By Debbie Olujobi

Almost all religions embrace the concept of an afterlife, a continuation of existence on a spiritual realm when the physical life comes to an end. Most propound that life (how well we live it) is an examination that leads to an afterlife in hell or paradise/heaven. The human imagination is beyond comparison in imagery and we all have graphic ideas of heaven and hell. What we imagine paradise to be, I believe is a culmination of all our desires, our fantasies, and even needs.

In the same vein, hell is all our nightmares raised to the power of 100!! Most images of hell feature fire, an unquenchable thirst, torture and everlasting angst! Atheists don’t believe in religion, if any thing they consider religion the source of all evil. Atheists will tell you that an afterlife in heaven and hell are just theories used to control behaviour and keep man in check. They say those who believe in heaven, hell or even God are weak, that they have small minds and can’t grasp that man is all powerful and that this existence is all there is! Atheists say life is what you make it and that hell and heaven are right here on earth.

There is a universal longing for Utopia; a state of contented existence. That sums up paradise or heaven. Whether you believe in God or not, in an after life, in heaven or hell, we all have a yearning to be content. Some call it a state of abundance. The billion dollar question is defining contentment or abundance.

The streets of heaven according to the bible are paved with gold but Saddam Hussein and Mohamed Gaddafi had gold guns, gold bathrooms and gold toilets which did not seem to make them that happy. If it was an abundance of pretty women, King Solomon should have been deliriously happy in his paradise of 700 wives and 300 concubines but he seemed tortured in his musings half the time! Most of us would love to be rich and live in financial abundance but there are a lot of desperately unhappy rich people.

A few decades ago, growing up in what can at best be called poverty, the life I have now seemed like paradise. Most of the fantasies and dreams of those days have come true and while I am extremely thankful to God for exceptional grace and favour, I wouldn’t say I live in paradise.

I am currently battling malaria in my big house, same as I used to in the very small one. I have days of abject misery, same as I did in the past. I have grown in faith yet my yearning to live in a state of bliss is even more intense.

The responsibility to make our own happiness is the burden that fuels the longing for paradise. The choices we make over time have consequences that determine individual and corporate happiness and most of us are victims of fate! The decisions parents take often have lasting consequences for their children, same as a husband’s can affect the happiness of the wife. Managing our personal expectations and that of our families and even the larger society is why religion has so much power. We relinquish the responsibility of our happiness to a Higher power, to God.

We live by a set of rules and doctrines that find general acceptance and leave the rest to fate or God. Atheism presupposes that most people embrace religion because their lives have failed, and that desperation and frustration is what leads them to the fantasy of God. Without the element of faith, one could say God is a fantasy, that heaven itself doesn’t exist.

The element of faith is where in my opinion the atheists get it wrong, because life as we all know it is impossible without faith. Faith in this context is the entitled expectation that there is always a cause and effect. Faith comes into every aspect of life because we can live without the small and great expectations. Opening the tap is faith that water will come out, going to sleep is faith that you will wake up.

I was initially going to title the column “A fool’s paradise”. My mind had been fixated on perception and how wrong it can sometimes be. Living in a fool’s paradise means believing things that aren’t true, a reality based on fiction. Its like thinking you have a perfect marriage for many years and discovering the beautiful and devoted wife was a promiscuous adulterer after she dies! One may have been fooled but it was a paradise all the same as contentment and happiness were present. I respect the belief anyone embraces but I am not an atheist.

I hold the opinion that atheists are disillusioned and disenfranchised by a previous religion and as such become content with their discontent! I believe in better!! I believe things can always be better, that I can be better. I believe in heaven and even in hell, I believe my utopia is that place where I stop yearning for more things but can fully inhabit my moments. I believe a state of intimate communion with my maker will fill the void that material acquisitions, fame and fortune cannot fill! Is it a fantasy? Not to me, my faith is sure that there is a God who delights in me; who loves me in spite of me, who I get to spend eternity with.

That is the paradise I seek, the communion between the creator and the created, intimate, warm, loving. Does that make me weak? Maybe! Could my faith have been generated as a coping mechanism to deal with harsh realities? Maybe. Is there a possibility that I will find that this life is all there is? To quote my atheist friend, “could you be living the ultimate fool’s paradise?” Maybe. But since I am happy and content with my expectation, who is to say this in itself is not paradise?