Barbara Walters takes viewers to Heaven
From Barry Garron

LOS ANGELES—A priest, a minister and a rabbi sit down for an interview with Barbara Walters. The start of a joke? No, just part of Walters’ two-hour special on heaven. And — spoiler alert — when the two hours are over, the title notwithstanding, you’re not likely to find out where it is and how to get there.
What you are likely to learn from this ABC News production, if you didn’t know already, is that religious leaders have not only the sketchiest of notions as to what heaven is but also contradictory ideas of what goes on there. Cardinal Theodore E. McCerrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C., says there’s no sex in heaven. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, an Islamic scholar, says there’s plenty of sex there — and with virgins, no less. He’s kind of vague on where the virgins come from, though.
That there is so little agreement about heaven might suggest that most of us have been making it up as we go along. Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists, says as much. If we really believe heaven is that great, she says, we’d be busy hanging ourselves to get there. It’s a point the others don’t address, except for the would-be suicide bomber now serving 24 years in an Israeli prison. His goal was despicable but there’s no denying he believes in a better afterlife.
Added to the mix of interviews are a sprinkling of celebrities and people whose near-death experiences make them experts on the subject. But then, the nice thing about heaven is that everyone’s an expert.