Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. – Philippians 2:4

That is the kind of advice from the Bible that sounds good but is off the mark; we should look to our own interests. Sounds selfish, right? I believe we should be selfish PROVIDED WE UNDERSTAND WHAT IS IN OUR BEST INTEREST.

Have you ever unselfishly helped someone out? There is the classic helping an old lady across the street; changing a tire for a stranger; helped someone reach something in a store; held a door open for a stranger; given a stranger change for a parking meter; etc. Think about some kindness you have offered without expectation of any return. How did it make you feel?

I have no idea how helping another might make YOU feel but it makes me feel good, so good that I am usually on the lookout for ways I can do another a kindness.

Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, for it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. – Luke 18:22-25

Living frugally and giving is not bad advice but doing it to get into Heaven saps the joy out of it. If you have given money to a cause you believed in, especially given more than you thought you could afford, you expected nothing in return other than thanks and a good feeling of having done something good. Giving anonymously actually intensifies the good feeling conversely if you give with an expectation of a return, the good feeling is dulled. Bequests are the greatest source of wealth for religions—people giving their wealth with the hope of getting into heaven. If only they had given their wealth to a good cause anonymously while they were alive, they would have realized the benefit, here in this life.

People who don’t eat broccoli are sinners and will go to Hell. Fortunately, if they eat broccoli on the last day of their life, they will be saved. If you don’t believe me, look it up in the Bible.

The 41^st president of the United States didn’t eat broccoli. He hated broccoli, in fact. There is still time for his redemption but the frightening thing is that by not eating broccoli while he was president we actually had a disciple of Satan running the most powerful nation on earth for four years. We should have read the Bible more carefully before voting.

You say you can’t find anything about broccoli in the Bible? You just aren’t looking hard enough because you can find anything you want to believe in the Bible. First, you have to believe it to be so then you look until you find what you were looking for. Tell a Jehovah’s Witness the next time one knocks on your door that Jesus and all the people who had a hand in writing the Bible thought the world was flat and they will turn to a passage in the Bible that proves to them that you are wrong, that Jesus did know the earth was round and that it was not the center of the universe. I made up the broccoli part but the Jehovah’s Witness part is true.

Wouldn’t life be interesting if everything were as open to interpretation as the Bible? Imagine: speed limit 50 unless you want to go faster or throw an apple into the air and it doesn’t come down if you don’t want it to.

Not only is the Bible not the word of God it is so inconsistent it would drive any editor nuts.

Anyone who thinks God wrote the Bible should read Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman. A biblical scholar, he has studied the texts of the Bible in their original languages. “As I realized already in graduate school, even if God had inspired the original words, we don’t have the original words. So the doctrine of inspiration was in a sense irrelevant to the Bible as we have it, since the words God reputedly inspired had been changed and, in some cases, lost. Moreover, I came to think that my earlier views of inspiration were not only irrelevant, they were probably wrong. For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual words; but if he really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place, Given the circumstance that he didn’t preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn’t gone to the trouble of inspiring them.” (p 211)

Anyone wishing to better understand who wrote the Bible (the New Testament at least) should read Ehrman’s book.

How could anyone say that after it has been called “The Good Book” for so many years? There is much to be said for it but there is also much to be said against it. It is certainly to be respected for the tremendous influence it has had on Western civilization directly and on all of our species in some way. While most would argue the influence has been positive, I, as a contrarian, must argue otherwise. The easy part of this argument is the wars, holy wars of the crusades and the holy wars going on today in the Middle East, the Balkans and the United States.

Holy war in the US? What else would you call the debate over abortion and other issues that fundamentalists champion with such hatred and the Catholics with slightly less hatred? Vitriolic hatred express by some to the extent that others, weaker minded, foot soldiers, have committed murder and other acts of violence. Those expressing the hatred are doing it in the name of their religious beliefs, they are quoting the Bible. That is an outcome of the Bible. To say that it is misguided men (mostly men) who are doing it and that it does not reflect on the Bible is nonsense. Misguided, of course, but none the less reflecting on the Bible.

Generally people think of the outcomes of the Bible and the religions it has spawned as doing good by creating sins and punishments for sin. Certainly burning in hell for eternity should be a deterrent to crime. I asked 50 people who had registered as “experts” in their faith on a web site if they thought people who believed in God were more or less likely to commit crime and more or less likely to commit crime if they had had a religious upbringing. Those of Jewish, Protestant, Islamic faiths were unanimous in their response that people who believed in God and people who had been raised in a religion were less likely to commit a crime. Of the Catholics responding they were unanimous in their opinion that religious upbringing would be a deterrent but a couple of them backed off on whether a belief in God was a deterrent to crime. Perhaps they were thinking of the Mafia who are always portrayed as being devout Catholics.

My research uncovered quite different facts. I was unable to find any studies that delve into the religious upbringing of criminals. However, I did uncover the information for a few notorious criminals. The father of John George Haigh (The Acid Bath Murderer) was described as “intensely religious”. The NY Mad Bomber and Hitler were Roman Catholic. Joseph Kallinger was adopted by sadistic Catholic parents. Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer “came from a religious family.” I found none who came from an irreligious family or who were irreligious. Edward W. Mitchell in his paper The aetiology of serial murder: towards an integrated model writes, “An analysis of the role of religion in the life of the serial murderer and its relationship to internal justification of his crimes would be of considerable interest.” Wouldn’t you think that someone of religion who believed that religion was, at the very least, a deterrent to crime would have done the research by now? Perhaps they have and decided not to publish it.

Two studies of criminals done in the early 1900s found very few irreligious among them. One study of 28,351 prisoners found 57 who said they had no religion. When a sample of 12 of the 57 was interviewed more closely it turned out only 1/3 was truly irreligious. That comes to less than .03% or 99.97% were found to be religious. “Of 700 criminals examined by Ferri one alone was an atheist, one was indifferent, and seven were devout and even found religion an excuse for their crime.” “Among 200 Italian murderers Ferri did not find one who was irreligious.” The Criminal by Havelock Ellis (1910). My research is superficial, to be sure. One of the reasons research along this line has not been done is because most research into the criminal mind is to try to understand it so crime can be prevented. No one is likely to come along and try to make a case for overthrowing religion to eliminate crime, not even me. But to say that we live in a more civilized world because of religion cannot be supported. In other words, an outcome of the Bible is not less crime.

A book reviewer of the Bible would have to say that the language was stilted and obscure. The beatitudes are certainly an incredible bore. There are many, many inconsistencies. Amazing that so many base their lives on this book. Even more amazing since so few of them have even read it. Another interesting bit of research would be to find out how many devout followers understand the Bible very well, not from what they have been taught but from actually reading it.

So why is it so popular, the best selling book of all time? The answer is that there are some basic truths that we recognize as such and these truths are told in stories that are easily understood and memorable. Unfortunately these stories are taken by some to be historically accurate and absolute rather than parables, myths and teaching aids. The book has also been used to exploit those who “needed help interpreting it.” The exploiters have no intention letting go their hold on their flock. It is to their advantage to keep it obscure so they can maintain a position as God’s interpreter. If the myths were identified as myths (read Joseph Campbell) and the truths exposed in their simplest form, many in the flock could take up staffs, live with greater independence and be more helpful to others.