppose from those people spending so much time together during a single, very long nightless day. Fornication takes place, in other words. That means different sexes and yes, you've guessed it hormones... Calvin would turn in his grave!

Alternatively, we will have nights to break the monotony of the long day, and although that would provide sufficient cover for the continued quest for heavenly orgasms, it would also imply that there is some kind of sun that rises and goes under at regular intervals. Well, perhaps we may as well stay where we are, I suppose.

Of course there are also descriptions of buildings made of gemstones, gold and silver, etc. One just wonders if these characteristics of paradise are no more than our hopeful conceptualizations of temporal bliss during our life-time on this planet?

Another paradise is an Islamic one, and one which I rather preferred during my somewhat younger and testosterone-ridden years. This version of heaven is also shared by some Eastern religions, and I wonder if there are separate paradises for each nation.

According to some Islamic groups, martyrs go to heaven where they will be greeted by either 70 or 73 virgins (depending on the version). Female virgins seem to loose out as there is seemingly no provision for them. Before we do the figures, one has to keep in mind that, while alive, females are not very highly thought of, and seem to be merely here to entice the young men to participate in lustful acts. So when the boys arrive in paradise the task of the ladies is just that: boundless lust. What happens to female martyrs is not clear though - 70/73 virgin males, perhaps?

According to internet sources there are about 1.5 billion Muslims on the planet and we can perhaps assume that there are therefore about 700 million Muslim men. For argument sake we could pair that figure down to allow for cowards, gays, the elderly, and other non-viral young men. Let's assume there will be 50 million healthy, full-blooded males that end up in paradise. That means that a whopping 350 million virgins would have to be made available each day in the case of the day-night version. If there is no night-time then the whole thing becomes even less romantic, and somewhat peculiar. It would mean that, after every lustful session, the unclean babes becomes virgins again by some kind of miracle, and ends back in the line of 70/73 virgin queue.

Perhaps realizing the impracticality of enticing souls with a preconceived notion of heaven or paradise, a good many modern day spiritual groups ignore it completely. Perhaps they have found it more gratifying to wallow in the pleasures of immediate  power and control over their followers. This gives more meaning to the words: heaven is where you find it.