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?

The Search for a Trouble-Free Paradise

ALL we want to do is create a safe and perhaps old-fashioned lifestyle where people care for each other,” explained one British couple. They decided to seek out a tropical island paradise and there establish a community that would live peacefully together. You can no doubt understand their feelings. Who would not jump at the chance to live in a trouble-free paradise?

Is Isolation the Answer?

The idea of living on an island appeals to many paradise seekers, for the isolation offers a measure of security. Some choose islands off the Pacific Coast of Panama or islands in the Caribbean, such as those off Belize. Others turn their attention to idyllic locations in the Indian Ocean—the Seychelles, for example.

The logistics of establishing an isolated community stagger the imagination. Even if enough money is available, existing government legislation may restrict a quick land purchase. But suppose the ideal tropical island could be obtained, would you be happy there? Would your paradise be trouble free?

The remote islands around the coast of Britain now house a growing population. Their new inhabitants are mainly people seeking solitude and peace. One man who lives alone on the 250-acre [100 ha] island of Eorsa, off the west coast of Scotland, claims that he never feels lonely because he has so much to do caring for his flock of one hundred sheep. Others who have sought the seclusion of an island quickly become lonely. Some have reportedly attempted suicide and needed rescue.

Many people believe that an idyllic tropical isle would be paradise. Living in a balmy climate with few weather extremes appeals to them. But concern over possible global warming and a consequent rise in the sea level has caused alarm among many islanders. The inhabitants of the low-lying atolls that make up the territory of Tokelau in the Western Pacific as well as those of the scattered Maldives in the Indian Ocean, islands that rise no more than six feet above sea level at high tide, feel likewise threatened.

Nearly 40 different governments have joined together in the Small Island Developing States federation to lobby support for their plight. Though the inhabitants of small islands generally have a long life expectancy and their infant mortality is low, they continue to face serious environmental problems. Oil slicks and dirty seas undermine the economies of some islands. Others become the dumping grounds for toxic waste that larger nations wish to discard.

Even the islands’ very desirability as havens for paradise seekers poses a threat. How? Tourists who flock to the islands’ sunny shores cause serious overcrowding and depletion of meager resources. These visitors also aggravate the pollution problem. In the Caribbean, for example, only one tenth of the sewage produced by the 20 million visitors each year receives any kind of treatment.

Something similar occurs in other exotic locations. Take the case of Goa on the western coast of India. “Mass tourism ‘is poisoning a paradise,’” declared London’s Independent on Sunday. Official estimates show an increase from 10,000 tourists in 1972 to over a million in the early ’90’s. One group warns that Goa’s fragile ecology and unique culture are threatened by the greed of hotel owners eager to cash in on the influx of tourists. An Indian government report confirms that some hotels have illegally sprung up on the beach. Sand has been quarried, trees felled, and dunes leveled. Sewage is discharged onto the beach or leaks into nearby paddies, spreading contamination.

Crime Free?

The creeping inroads of crime tarnish the reputation of even the most peaceful of areas. From the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda comes a report headlined “Slaughter in Paradise.” This detailed the grisly murders of four people aboard a luxury yacht that moored off the island’s coast. Incidents such as this heighten concern over the spread of crime throughout the region.

“Drugs Trigger Gang Wars in ‘Paradise’” headlined a report in The Sunday Times of London regarding one Central American country. A local editor bewailed the fact that peace had gone, commenting: “Now it’s common to wake up in the morning to find a 16-year-old kid lying in a pool of blood in the street.”

Those who aim to live in community paradise hope to appeal to people who will agree to live peaceably. But what is the reality? Disagreements quickly surfaced in the case of the British couple mentioned at the outset. Some of the applicants to join their venture clearly wished to make money out of the scheme. “We don’t want leaders,” declared the promoter. “The idea is to pool our resources to get everything moving. I call it a Utopian community.” This is by no means the first such project.—See the box “Paradise Community Experiments.”

Some other paradise seekers believe that they will achieve their goal by winning a lottery. But financial gain achieved in this way rarely brings happiness. In February 1995, The Sunday Times reported that the family of Britain’s biggest lottery winner to date suffered bitter infighting; winning brought them nothing but “resentment, feuding and disillusionment.” This is not unusual in such situations.

In a study of man’s quest for Utopia, journalist Bernard Levin comments on the “dream of instant riches,” and asserts: “Like so many dreams, nightmare is not far away. There are too many authenticated stories of instant riches leading to utter disaster (including suicides) to reject them as coincidence.”

What About Doomsday Sects?

Other paradise schemes have had more sinister overtones. Reporting the siege by government law-enforcement agents at Waco, Texas, on the compound of the Branch Davidians back in 1993, a newspaper commented on the “volatile mix of guns, mind control and a doomsday prophet” that led to the debacle. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.

The followers of the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an Indian spiritual leader, set up a community in Oregon but offended the moral sensibilities of their neighbors. Their leader’s opulence and the sexual experimentation they practiced undermined their claim to have established “a beautiful oasis.”

Many cults led by people with paradise hopes demand that their followers practice strange rites, which sometimes result in violent confrontations. Newspaper columnist Ian Brodie explains: “Cults offer a sanctuary and a structured society for those who feel they are living in a vacuum or who cannot cope with pressures of the real world.” Nevertheless, his words testify to the fact that many people would welcome living in a paradise.

A Paradise Free From Trouble

The list of troubles seems endless: pollution, crime, drug abuse, overcrowding, ethnic conflict, political upheaval—to say nothing of those troubles common to all humans, disease and death. The conclusion must be that nowhere on this planet is there a paradise entirely trouble free. As Bernard Levin acknowledges: “There is a black mark on humanity’s score-sheet, and it seems to have been there almost as long as humanity. It takes the form of an inability to live happily in close proximity with more than a very few other human beings.”

However, there will be a global paradise that will be truly trouble free. Its duration is guaranteed by a superhuman power. Indeed, over five million people are even now working toward that, and they already enjoy precious unity and a relatively trouble-free environment among themselves. Where can you find them? How can you share the same hope and benefits they now enjoy? And how long will that coming Paradise last?

[Box on page 6]

Paradise Community Experiments

In the early 19th century, French socialist Étienne Cabet (1788-1856) and 280 associates founded a communal settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, based on his ideals. But within eight years such dissension arose in the community that it soon disbanded, as did similar groups in Iowa and California.

Another Frenchman, Charles Fourier (1772-1837), developed ideas for a cooperative agricultural community with shifting roles for all its members. Each individual was to receive remuneration based on the success of the group as a whole. But communities based on these lines in both France and the United States were short-lived.

At about the same time, Welsh social reformer Robert Owen (1771-1858) proposed cooperative villages where hundreds of people would live together with communal kitchen and dining areas. Individual families would live in their own apartments and care for their children until they reached the age of three. Thereafter, their care was to be taken over by the whole community. But Owen’s experiments failed, and he lost much of his personal fortune.

John Noyes (1811-1886) became the founder of what The New Encyclopædia Britannica calls “the most successful of the utopian socialist communities in the United States.” When his followers abandoned monogamous marriages and permitted sexual relations simply by mutual agreement among all, Noyes was arrested for adultery.

Laissez Faire City, a kind of “capitalist Utopia” in Central America, is a recent attempt to create such a Utopian community, reports The Sunday Times of London. The project sought investors. Lured by the prospect of living in “the miracle city of the 21st century,” paradise seekers were invited to send $5,000 and join in a form of pyramid selling, searching out like-minded people who would, in turn, invest their money. Reportedly, all that this sum of money does is pay for an airline ticket to view the project “should a country ever be persuaded to give it building space, and a small hotel be built there,” commented the newspaper. There is no realistic hope of any “paradise” being established there.

A Trouble-Free Paradise—Soon a Reality

“YOU will be with me in Paradise.” How those words reassured the man with a criminal record! No, not that he felt he would avoid going to a fiery hell and would go to heaven when he died. Rather, the thief alongside Jesus drew comfort from the hope that he would be resurrected back to life when Paradise was restored to the planet. Note, please, who made such a bold statement about Paradise—God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.—Luke 23:43.

What prompted Christ’s promise of Paradise? The thief had appealed: “Jesus, remember me when you get into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42) What is this Kingdom, and what connection is there between it and an earthly paradise? How does this guarantee that the Paradise will be trouble free?

The Power Behind the Paradise

You will agree that a true paradise can only come on earth when all present-day troubles are gone. Human efforts to remove them have so far failed, as history adequately testifies. The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah acknowledged: “I well know, O Jehovah, that . . . it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” (Jeremiah 10:23) Who, then, can wipe out all present-day troubles?

Weather Extremes and Pollution. When a violent windstorm over the Sea of Galilee whipped up waves big enough to threaten a boat with shipwreck, the sailors awoke their traveling companion from his slumber. In turn, he simply said to the sea: “Hush! Be quiet!” Mark’s Gospel account relates what happened: “The wind abated, and a great calm set in.” (Mark 4:39) That traveling companion was none other than Jesus. He had the power to control the weather.

It was this same Jesus who foretold through the apostle John that the time would come when God would “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” (Revelation 1:1; 11:18) This is no impossible feat for the One who removed a whole world of ungodly people in the Flood of Noah’s day.—2 Peter 3:5, 6.

Crime and Violence. The Bible promises: “Evildoers themselves will be cut off, but those hoping in Jehovah are the ones that will possess the earth. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.” (Psalm 37:9, 11) Again, it is God, Jehovah, who promises to remove all crime and violence, reserving Paradise for the meek.

Poverty and Hunger. Present-day injustice allows governments in one area of the world to store foodstuffs in surplus “mountains” while at the same time poor countries struggle on in poverty. Relief agencies, backed by concerned people worldwide, try to supply the basics but often fail when distribution schemes break down through a lack of law and order. Contrast this with what the prophet Isaiah recorded: “Jehovah of armies will certainly make for all the peoples, in this mountain, a banquet of well-oiled dishes, a banquet of wine kept on the dregs, of well-oiled dishes filled with marrow, of wine kept on the dregs, filtered.” (Isaiah 25:6) Does that not sound like famine and starvation will be no more? Certainly.

War. Attempts to govern this globe through a supranational authority have proved unsuccessful. The League of Nations, founded in 1920, failed to prevent the outbreak of World War II and collapsed. The United Nations, so often hailed as the best hope for peace, struggles to keep opposing parties apart in areas of conflict. Despite its publicized peace efforts, wars abound, whether civil, ethnic, or community. God’s Kingdom government promises to remove present-day warring factions and educate its subjects in the ways of peace.—Isaiah 2:2-4; Daniel 2:44.

Family and Moral Breakdown. Family disintegration is rampant. Juvenile delinquency abounds. Immorality pervades all levels of human society. Yet, God’s standards have remained unchanged from the beginning. Jesus testified that “a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh . . . Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.” (Matthew 19:5, 6) Jehovah God further commanded: “Honor your father and your mother . . . that it may go well with you and you may endure a long time on the earth.” (Ephesians 6:2, 3) Such standards will prevail on earth under God’s Kingdom.

Sickness and Death. “Jehovah . . . will save us,” promised the prophet Isaiah, “and no resident will say: ‘I am sick.’” (Isaiah 33:22, 24) “The wages sin pays is death,” acknowledged the Christian apostle Paul, “but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus.”—Romans 6:23.

Jehovah God will remove all these troubles by means of his heavenly government in the hands of his Son, Christ Jesus. However, you may say, ‘This reads like a Utopian dream. To be sure, it would be delightful if it came true, but will it?’

A Present Reality

To many, the possibility of living in a trouble-free paradise right here on earth sounds unrealistically optimistic. If that is how you feel, examine the proof that this will really occur.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a present-day international community of over five million people who already have a relatively trouble-free environment in their 82,000 congregations spread out in 233 lands. You may visit any of their gatherings, large or small, and what will you find?

(1) A Pleasant, Clean Atmosphere. Commenting on one convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Norwich, England, the football stadium manager said: “The peaceful atmosphere over the four days . . . is catching. You experience a personal calmness that is in complete contrast to that of any other four days in the tense business world and daily life around us. The Witnesses really have something that is different about them and hard to explain.”

A construction industry training adviser who visited the London offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses said: “I was very impressed both by what I saw and heard and was quite overwhelmed by the atmosphere of total peace and tranquillity which exists not only in your buildings but also amongst the [men and women]. I feel that your way of life and happiness has a lot to teach the rest of this troubled world.”

(2) Security and Peace. A columnist for the Journal de Montréal in Canada wrote: “I am not a Witness. But I am a witness to the fact that the Witnesses witness to efficiency and proper behaviour. . . . If they were the only people in the world, we would not at night have to bolt our doors shut and put on the burglar alarm.”

(3) Loyalty to God’s Kingdom government characterizes the Witnesses. Their neutral position unnerves some, though it need not. Their noninvolvement in present-day patch-up political schemes does not stem from a lack of commitment to improving society. Rather, they try to behave in a way that pleases the one who governs through a heavenly government, namely, the earth’s Creator, Jehovah God.

The Witnesses’ beliefs, based entirely on God’s Word, the Bible, prevent them from falling into the trap of becoming a sect or a cult. They take a kindly interest in all other people, of whatever religious persuasion. No, they do not try to force these people to change their viewpoint. They endeavor to imitate their Leader, Christ Jesus, by presenting Scriptural evidence of the trouble-free Paradise that will soon be established on earth.—Matthew 28:19, 20; 1 Peter 2:21.

(4) Spiritual Health and Happiness. Realistically, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not claim to be completely trouble free at this time. This is an impossibility among people who bear the hallmark of inherited sin from Adam. But with the help of God’s holy spirit, they work to develop personal qualities such as “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22, 23) It is their worship of Jehovah through Christ Jesus that unites them and keeps their hopes alive.

Your visit to the Witnesses’ local meeting place will, we trust, convince you that God will transform the earth into a literal paradise.

Gone will be present-day troubles. Even lingering imperfection will gradually disappear as the benefits of Christ’s ransom sacrifice are applied to obedient mankind. Yes, perfect health and happiness can be yours.

Simple preparations will help you enjoy such a prospect. Ask the Witnesses for your personal copy of the book Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life.a With this you can, in a short time, learn what God requires of you so that you too may enjoy life in a trouble-free paradise forever.