I just can’t leave nonsense unchallenged...

Just because your religious beliefs defy all logic and reason, that’s no excuse to try to explain them with a bad metaphor.

“You and I are part of the colony of heaven. Right now, we may reside here on earth, but our passport indicates that our citizenship is in heaven. We are on the earth, but not of the earth.” 
Allen R. Hunt, Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor

I think this quote is nonsense, and one of my many character flaws is that I can seldom just let nonsense stand unassailed. So I assailed it.

I had my choice of several obvious lines of attack; its total lack of logic, the absurd metaphor of the Divine Passport, his definition of “citizenship”; I was truly spoiled for choice. I rejected all of them, and instead chose a direct frontal assault...what if it were true?

Of course I don’t believe a word of what Allen Hunt had to say about this, what with it being unsupported and unsupportable, unproven and unprovable, entirely hypothetical but nevertheless acceptable as fact by many, but let’s go ahead and hypothesize for a bit...what if it weren’t? What if the world we know was merely a heavenly colony? And what if that colony were used as the British used their colonies, as nearly all colonies have been used; for the benefit of the homeland and with little regard for that colony’s welfare?

That wouldn’t say much for the homeland. I observe that this particular colony isn’t terribly well managed; not managed at all, really. The homeland has left its authority in the hands of those who too often become bullies, forcing their will onto others by the authority granted in regulations that are old and outdated.

Perhaps it’s time for a revolution against that authority. If not directly against heavenly authority, then certainly against the bullies that claim to wield that authority. Perhaps it’s time to admit that we don’t need the homeland anymore. Perhaps it’s a time for rebels.

Of course, like most poorly crafted metaphors this one starts to fall apart under close scrutiny. Perhaps a better metaphor for the relation between the mortal and the divine would be a child making sand castles on the beach. The child labors long over creations of sand and water, but when the time comes to go inside for supper these creations are left to be washed away on the incoming tide.

Or perhaps our Creator is more like a maker of fine blown-glass figurines, who might find delight in their creations and might cherish each one. But perhaps not; perhaps God is a glass-blower who’s unsatisfied with their creations and tosses their rejects into the trash...which brings up the question, are we the “keepers” put on the shelves or is this whole world of ours just God’s trash-bin?

A more pantheistic metaphor occurs to me. What if our Creator is one among many laboring on an assembly line, one whose work is yet to be judged by our Creator’s own supervisor (and who can say what that judgment might be?). In this scenario, our Creator might have no more interest in his creations than to be sure that they meet a minimum standard, and would know that final judgment is out of their hands; and once the assembly line has moved on then the Creator’s work is done and they would take no more notice of us, no more interest in us.

(Of course, that’s all unsupported, unsupportable, unproven, unprovable, purely hypothetical and nonsensical. But what good is philosophy if we can’t ponder the ridiculous once in a while?)

My point is that you can easily find a religious metaphor to match whatever beliefs you happen to hold, no matter how many absurdities you need to explain away; there’s no excuse for deciding on a crappy metaphor. I don’t think Allen R. Hunt ever learned that.

The problem with religious metaphors is that you’re usually trying to connect something ordinary and reasonable with something extraordinary and nonsensical in order to make the nonsensical less so. And if you’re trying to make your religious beliefs sound reasonable, selecting a bad metaphor certainly won’t help.

And if you don’t want to view your particular beliefs as nonsensical (and lets face it, who does?), consider:

No matter what divine being you choose to believe in (or not), most of the population of the world thinks your full of shit. If you consider the whole world rather than the little corner you inhabit, then no matter what your beliefs are, you’re in a religious minority.

Maybe you should stop behaving as if your religion were anything special.

The Blues Viking
The opinions expressed here are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.