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You may have heard

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about the Koran's idea of paradise

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being 72 virgins,

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and I promise I will come back to those virgins.

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But in fact, here in the northwest,

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we're living very close

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to the real Koranic idea of paradise,

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defined 36 times

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as "gardens watered by running streams."

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Since I live on a houseboat on the running stream of Lake Union,

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this makes perfect sense to me.

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But the thing is, how come it's news to most people?

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I know many well-intentioned non-Muslims

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who've begun reading the Koran, but given up,

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disconcerted by its "otherness."

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The historian Thomas Carlyle

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considered Muhammad one of the world's greatest heroes,

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yet even he called the Koran

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"as toilsome reading as I ever undertook,

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a wearisome, confused jumble."

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(Laughter)

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Part of the problem, I think,

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is that we imagine that the Koran can be read

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as we usually read a book --

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as though we can curl up with it on a rainy afternoon

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with a bowl of popcorn within reach,

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as though God --

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and the Koran is entirely in the voice of God speaking to Muhammad --

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were just another author on the bestseller list.

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Yet the fact that so few people

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do actually read the Koran

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is precisely why it's so easy to quote --

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that is, to misquote.

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Phrases and snippets taken out of context

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in what I call the "highlighter version,"

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which is the one favored by both Muslim fundamentalists

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and anti-Muslim Islamophobes.

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So this past spring,

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as I was gearing up

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to begin writing a biography of Muhammad,

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I realized I needed to read the Koran properly --

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as properly as I could, that is.

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My Arabic's reduced by now

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to wielding a dictionary,

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so I took four well-known translations

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and decided to read them side-by-side,

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verse-by-verse

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along with a transliteration

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and the original seventh-century Arabic.

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Now I did have an advantage.

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My last book

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was about the story behind the Shi'a-Sunni split,

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and for that I'd worked closely with the earliest Islamic histories,

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so I knew the events

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to which the Koran constantly refers,

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its frame of reference.

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I knew enough, that is, to know

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that I'd be a tourist in the Koran --

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an informed one,

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an experienced one even,

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but still an outsider,

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an agnostic Jew

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reading some else's holy book.

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(Laughter)

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So I read slowly.

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(Laughter)

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I'd set aside three weeks for this project,

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and that, I think, is what is meant by "hubris" --

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(Laughter)

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-- because it turned out to be three months.

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I did resist the temptation to skip to the back

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where the shorter and more clearly mystical chapters are.

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But every time I thought I was beginning

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to get a handle on the Koran --

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that feeling of "I get it now" --

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it would slip away overnight,

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and I'd come back in the morning

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wondering if I wasn't lost in a strange land,

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and yet the terrain was very familiar.

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The Koran declares that it comes

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to renew the message of the Torah and the Gospels.

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So one-third of it

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reprises the stories of Biblical figures

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like Abraham, Moses,

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Joseph, Mary, Jesus.

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God himself was utterly familiar

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from his earlier manifestation as Yahweh --

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jealously insisting on no other gods.

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The presence of camels, mountains,

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desert wells and springs

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took me back to the year I spent

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wandering the Sinai Desert.

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And then there was the language,

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the rhythmic cadence of it,

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reminding me of evenings spent listening to Bedouin elders

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recite hours-long narrative poems

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entirely from memory.

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And I began to grasp

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why it's said

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that the Koran is really the Koran

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only in Arabic.

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Take the Fatihah,

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the seven-verse opening chapter

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that is the Lord's Prayer and the Shema Yisrael of Islam combined.

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It's just 29 words in Arabic,

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but anywhere from 65 to 72 in translation.

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And yet the more you add,

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the more seems to go missing.

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The Arabic has an incantatory,

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almost hypnotic, quality

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that begs to be heard rather than read,

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felt more than analyzed.

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It wants to be chanted out loud,

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to sound its music in the ear and on the tongue.

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So the Koran in English

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is a kind of shadow of itself,

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or as Arthur Arberry called his version,

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"an interpretation."

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But all is not lost in translation.

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As the Koran promises, patience is rewarded,

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and there are many surprises --

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a degree of environmental awareness, for instance,

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and of humans as mere stewards of God's creation,

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unmatched in the Bible.

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And where the Bible is addressed exclusively to men,

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using the second and third person masculine,

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the Koran includes women --

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talking, for instance,

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of believing men and believing women,

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honorable men and honorable women.

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Or take the infamous verse

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about killing the unbelievers.

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Yes, it does say that,

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but in a very specific context:

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the anticipated conquest

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of the sanctuary city of Mecca

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where fighting was usually forbidden,

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and the permission comes hedged about with qualifiers.

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Not "You must kill unbelievers in Mecca,"

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but you can, you are allowed to,

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but only after a grace period is over

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and only if there's no other pact in place

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and only if they try to stop you getting to the Kaaba,

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and only if they attack you first.

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And even then -- God is merciful;

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forgiveness is supreme --

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and so, essentially,

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better if you don't.

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(Laughter)

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This was perhaps the biggest surprise --

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how flexible the Koran is,

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at least in minds that are not

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fundamentally inflexible.

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"Some of these verses are definite in meaning," it says,

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"and others are ambiguous."

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The perverse at heart

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will seek out the ambiguities,

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trying to create discord

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by pinning down meanings of their own.

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Only God knows the true meaning.

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The phrase "God is subtle"

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appears again and again,

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and indeed, the whole of the Koran is far more subtle

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than most of us have been led to believe.

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As in, for instance,

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that little matter

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of virgins and paradise.

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Old-fashioned Orientalism comes into play here.

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The word used four times

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is Houris,

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rendered as

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dark-eyed maidens with swelling breasts,

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or as fair, high-bosomed virgins.

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Yet all there is in the original Arabic

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is that one word: Houris.

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Not a swelling breast nor a high bosom in sight.

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(Laughter)

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Now this may be a way of saying

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"pure beings" -- like in angels --

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or it may be like the Greek Kouros or Kórē,

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an eternal youth.

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But the truth is nobody really knows,

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and that's the point.

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Because the Koran is quite clear

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when it says that you'll be

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"a new creation in paradise"

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and that you will be "recreated

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in a form unknown to you,"

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which seems to me a far more appealing prospect

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than a virgin.

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(Laughter)

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And that number 72 never appears.

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There are no 72 virgins

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in the Koran.

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That idea only came into being 300 years later,

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and most Islamic scholars see it as the equivalent

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of people with wings sitting on clouds

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and strumming harps.

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Paradise is quite the opposite.

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It's not virginity;

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it's fecundity.

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It's plenty.

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It's gardens watered

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by running streams.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)