"seven Great Lies Of Organized Religion" Response to Perry Marshalls CoffeehouseTheology.com

[mitchellmckain 0]

I cannot remember how it came to my attention but I checked out Perry Marshall's site CoffeehouseTheology.com and signed up for his email course and I think the first of them line up pretty well with the anti-religious elements of modern Christianity, but in the end it is obvious that Perry Marshall abandons his original intent to reveal the lies of organized religion, and reveals himself instead to be a spokesman for Christianity. So I would like to take up the task he started and follow through on it. To begin with I have only a few minor criticism of the first three of his great lies, to justify a few changes. But since in #5-7 we don't have lies of organized religion at all, I have come up with some replacements.

 

Lie#1: 'If you live a moral life, you deny yourself pleasure, follow the prescribed ritual and then give us enough money you'll have a decent shot at being accepted by God.'

 

This is not the best choice of words, because there is subtle hint in this of Perry being a spokesman for Christianity against the sentiments of secular society that what matters is that you be a good person. If you really want to hit the nail on the head and make it about organized religion, then the lie has to due with obedience to rules rather than morality and making a payment to appease God rather than denying yourself pleasure. So a better statement of the first lie is as follows.

 

Lie #1 revised: 'You can appease God by obeying His commandments and making the proper sacrifices in payment for your transgressions, in order to gain His acceptance and escape the consequences of your misdeeds.'

 

This is a lie because you cannot appease God and you cannot escape the consequences of your misdeeds, and if you think that this is what Christianity is about then you have missed the boat and are truly just a member of a religion.

 

 

 

Lie #2: 'God is huge and unapproachable, and He wants you to labor, struggle and live in guilt.'

 

The second part of this is unrelated to the first part and in fact redundant with the other lies that Perry has listed. One wonders why Perry does not stick to the theme started in the first phrase and carry it out to its logical conclusion as I do with the following.

 

Lie #2 revised: 'God is huge, distant and unapproachable demanding worship and expecting that men devote themselves utterly to the greater glory of God.'

 

Is God the kind of person who has to demand worship or is He the kind of person who inspires it. Is God a meglomaniac or a parent? Is God motivated by self-interest or love? All of the former may well serve an organized religion that needs to maintain control, but it is belief in the latter that makes it worthwhile.

 

 

 

Lie #3: 'You are not smart enough or good enough to think for yourself. We will do your thinking for you.'

 

The problem with this is that this is not the lie but the what religions would say if they were being a little more honest. No instead what they say is a little more like this:

 

Lie #3 revised: 'The truth (the answer to all the important questions) is something that we can give you.'

 

This is a lie because real truth is something we that we must discover for ourselves if it is to really mean anything at all. What religions have to offer is not truth but dogma - things to recite in order to keep up the pretense that you have truth, so that you will not bother or dare to look for it yourself.

 

 

 

Lie #4: 'Women are spiritually inferior and must bow to the authority of men.'

 

This is the only one I feel no need to modify at all, and perhaps this is where Perry should have stopped since he ceases talking about the lies of organized religion and has move on to what he apparently thinks are some foundational principles of the Christianity that he believes in.

 

 

 

Lie #5: 'There is no single truth. Everyone needs to explore and find a truth that works for them.'

 

Not all truth is absolute or "singular". What is right for the bird is not right for the weasel. Nor is all truth completely relative or arbitrary. There are some absolute truths. I do not think for example that torturing a child to death could ever be an acceptable form of entertainment. But there are abitrary elements to things. Sometimes it is simply more important to have a rule than it is important what the rule actually is. Take table manners for example. Nearly every culture can agree that table manners are important, but what those table manners are precisely, varies greatly.

 

Furthermore to say that "Everyone needs to explore and find a truth that works for them", is a lie is devastatingly wrong. Because it is absolutely true that everyone MUST find a truth that works for them. There is nothing else that we can do, and the last thing we need is someone who imagines himself having the authority to dictate a "truth" to everyone else about how they must live their lives. I think that this point #5 of Perry's, contradicts his previous talk about a lie that we are not smart enough to figure things out for ourselves. As a result I think this one can be thrown on the scrap heap and we should consider the following instead.

 

Lie #5: 'God is not a God of confusion.'

 

Organized religion uses this lie to say pretty much what Perry is saying in version of #5, that they cannot all be true. Read Genesis Chapter 11. Sometimes God is a God of confusion. Furthermore I think this means that there is one thing that is worse than war and that is a unity of mankind that is based on uniformity. With the possibility of war also comes the possibility of freedom. And it is quite often in the nonconfomist, who does what everyone else thinks is crazy (like Noah), that lies the salvation and hope of all mankind. The only unity of mankind that has any positive value is one that is based on tolerance and learning to love and appreciate diversity.

 

Besides the story in Genesis 11 there is also the clear evidence that this is a lie in the history of Christianity where we see a great deal of confusion. And it is rather evident also that a lot of this confusion comes from the character of the Bible itself. I would not say that the Bible is contradictory, but I most certainly would say that it is apparent that God does not spell out a great number of things and I think this means that there are many issues on which God expects us to think things through for ourselves.

 

Note further that I am not saying that there are many paths to God or salvation. I remain devoted to the modern Christian answer to this that there are NO PATHS TO GOD. Nevertheless, it is quite true that we all have our own unique paths to follow, for God teaches us all in ways that are as unique as the individuals He teaches. The point is simply that it is not any path which can save us, but only the work of God in our lives which can save us, and thus we are warned away from any religion of men that makes some false promise that we can somehow appease God and "get Him off our backs".

 

 

 

Lie #6: 'The Bible is out of date, inaccurate and over-rated. People in the 21st century are way too smart for that.'

 

Now Perry's change of spots and coloring is complete. No longer is he seeking to reveal the lies of organized religion but intead to defend Christianity against what he perceives as attacks upon his organized religion. At this point he should drop the pretense and come clean instead of pursuing what has become a farse.

 

Although I agree that many churches have indeed found ways to take the contents of the Bible less seriously and that there is a great need for speaking out on behalf of taking the Bible more seriously, this is all too often just a pretext for saying that you must understand the Bible MY WAY. So if we are going to talk about the lies of organized religion, I am afraid that the following fits the bill far better than Perry's (meanwhile I have removed the reference to Christianity to make a bit more general).

 

Lie #6: 'Holy Scripture interprets itself.'

 

Although I am a Protestant and very sympathetic with the cause of Protestantism and fundamentalism which protests both the marginalization of scripture and the substitution of the traditions of men for the unaltered word of God, I cannot support the above lie. All this does is hide from ourselves the undeniable effect of tradition upon the way we understand and interpret holy scripture. Therefore the only version of the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura which I supports is as follows: The Bible is the only authority given into the hands of men for the determination of the truth in regards to God, His desire of mankind, and our relationship to Him. But no human being's interpretation of the Bible has any more authority than any other.

 

Furthermore, there are a number of other things that Perry says in his lesson regarding lie #6 that are at least very misleading if not plainly false, such as when he says that modern man is not more enlightened about morality, philosophy and politics than those of ancient times. Now, it is NOT true that all or even most modern men (and women) are more enlightened about morality, philosophy and politics than all people of the past. It is for example rather clear that there are giants of morality, philosophy and politics in all ages whose enlightenment about these things exceed that of the vast majority in any age. HOWEVER, there are clearly some points of superiority in the view of human society in general, in regards to things like slavery, racism, sexism, tolerance, free enterprise, education and violence (just to name a few).

 

What I think Perry should say instead is that, it is false that we have nothing to learn from people who existed long ago. In fact the only possible claim to superiority in morality, philosophy and politics for modern man must rest solidly on the presumption that we learn from the people of the past.

 

 

 

Lie #7: 'If God was really so powerful and good He wouldn't allow so much evil and suffering to go on.'

 

This is of course the biggest criticism of theism and not a lie of organized religion at all. The only thing that I can think of that can be considered a lie of organized religion and as related to what Perry has written is the following:

 

Lie #7 revised: 'Everything happens according to the plan of God for some greater good.'

 

Sure God has a plan for some greater good and according to this plan we must have free will and be reponsible for our lives and each other without Him interfering to rescue us from evil and tragedy. But surely we cannot think that every deranged wacko is an instrument of God or that the horrors they commit is God's gift to the victims - THAT is often exactly what the wackos think and I cannot imagine sharing that point of view.

 

So why in the world would organized religion want everyone to believe that, "everything happens according to the plan of God"? Well the obvious effect seems to me that if you believe such a thing, then you would not be motivated to make any great effort to change things. In other words, the purpose of this lie is to keep people from rocking the boat and seeking any great change in the world. Its purpose is, like many of the other lies of organized religion, to lull people to sleep and keep them docile.

 

 

 

So to summarize we have a revised list of the 7 great lies of organized religion

 

Lie #1: You can appease God by obeying His commandments and making the proper sacrifices in payment for your transgressions, in order to gain His acceptance and escape the consequences of your misdeeds.

 

Lie #2: 'God is huge, distant and unapproachable demanding worship and expecting that men devote themselves utterly to the greater glory of God.'

 

Lie #3: 'The truth (the answer to all the important questions) is something that we can give you.'

 

Lie #4 'Women are spiritually inferior and must bow to the authority of men.'

 

Lie #5 'God is not a God of confusion.'

 

Lie #6: 'Holy Scripture interprets itself.'

 

Lie #7: 'Everything happens according to the plan of God.'

 

All of these are part of a pattern of seduction to bring human beings under the control of an organization making religion an effective tool of power.

Edited June 27, 2007 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I think some of us can agree to those points but several groups will oppose these statements, especially those from the "Bible Belt".xboxrulz

[mitchellmckain 0]

I think some of us can agree to those points but several groups will oppose these statements, especially those from the "Bible Belt".

And do you think that these groups are not a representative of organized religion?

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

that's true, that's why they will oppose what was written above.xboxrulz

[iGuest 3]

How are we to know the truth? I read articles from you, from Edgar Cayce,s a. R. E., from perry marshall,from scientology, etc. I read the bible and I want to find the right church to attend, but who is right? 

-reply by Ruby Farris