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A Trouble-Free Paradise—Just a Dream?

“IT’S so peaceful!” The view from the pine forest above Redfish Lake in the state of Idaho, U.S.A., was indeed serene. “It’s just how I imagine paradise to be,” the traveler said.

The sun shone brilliantly on the southern coast of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Waves gently lapped the beach. Seated at a clifftop restaurant overlooking this vista, the visitor exclaimed: “This is paradise!”

Many of us treasure memories of scenes like these. But residents realize that paradisaic surroundings often belie the harsh realities of everyday life: forest fires on the wooded foothills of the Rocky Mountains, pollution of the sea that affects fish and eventually humans—to say nothing of life-threatening international and intercommunal conflicts.

Paradise—What Is It?

How do you picture paradise? The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary offers as its first definition: “The garden of Eden described in Gen[esis] 2, 3.” This refers to the description in the first book of the Bible of the region where God settled the first man, Adam. In that original Paradise, trees “desirable to one’s sight and good for food” grew in abundance.—Genesis 2:9.

The second definition of that dictionary entry links “paradise” with “Heaven, in Christian and Muslim theology” but then adds: “Now chiefly poet[ical].” To our traveler and visitor, however, paradise was “a region of surpassing beauty or delight,” the third of the dictionary definitions.

The 16th-century British statesman Sir Thomas More wrote a book entitled Utopia in which he described an imaginary country where laws, government, and social conditions were perfect. So unreal did it seem that today Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary offers one definition of “Utopia” as “an impractical scheme for social improvement.”

To the followers of the People’s Temple sect leader Jim Jones, Utopia was a clearing in the jungle of Guyana. Sadly, in 1978 this hoped-for paradise became the scene of death for more than 900 of them—a nightmare indeed! As a result, people sometimes link the concept of paradise with strange sects whose practices shock and disturb.

In a world where crime and violence threaten, where disease stalks adults and children alike, and where hatred and religious differences divide communities, beautiful surroundings are often no more than a simple veneer. No wonder that people think paradise is nothing more than a dream! But this has not stopped some people from attempting to find or even make paradise for themselves. How successful have they been?