If you’re looking for good advice, I don’t recommend consulting the Bible. Just like the Bible’s rules, the Bible’s advice is unbelievably bad.
When God first created humans, he announced that he was giving them “every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth” to be their food. Even though a lot of them are poisonous.
Solomon (supposedly the wisest person ever) claims that the prudent keep their knowledge to themselves. But that’s obviously not always a good idea. Would Esther have been more prudent to keep her knowledge of Haman’s plans to herself, instead of telling the king so he could stop Haman from getting all the Jews killed?
The rich king Solomon also says you should never say, or even think, anything negative about the king, or about the rich. Because they will find out about your thought crimes, because apparently they have mind-reading birds spying on you.
Solomon claims that it pleases the eyes to see the sun. He fails to mention that looking at the sun actually makes your eyes hurt, and that anything more than a brief glimpse is likely to damage your eyes.
One saying of the “wise” says you shouldn’t build a house until you’re finished with all your outdoor work, getting your fields ready. As if building a house so you have somewhere to live is supposed to be a low-priority luxury or something.
Jesus has some horrible advice about what to do when you’ve sinned. He thinks you should just cut off whichever part of your body “causes you to sin”. He claims you’ll be better off if you gouge out your own eyes and cut off your own hands. Because apparently you can’t go to heaven otherwise. Though apparently when you’re living in heaven, you’ll still be missing whatever body parts you cut off. Anyway, Solomon says sinners don’t know what makes them stumble, so luckily it’s not really possible to follow Jesus’s advice here.
But Jesus has lots more bad advice! He says it doesn’t matter what you put in your mouth, or whether you washed your hands first, because it’s just going to come back out of you. He thinks if you’re generous, that will magically make everything clean for you, so you’ll never need to wash your hands. Jesus also gives needlessly limiting advice to students, telling them that they can never become better than their teachers.
Jesus advises people to be like the good Samaritan, but neglects to mention the fact that seemingly needy strangers are often scammers, and some of them are dangerous violent criminals. Jesus doesn’t think you need to worry about that kind of thing, since people who have killed you can’t harm you any further, so you shouldn’t be afraid of being killed! And anyway, Jesus wants you to hate your life. And your family.
Paul says you should do everything without complaining or arguing, ignoring the fact that complaining and arguing are useful and important things to do. When there’s a problem, people need to identify it and point it out, so it can get solved. When there’s an objective disagreement, people need to discuss it, so that whoever has a false belief can stop having a false belief. Preventing these things from getting done is wrong.
But Paul insists that his followers need to be sheeple, completely agreeing with each other about everything, with no independent thought allowed. He says they all have to insist on going along with his own dumb ideas about slavery and stuff. And he claims that anyone who is so conceited and confused as to teach anything that disagrees with him must “have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels” that can result in nothing but trouble.
More advice from the Bible: You’re no worse if you don’t eat, and no better if you do, so you might as well never eat. Welcome enemy spies and aid them in destroying your country, because you’ll get killed if you don’t. And don’t love anything in the world, because anyone who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
Irresponsible advice
When God created humans (and also again after the flood), he instructed them to increase in number, fill the earth, and subdue it. Overpopulate the world until it can no longer support you, so you can defeat the earth!
God told his people to take a year off from working in their fields every seven years, and also every 50 years. He assured them that he would make the land produce enough food in the sixth year to last for three years. Which is necessary because it will take around a year after they start planting again before the food planted in the eighth year will be ready.
But God didn’t think this through quite as well as he thinks he did. He didn’t realize that sometimes the next year after the 7th year will also be the 50th year. Then you’ll need to save up enough food for four years: the sixth (last normal year), seventh (Sabbath rest), eighth (Jubilee rest), and ninth years (while planting). But God will only provide enough to last you three years.
Solomon says it’s pointless to spend a lot of time working for food, because if God loves you, he will make sure you can afford to rest. Then he contradicts himself with an even less reasonable admonition. He says you should never get even a little sleep, or you’ll suddenly become poor. (This message is repeated several times in Proverbs.) Solomon also says the wise store up their food, while fools gulp theirs down. What’s so wise about keeping food lying around till it rots?
According to King Lemuel (whoever that is) and/or his mother, the proper use of beer and wine is to help poor suffering people forget about their situation. And Paul thinks wine is good for sick people. But I’m pretty sure drinking isn’t the best way to deal with your problems. If this book was really written by God, it would have better advice than that.
Jesus expects his followers to forgive any debts that people owe them, which is absurdly simple-minded. This would mean Christians who lend money will never get it back. So Christians are going to have to either lose all their money to the people who notice that Christians never insist on being repaid, or just refuse to ever lend money.
I guess the latter is more likely, since people who actually do what Jesus said won’t have any money to lend. Jesus requires his followers to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor. Seems like it would be kind of hard to live if you’re not allowed to own anything, though.
Jesus thinks cleaning the inside of a cup somehow makes the outside clean too. And he apparently agrees with Solomon that people should never sleep. Jesus expects you to keep watch all day and night, every day, for the rest of your life, so your master won’t catch you sleeping when he returns. Because your master thinks it’s wrong for you to sleep at night, apparently.
Here’s some of the stupidest advice Jesus gave: Don’t bother doing any of the basic stuff you need to do to stay alive, because living is more important than living! Life is what matters, so don’t bother looking for food to preserve your life. Your body is what matters, so don’t bother looking for clothes to preserve your body.
Live like a dumb animal! Rely on whatever natural beauty you might have to somehow replace the protective function of clothing. Also, never plan ahead. Don’t save up money for the times when you’ll really need it. Just spend it all today.1
Paul thinks you should do what is right in the eyes of everyone. So if anyone thinks something is right, I should do it? That doesn’t sound like a very good reason to do things. This would be a dumb idea even if it was possible to please everyone.
Paul mistakenly believed the world was about to end, and he advised his followers to act accordingly. That means acting irresponsibly, living like there’s no tomorrow. For instance, Paul pressured poor people to donate more than they could afford. He expected his followers to look forward to the destruction of the earth, and to try to make it happen faster.
He also taught them that it was wrong to “think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh“. So don’t even think about getting food to eat! And definitely don’t think you can produce food by planting and watering. Don’t you know that only God can make things grow? Follow Paul’s example, and just ignore the fact that your body is wasting away. You were about to get a new one anyway!
When people are afraid, Isaiah’s solution is to tell them not to be. And in Revelation, Jesus sends a message to some Christians telling them they’re about to suffer and maybe die, but also telling them not to be afraid. Why should people not be afraid when these things are about to happen to them? And when Jesus isn’t even promising to protect them or anything?
I guess he just expects them to accept it for no good reason at all; in other words, to have faith. The Bible encourages you to embrace faith, and other irrational and anti-intellectual ways of thinking that are inherently opposed to truth.