People often ask me what I chose to start studying religious scripture. There's an old, possibly apocryphal tale about someone walking into W.C. Fields' dressing room and catching him reading a Bible. In an effort to cover it up, he quickly said, "I'm looking for loopholes." In casual conversation, this is usually the answer I offer.

We understand a great deal about the structure of matter due to the field of crystallography. A certain part of the electromagnetic spectrum is sent as a beam into a solid and, based on its diffraction pattern or angle of the refracted rays, you can make a determination about the internal structure of the atoms of that solid. This requires that you first understand the properties of the beam of electromagnetic particles you sent into the solid.

I started studying the scriptures of the major religions, therefore, because I wanted to understand people better. The ideas that come from any given religion is the beam of electromagnetic particles that goes into us. No one has ever explained to me what their religion is; they have merely explained to me what their religion means to them.