Who can forget 9/11, 2001? What a horrible day it was. We all watched, transfixed as the horror unfolded, as we watched the destruction of the twin towers, the attack on the pentagon, and the crash of flight 93. The hardest part of it was trying to understand why these people did what they did. It made no sense that a man who was sane enough to learn to fly an airplane could be insane enough to crash it into a building, killing himself as well as hundreds of others.
As the drama unfolded, we began to understand something of their motivations. They were driven by religious fanaticism. Some people will kill for politics, but they will die for religion. When a person believes in an afterlife of heaven, they will be willing to give their lives for it.
As more came out about these men who performed this unspeakable act in Allah's name, it became obvious that they had come to believe in a very worldly vision of that afterlife. They were like the famous Hashishim (assassins) of the Crusader period, who were brainwashed by their fanatical leader into believing in a literal, worldly afterlife of eternal gluttony and sexual depravity, a place where they would each receive seventy virgin brides.
Seventy virgins. If it weren't so serious it would be funny. I should think that if such a place existed it would not be heaven for terrorists but hell for virgins. Imagine seventy eternally young women being left with a one scruffy old man for company! Imagine that these women never aged, either physically or mentally, but remained perpetual teenagers forever.
I have never had seventy virgin wives, but I have lived with three teenaged daughters at the same time. If that is someone's view of heaven, I would rather skip it. Imagine the mood swings, the petty jealousies, the competition for attention they would go through, and you in the middle, trying to please them. Imagine the headaches when your virgins find out that Achmed next door has a charge account at the heavenly mall, and Achmed's virgins can buy whatever they want. Imagine the time they would spend primping and preening. Seventy virgins would have to come equipped with at least seventy one-golden bathrooms.
Speaking of bathrooms, what about that one long, continual feast? There are very few things I could eat for all eternity without getting tired of them. Would they be immune to obesity and to indigestion? Would they ever complain of having the some old thing day after day for a thousand years? We can even grow tired of steak and pizza.
There is a universal principle in life that says once a worldly pleasure has been experienced, it is never quite as good the second time. Pleasure is in newness and discovery. Even seventy virgins bearing grape clusters in their hands will eventually get a little bit old in a century or two.
It seems to me that those terrorists, even if they got their reward, in time would grow to resent it.
Or suppose they did not receive seventy virgins. Suppose they received one virgin, a beautiful young bride who never grew old. It sounds good, buy how long would it stay good? Not long, After a while, no matter how attractive the woman may be, you would want to engage in some good conversation. Unfortunately that is not what servile young virgins are usually about.
There is an old joke about a rich man who went to heaven. He complained to St Peter at the gate that it was unfair he could not bring any of his riches with him. St. Peter relented and declared that just this once, he could bring something he owned on earth into heaven. The man quickly returned to earth, opened his secret vault, and filled his robe with gold bars. He returned to the pearly gates, where Peter asked him what he was bringing through customs. The man showed him the gold bars.
St Peter laughed. "Foolish man," he said. "You could bring anything you wanted from earth, and all you brought were paving bricks!"
There is no end to our foolishness when it comes to heaven. What we think is so valuable here is worth nothing there. What is worth nothing here is unbelievably valuable there. Our foolishness is in trying to lay up worldly treasures in heavenly places--whether it be paving bricks or seventy virgins--when what they have in heaven is so much better.
