Various religions use holy books as the core of their faith. These so-called Holy Scriptures contain the history, tradition, rules and doctrine of the faith. This does not sound very frightening until one begins to reason. Imagine a person goes to the store and buys a novel, this person reads the novel, puts it down and thinks: “that was a nice story”. There nothing wrong with this situation, it is very healthy. Now imagine this person reading the book and think: “so that is what the world is really like”. Granted a novel is quite different from Holy Scripture but basically it is the same effect.
Of course a holy book could also be compared to the law. The law is also contained in books and also contains rules of behaviour, crime and punishment and so on. The difference is, though, that the law contains rules for society not for the universe. Holy Scripture keeps up the pretence that it is the law laid down by a god or by gods. If one would believe that the laws are laid down by such beings then these laws would be above earthly law. That is something society should prevent (and mostly has) by placing earthly law over divine law. Why do we do this? Well simply, earthly law complies with the needs of society. Religion complies with the need of spirituality. So to live in an orderly world we chose to keep both feet on the ground and chose for the needs of society.
But does religion really comply with the need for spirituality? The answer to this is both yes and no. If religion takes all its knowledge from a Holy Scripture then the answer is no. Holy Scriptures because of their very nature may not be changed. The Bible states this most clearly, as well as some punishments for those who would add something or delete something from the Bible. Therefor it becomes very hard for such a religion to evolve and is likely to become stagnant. If a religion becomes stagnant then it becomes an anachronism and does not comply with the needs of spirituality but actually works against those needs.
Also we could compare Holy Scripture to books of science. Both describe the world and how it works. But then how is it possible that we can only write science books that contain rules that are only an estimation of reality while we can write a book that contains the very laws of the universe in precise detail? And something else: while all scientific theories agree on some foundation, religion, more often then not, creates entire new foundations. And while science basis its theories on things that can be researched and eventually proven right or wrong, religion has no such verification. This is why scientist can claim they know while followers of a religion can only claim they believe.
So Holy Scripture cannot be compared to novels, law books, and science books. Then what can it be compared to? Let us take a look on what Holy Scripture basically contains. It defines the world describes the history, and sets out the rules on how to live. This is very similar to say a game manual. A game manual describes the world the game plays in, its history, and the rules on how to play. When one reads a game manual one puts it down afterwards and one knows it is a game, and one should do the same thing with Holy Scripture. That is, read it, put it down and remember it was just a book. Those who pick up a game manual and believe it contains the truth on the world, are often seen as insane, even those who simply play the game (especially role-playing games) are also suspect. But if one reads Holy Scripture and one proclaims this to be the truth, society tends to judge them as just a follower of a religion. Should not these people likewise be judged insane? What hypocrisy is this? Well there is a difference: Holy Scripture is written as if it where the truth while a game manual will clearly state that it contains information on a game, not reality. So one has to be more insane to believe the game manual to be truth then believing the same about Holy Scripture. But then again, many times novels seem to describe the truth as well. So if we combine the description of reality aspect of a novel and the information aspect of a game manual the result is a Holy Scripture.
Of course any follower of a religion who base their faith on a holy book will disagree. This is because the Holy Scriptures are said to be written or inspired by the god or gods of a certain faith. But how can this be proven? Should one believe it simply because the book states its so? If a novel claims to be written by aliens do we believe it? No, of course not, well some might but no one in his or her right mind will. And if a god or several gods inspired it and the inspired author wrote it, how do we know he was inspired? And how do we know this person wrote it and not somebody who used the name of this supposed inspired author? We do not know these things; it is a leap of faith. But if we accept it is possible that such holy books are true, which one of them is true? And what about fiction, fantasy and science fiction? Maybe these books where inspired as well by some deity.
In other words, no should believe that a book or several books can contain the entire truth. Some might contain some lore or knowledge that is true. But the last thing that one should do is blindly believe anything one reads, especially Holy Scripture. The masses that believe what these holy books say is the horror of Holy Scripture.
