Today's Sermon: And user stats shall lead them...

Today's guest minister: Brian Sack, author of "Shopping For God," Radar Magazine

The Gospel(s), according to Brian:

A few weeks ago Amazon.com introduced “Text Stats,” a nifty little feature that boils a book down to its core, allowing you to understand it without having to read it. (Great news for people who don’t have time to get into all the words and page-turning that reading burdens you with.) When Text Stats is applied to the world’s major religions, it creates a handy roadmap to eternity, a sort of Consumer Reports for the soul.

Brian's Amazon analysis of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran and Life's Little Instruction Book yielded some rather surprising results:

Readability

The readability stat is based on various arcane calculations that estimate the years of education required to understand what you’re reading.

Bible: You should be close to finishing the 10th grade.
Torah: You should be close to graduating from high school.
Koran: You should have at least a ninth-grade education.
Life’s Little Instruction Book: You should be beginning your final year in middle school.
Everyone knows being Jewish makes you smarter; that’s why they all wear glasses.
Winner: Torah

Common Words

Text Stats determines what words come up most often in a given work.

Bible: Shall, unto, Lord
Torah: Shall, unto, Lord
Koran: God, shall, Lord
Life’s Little Instruction Book: Book, little, instruction
Life’s Little Instruction Book plays it safe by keeping it real, and it really pays off: All that Jewish, Christian and Muslim “shall” stuff sounds really bossy.
Winner: Life’s Little Instruction Book

Value

Text Stats tells you the number of words in a book for every dollar it costs.

Bible: 61,889
Torah: 6,869
Koran: 19,619
Life’s Little Instruction Book: 2,707

The best bang for your buck is the Bible, which offers readers nearly 62,000 words per dollar.
Winner: the Bible

Overall winner: Life’s Little Instruction Book. Sure, it’s no bargain, but it’s the quickest read—not to mention the easiest. (If we’re going to bother finding a belief system, it better be something fast and digestible.) But the greatest strength of Life’s Little Instruction Book is that the odds of it inciting, inspiring or igniting anything are extremely slim. Which makes it our favorite good book of all.

Quick read?

Easiest?

Fast?

Digestible?

Hm. Sounds like those "modern, user-friendly, anti-King James versions" of the Bible...

But that's loaves and fishes for another Sunday.

Thus Endeth Today's Sermon.

Go forth today, knowing that Amazon.com is probably not the definitive path to religious enlightenment. It is, however, an excellent place to find great prices on used holy texts...

Bible ($8.24)
Torah ($7.89)
Koran ($1.50)
Life’s Little Instruction Book ($0.94)

By the way, a simple google search yielded over 35 million hits for the term "free Bible."

Therefore, I say unto you: It's OK to doubt the sincerity of a true believer who sells a holy book through Amazon.com or any other broker.

I mean it, damn it!

Sheep, Wolves, etc. You know the drill.