Why Cathedral In the Sky

Granted, this book has a strange title that is also confusing.  “What do you mean by ‘Cathedral In The Sky’?” I have been asked.  Cathedral in the Sky is a metaphor I used for the Judeo Christian faith.  The medieval cathedrals scattered across Europe are impressive, elaborate, complex, ornate edifices that took hundreds of years to complete. They were built to overwhelm the senses and the imagination, creating the illusion of drawing nearer the throne of God. Generations of masons and laborers toiled on those structures; bishops, priest and ruler inherited and continued their construction, each generation adding new space and making changes according to the needs of their time.  Maintenance and improvements are never ending and continue to this day, hundreds of years later.  The Christian religion is like that; it is an impressive and ancient institution. Like the great cathedrals—elaborate, complex, and ornate, designed to inspire the imagination, creating the illusion of a god who is omnipotent, immutable and complex, a god who demands obedience and justice. It took hundreds and thousands of years to build, generations of priests, scribes, prophets, prelates and scholars have contributed to its construction, with each generation making changes in doctrine and practice according to the needs of their time. 

While the cathedrals of Europe in all of their beauty, intricacy and grandeur are real structures to be admired, the Judeo-Christian religion, while intricate, involved and grand, is, nonetheless, false, an illusion maintained by the faithful. It is not what it claims to be and it leads people to believe what is not true.