Why I Am Reading the Bible

I was raised Catholic.

I attended 13 years of Catholic school.

I was an altar boy.

I went to mass every Sunday and every Friday in Lent and on major holidays until I was old enough to drive and skip it altogether.

I listened to hundreds of hours of sermons and classroom lectures about the importance of my relationship to God and Jesus.

And in all those years no one ever once told to read the Bible.

As I approach 40, having long since abandoned a faith that was always someone else's, I wonder why no priest or nun or lay teacher ever had me go to the source for insight on Catholicism. I can't be the only one who finds this strange.

But ask any Christian you know if he or she has ever read the Bible. Hell, if you're Christian, ask yourself. Except for a few well-known passages--a couple of Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, excerpts from Genesis about fruitfulness and multiplication--no Christian I have ever met has read the Bible.

If Christians can get by without reading the Bible, then what is the Bible for? It's there so people can hold it up and say, "I believe in this." Except for super-crazy fundamentalists, religious people don't care what religion you believe in as long as you believe in one. Professing belief confers legitimacy and entry into the Club of Belief.

I don't belong to the Club. I don't belong in the Club. I don't believe. I'm an Unbeliever.

God. Jesus. Ghosts. Palmistry. Astrology. Luck. I just don't believe.

So why is this Unbeliever reading the Bible?

Maybe reading the Bible will help me find out.

Until then I'm going to point out all the weird, insane, and kooky things I discover in the most influential book ever written.

The one no one has read.