ABC TV looks at Heaven
December 10, 2005
NEW YORK (ANS)
-- An upcoming ABC TV special promises to take an in depth look at the
subject of heaven. The program will air on
Tues. Dec. 20 from 9.00-11.00 p.m. on the ABC Television Network It will also be
released on DVD through www.ABCNEWS.com
with extended interviews and bonus features.
Anchored by Barbara Walters, and titled “Heaven. Where Is It? How Do We Get
There?” a news release from ABC says the program will explore the meaning of
heaven with religious leaders of the major faiths, scientists, people who say
they believe in heaven because they’ve been there, and celebrities who are
vocal about their beliefs. Show producers even talk with terrorists.
According to the news release, Walters takes viewers on a journey around the
world – to India, Israel and throughout the United States. She interviews
people of different religious and scientific beliefs, each with strong opinions
about the afterlife. They discuss their visions of heaven, what happens to the
body, and why it is important to believe in heaven.
Cardinal Theodore McCerrick, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, says in the
program, the news release states, that the purpose of life “is to come to the
end of your life at peace with the Lord so that you may find an eternal
happiness in heaven…This life is not what we’re made for. We’re made for
heaven. We’re made for the future.”
A Jewish rabbi comments in the show, “The purpose of life is to live a decent
life… and that you do it for its own sake, not for getting a reward.” Rabbi
Neil Gilman from the New York Jewish Theological Seminary adds, “There is a
tremendous emphasis in our tradition about what you do with yourself in your
lifetime here on earth.”
Reverend Calvin Butts, Pastor of New York’s famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem, who says he has seen heaven, tells Walters in the show, the news release
states, that heaven is “eternal joy and happiness because you are at one with
God.”
Walters traveled to the Himalayan Mountains to visit the mystical home of a
self-described reincarnated Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who says, the
ABC news release states, that the purpose of life is to be happy, and that you
can accomplish that by “warm heartedness.”
He says heaven “is the best place to further develop the spiritual practice…
for Buddhists the final goal is not just to reach there, but to become Buddha.
(It’s) not the end,” and he tells Walters that you can come back as an
animal. “If someone do very bad, badly… kill or steal… could be born in an
animal body.”
Walters also talks to longtime Buddhist actor Richard Gere, who says, “I
don’t think necessarily heaven and hell happen in some other life. I think
it’s right now.”
The promise of heaven plays a central role in the lives of the National
Association of Evangelicals President Pastor Ted Haggard, and all other born
again Christians. They believe the Bible states that if you are not a born again
Christian, you have no assurance of going to heaven.
Haggard says, the news release states, that “Jesus Christ guarantees eternal
life to anybody that’ll follow him… The purpose of life is to glorify God
and go to heaven… ’cause heaven is our home.”
Atheists are also given their say in the special program. “No, heaven
doesn’t exist, hell doesn’t exist. We weren’t alive before we were born,
and we’re not going to exist after we die. I’m not happy about the fact that
that’s the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more fulfilling
now, because this is the only chance I have,” says Ellen Johnson, president of
the American Atheists Society.
Islamic scholar Feisal Abdul Rauf says there is sex in heaven. He comments in
the show, the news release states, that “The real life is the next life… and
based upon how we live this life, it determines where we shall be in the next.
We are told we will be in comfortable homes, reclining on silk couches… so
we’re given the delights of sex, the delights of wine, the delights of food
with all of their positive things without their negative aspects.”
Terrorists are also given the opportunity to speak. According to the news
release, Jihad Jarrar, of Islamic Jihad, who is incarcerated in an Israeli
prison for a failed suicide bombing, tells Walters that only Muslims will go to
heaven and “the reason I chose a martyrdom operation” was to spend an
eternity in paradise. He says he was taught that “everything good is in the
garden in paradise,” and that “the lord promised the martyr who lost his
life and lost the world on earth, that he promised him these 72 women in
paradise as honor, as respect for him.”
The special also explores the science of heaven, asking why faith comes easily
to some and eludes others.
As part of the show, Walters talks to expert Dr. Dean Hamer, author of “The
God Gene,” and a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health. She asks if
there is really a “God gene” that affects people’s level of spirituality.
The special also looks at studies of the brain itself, to see if it undergoes
unusual changes when someone is deeply involved in spiritual experiences. These
studies are done by Dr. Andrew Newberg, a radiologist at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Walters also examines the phenomenon of the near-death experience, and asks what
happens when you journey to the other side of death and back.
British psychologist Dr. Susan Blackmore, who has spent decades searching for a
scientific explanation, says in the show, “When the oxygen levels fall in the
brain…you get massive over-activity in the brain… I think there is a true
transformation, but not because you’ve been to heaven.”
Dr. Diane Morrissey says in the show, the news release states, that she saw the
“white light of god” when she was electrocuted. “My near death experience
changed everything about me… there is not a single experience on earth that
could ever be as good as being dead.”
Walters also looks at how you tell children what happens to their loved ones
when they die and whom you see when you arrive in heaven. She talks to such
people as Maria Shriver, author of a children’s book on heaven, and Mitch
Albom, author of “The Five People You Meet in Heaven,” for their take on the
afterlife.
SOURCE: Assist News Service