Barbara walters where is heaven

There are religions that are very restrictive or judgmental, perhaps, that say, if you do not believe in our faith, you don't go to heaven. This is very compelling, but it's restrictive. We asked the cardinal if there was sex in heaven, and he said that was one of the questions asked of the Lord. But for Muslims, everything that they don't have on earth is what they get in heaven. They can drink, they can have sex. All of the forbidden pleasures on earth, you can have in paradise. All of the religions--with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism, which doesn't believe in a heaven--teach that heaven is a better place.

At the end of the program, I say that heaven is a place where you are happy. All of the religions have that in common.

Had you thought much about heaven in your personal life before doing this show? I think everybody wonders, is there life after death?

Recently, when I've been at dinners, I've gone around the table and said, "How many of you believe in life after death? Sometimes you'll find that husbands and wives disagree.

What I feel more and more is how important it is to live your life in a better way, and not to worry about it. What happens will happen. That's similar to what the actor Richard Gere tells you on the program. He has been a Tibetan Buddhist since he was in his 20s. He tries to live his life to be helpful, which is why the Buddhist philosophy is very appealing to people.

It is a philosophy that teaches compassion. We took a little trip after [interviewing the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala] around India for a couple of days. For about three days, I was a wonderful person.

Then on the fourth day, I began to yell at my producer. We should have taken this picture! Were you taught anything about the afterlife when you were growing up? No, it's not something that was discussed. I didn't have a very religious family. So this was an education for me. What was the most surprising thing you learned about heaven from the people you interviewed?

I wouldn't use the word surprising; I was educated. I was inspired by the people who devote their life to their religion, in each case, whether you agree with them or not, trying to do good. I found talking to the young failed suicide bomber the most unsettling and depressing--that there could be that much hatred and ignorance. Some of it I found very funny, and charming, like when the cardinal [McCarrick] told me that when he goes to heaven, he hopes he gets his hair back.

I've done years and years of specials, but I care more about this one than anything I've ever done. I think there's a great need and a great soul-searching in this country. Returning to the failed suicide bomber you interviewed--what was it like to talk to him? The Israeli government allowed us to enter a high-security Israeli prison and interview a suicide bomber who didn't make it. To go into that prison, when we finally got permission, and to sit across the desk from him, and to speak to him, and hearing him tell me that as a non-Muslim, I would not go to heaven and that I would go to hell, was a very moving and very frightening and very sad experience.

A similar thing happened with Ted Haggard, an evangelical pastor, who said because you were not a born-again Christian, he couldn't say for certain if you were going to go to heaven. How did it make you feel to be told that you weren't guaranteed a place in heaven? Well, since I never thought that I was, it didn't depress me too much.

And I really do believe that the most important thing is the way you live your life on earth. Expand the sub menu What to Hear. Expand the sub menu Digital. Expand the sub menu Theater. Expand the sub menu VIP. Expand the sub menu More Coverage. Expand the sub menu More Variety. Switch edition between U. Asia Global. To help keep your account secure, please log-in again. You are no longer onsite at your organization. And those chemicals affect how consciousness works.

They affect the way that our feelings react to the events around us," he says. Hamer also notes that researchers have been able to detect changes in the brain when people are in the midst of intense prayer or meditation. Andrew Newberg, a neuroradiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of those researchers. Newberg says his research shows a marked increase in activity in the frontal regions of the brain while people meditate.

Newberg says this contributes to an individual's feeling of "losing that sense of self. And then they feel that God is providing them that energy, that feeling. But for Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists, science or no science, heaven is a myth. 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," she says. Walters also talks with people who feel certain of heaven's existence, apart from their faith, because they believe they've had a glimpse of it in near-death experiences. Dianne Morrissey tells Walters she felt the "white light of God" when she was electrocuted.

British psychologist Susan Blackmore has spent decades searching for a scientific explanation. Walters talks with California's first lady, Maria Shriver, whose early experiences with loss as a member of the Kennedy family prompted her to write a book about heaven for children. Where does she go now? Is she scared in the box? Can she breathe in the box? So I started writing down her answers.

Albom tells Walters, "There's one thing I would say about heaven. If you believe that there's a heaven, your life here on Earth here is different. You may believe that you're gonna see your loved ones again.

So the grief that you had after they're gone isn't as strong. You may believe that you'll have to answer for your actions. So the way you behave here on Earth is changed. So in a certain way, just believing in the idea of heaven is heavenly in and of itself," he says. We'll notify you here with news about.