HEY, WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO PARADISE?

OK, here it is by the numbers. The way the world's populations feel about Paradise...!

While many of the ancient religious books and traditions have their own version of the Genesis Paradise Story, a new research group calling themselves Around The World has reported their results on CNN about what people think of Paradise today.

The top 5 "hoping for heaven" are: Malaysia (98%), Philippines (97%), US (91%), India (86%) and Italy (83%). The bottom 5: Spain (63%), Germany (58%),China (57%), Netherlands (54%) and France (50%).

Those numbers weren't surprising, but there was a surprise with the ages of the respondents. While the researchers assumed more older people believe in a heaven, turns out in six countries (Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, Singapore and Spain) it was those under 45. In another surprise, the research didn't find the expected predominance in female believers, for in most countries including the US the male/female belief was about even.

So where does that leave us on the heaven issue..? Frankly, where most statistics leave us -- wherever you want to go with them. A good guess is that for anyone who wants to take this latest research seriously, there are still plenty of souls out there willing to be saved. On the other hand, most atheists, agnostics and covens will conclude their side of the argument is doing very nicely, thank you.

In the end, perhaps this can be said. If there isn't a heaven, none of these stats matter. But if there is, well heaven must be looking down something like the IRS does every April. Rich or poor, believer or not, our taxes still have to be paid,,,,!