Well, I suppose my answer isn't obvious. But it's consistent with the assumptions I laid out. If we assume theism is preposterous, or that religious people confuse myths and poems with literal truths, and yet we know that religions persist as powerful institutions, we need to account for both facts. The hypothesis that the basic theological statements have subliminal meaning so that their surface content is preposterous, but their deeper content is mundane and therefore meaningful accounts for both facts.

Then we just need to posit the mundane meanings, substituting the far-flung theology with a more mundane one, and the latter, too, falls into place, as I tried to show. Where are Heaven and Hell, for instance? Are there earthly alternatives to the ones Dante talks about? Of course there are. Just look at the difference in lifestyles between the top one percent and the bottom fifty. So religious folks aren't talking strict nonsense, after all. Covertly, they're referring to palpable, but earthly realities. That's my hypothesis.