The Gospel According to Star Trek

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The Gospel According to Star Trek

Posted by Robert Billing on 1997-10-21
[ By popular request (well 2 people actually) I'm reposting this article
which originally appeared before DejaNews had got hold of this group.
>From now on it should find its way into the archive. It all started off
with a discussion about salvation, and why God allows hell to exist... ]

 The way I see it is that the process of salvation requires our
co-operation. It's somthing like this: a few weeks ago the exhaust pipe
on my car split in two, and I took it to a garage where they put the
car up on a lift and fitted a new one. If I had decided not to go to
the garage, then they couldn't have done anything.

 Similarly God has arranged a place where you can take your soul to be
fixed so that it can go to heaven. Nowhere else has the right equipment
to do the job, if you don't take it to that place then the job doesn't
get done.

 Having a duff exhaust is not a punishment given to you for not going to
the garage, it is simply the way things work themselves out. Similarly,
if we can get away from thinking of hell as a punishment for those that
God finds guilty, and towards thinking of it as a scrapheap for those
who won't let themselves be repaired enough to go to heaven, then it
all makes sense.

 This implies a sort of "mechanical theology", in which the things
which I have always been told are mysteries and beyond human
understanding, are remarkably comprehensible. The vision (which
everyone else on this group can have a wonderful time pulling apart for
the next few weeks) is something like this...

[Warning, some people may find the next bit irreverent, mind you, most
parables are]

   Scene: The bridge of the USS Heaven, God in the command chair

     God: The people down on that planet are going to hell, what can we
          do to get them out?

   Jesus: Sensors indicate that hell can only be destroyed from the
          inside. One of us will have to beam down.

          (Enter archangel Scott)

     God: Scotty, can you rig the transporter to beam us into hell?

   Scott: Ye canna change the laws of theology Jim. Only one of ye can
          go, and it's going to be a mighty rough ride. I can send ye
          to errrth, and from there ye can take the same route as the
          humans. Ye'll have to die like one of them, and then ye'll
          find the way, sure enough.

 The point is that the plan of salvation is a means devised by God to
rescue souls destined for hell, but it is a "mechanism" of some kind,
governed by some rules of logic. God is all-powerful, but chooses (for
reasons that I can only speculate about) only to use his power in
particular ways that conform to the rules of logic.  Like any mechanism
the plan of salvation has things that it can do (save anyone that wants
to be saved), things that it can't do (save someone who rejects it),
and an instruction book (66 books in fact) that most users don't read.