When Good Men Do Evil...and Call It Religion

I'm up to page 132 in "The Shack", and now I see a pattern emerging.

No sooner had the author finished talking about the blue jay on page 97 (see my other blog for that post), than he started into the most convoluted logic imaginable that attempts to hypnotize the reader by going into a 34 page description of why God is so confusing to a mortal man. This twisted and misguided attempt to "explain away" every scripture that seems to contradict another scripture with who or what God is is breathtaking in what it expects the reader to toss aside with a simple "because I said so" on the part of the author (and by extension, the scriptures).

I kept reading, hoping that the author would wrap this up with something that tied it all together in an easy to swallow pill, but instead, I got the following dialogue by the character who portrays the Holy Ghost on page 132. She is in the garden behind the cabin with Mack.

"So, are there plants in this garden that are poisonous?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Sarayu [the Holy Ghost]. "They are some of my favorites. Some are even dangerous to the touch, like this one." She reached for a nearby bush and snapped off something that looked like a dead stick with only a few tiny leaves budding from the stem. She handed it to Mack, who raised both hands to avoid touching it.

"Sarayu laughed. "I am here, Mack. There are times when it is safe to touch, and times when precautions must be taken. That is the wonder and adventure of exploration, a piece of what you call science--to discern and discover what we have hidden for you to find."

"So why did you hide it?" Mack inquired.

"Why do children love to hide and seek? Ask any person who has a passion to explore and discover and create. The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life."

"Mack gingerly reached out and took the poisonous twig. "If you had not told me this was safe to touch, would it have poisoned me?"

"Of course! But if I direct you to touch, that is different."
[end of quote]

Am I the only one who sees what the reader is being set up for here? Let me take you back a few posts to the quote by the humanist Steven Weinberg:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

This is how a religion accomplishes their evil. This is why I use the "shelf metaphor". In organized religion, it is all about being homogeneous. If you have questions about the conflicts between life and the religion, these conflicts (or questions) are to be "put on the shelf" and God will answer them in the next life. For 34 pages the author is busy reinforcing how totally and utterly confusing the notion of "God" is when you try to come up with a cohesive image from the Bible. For 34 pages you are told to 'put that on the shelf', 'put this on the shelf', 'you will have the answer to that question after you die'. None of it makes sense, and the author knows this, which is why religions spend so much time telling you how to use this "shelf" concept.

And then they hit you with the coup de grace (literally translated, the killing blow in a mercy killing). After you have loaded up your shelf with questions that they tell you are "unimportant", they tell you to obey whoever it is that your religion looks up to as its leader...and to "obey without question", even if it doesn't make sense to do so.

Once again, the ending line from the quote above:
"Of course [it would have poisoned you], but if I direct you to touch, that is different."

What is it exactly that I was supposed to learn from my reading of "The Shack"?

I think I finally understand why so many churches are making this book available free of charge to as many members of their congregation who want to take one home and/or give a copy to their friends.

For the Mormons (the thorn in my side for 44 years), they didn't need "The Shack". Because they function as de facto cult anyway, their mind control is absolute by the time you are twelve years old and graduate from their version of a junior Sunday school (the Primary Organization).