In the west, we have for the last hundred years or so considered the stories of the Bible to be at best a metaphor for the spiritual experience.

Heaven is also described there in terms of 'rivers of wine' and sexual delight ; see the Songs of Solomon for a start. If we talk about the ineffable experience of the transcendent then we have to use metaphor; the imagined condition of sexual bliss is a picture that people can relate to.

Literalists of the text are still stuck on the metaphor, and can't see beyond to what it is picturing.

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer...Superstition ain't the way, no no no..."
Stevie Wonder.