In this free book, extensive use is made of sarcasm and quite often things people cherish are made to look silly. However, in a world where people have created things like a debutante ball, the Gong show, women's studies, and roller derby it should not be surprising that many religious practices have come into existence which do not reflect God as much as poor decision making on the part of people.
This will not be as consistently hilarious as the book "So Your Want to go to College". The reason is that college is a sort of an easy target. With churches, there can be things of value so the reader will be guided to try to find these while being hopefully entertained regarding those other church characteristics that are not so helpful.
The target audience are those who are completely dis-interested in God and religion and are looking for a good laugh, those who have had bad church experiences and are wondering why, those who have never been to a church and are hesitant and skeptical, those who want to learn more but find what they know already seems to make church inquiries a dubious proposition.
Excerpt:
Searching for help to family problems is laudable, but without a foundation of truth one is really vulnerable to bad advice. The more noble motive is the search for truth. The difficulty is that visiting a church is of-ten like searching on the Internet. You can turn up tons of information some of which may even be true.
What is truth?
Philosophers have pondered this question for millen-nia. However, that is not as profound as it as first sounds as many philosophers are unable to prove they even exist and then are never heard from again.
Something can be declared as true because it can be compared to something else. Truth is that which stands alone and needs no comparison to support it. The bible declares God, Jesus, and the Bible itself are truth. Truth has fallen in popularity as relativism has become all the rage. This is partially a result of Ein-stein who invented a complex view of physics that he called relativity to tell his brother in law that his in-terest in loaning him more money was rapidly ap-proaching a negative infinity.
People like relativity because it excuses so much, like when Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke that he said Darth Vader had killed his father because it was true from a certain point of view, a married man saying I am go-ing to leave my wife when the time is right, and a politician who says he is going to make things better.
Because declaring truth is declaring an absolute, there can be conflict with others who declare a different truth. This is the sort of thing that reduced the popu-lation of Germany 77% in the 1600s. A person can plant a sort of emotional flag in a doctrine or teaching that can inspire him to an intensity of zeal that can reach lethal proportions. Consider Islam.
Many people confuse truth with the ability to make people compliant. Joseph Stalin once said, "The only real power comes out of a long rifle.” Some churches use a variety of coercive methods to achieve compli-ance as opposed to persuasion to illuminate truth. Some churches have and continue to use intellectual bullying, academic credentials, guilt, social pressure, and even a fear of hell to get the inquirer to acknowl-edge defeat which is not exactly the same as coming to a knowledge of the truth. While still not as severe as Islam, such bullying is not a path to God and truth.
It can come as a shock to consumers who are used to opening the yellow pages and selecting a dentist, dog groomer, or ordering a pizza that finding truth is more difficult than selecting the right franchise brand.
