What I can never work out is since the golden gates must have opened a few trillion times since time began and not being on a planet their is no oil. How is it that the hinges on the gates have not jammed or fallen apart.
I think the Pearly Gates business was just made up. But that's a good point. Oil has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. Come to think of it, what does Heaven have? Maybe it just has super things nobody has to work to create. Though I bet if nobody ever works things get boring too. Some people even like working. Just how do you please everyone? Do we still have bodies? If we don't have bodies, how do we communicate? Maybe we're just like...orbs of light and get to travel anywhere we want. People also talk about 40 virgins in Heaven, but I would imagine there's no sexual reproduction in Heaven. I don't know. Maybe Heaven is just completely different and you're left wondering how you even liked anything on Earth.
It's a threshold, like walking from one room to another. Or in the instance of heaven, it's movement between one dimension and another. It's symbolized by a physical gate, and might actually have a physical manifestation but ultimately it's a symbol of meaning. Your eyes are gates. A gateway. Ears, nostrils, mouth, and all holes down south are also gates.
Heaven according to religion is the reward firmly established and always in the future motivating people to be obedient slaves. It's similar to the concept of retirement in modern day culture. Then there's the heaven that you can experience here now. That's totally different.