Thoughtful Humour

Once again, reading Zizek, I found a very good passage from another book quoted in In Defense of Lost Causes, and it made me smile, so I looked for it online (because sloth is one of my vices and I didn't want to type it all up if I could help it--) and found it.  I haven't read the book, but the context in which this passage was quoted tells me I don't have to, in order to understand the meaning here:

"Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was what was the matter with him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible? A printer reads a Bible for misprints. A Mormon reads his Bible, and finds polygamy; a Christian Scientist reads his, and finds we have no arms and legs. St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian Protestant soldier. Now, just think what that might mean; and, for Heaven's sake, don't cant about it. It might mean a man physically formidable living under a tropic sun in an Oriental society, and soaking himself without sense or guidance in an Oriental Book. Of course, he read the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he found in the Old Testament anything that he wanted -- lust, tyranny, treason. Oh, I dare say he was honest, as you call it. But what is the good of a man being honest in his worship of dishonesty?"

G.K. Chesterton, The Sign of the Broken Sword

http://books.eserver.org/fiction/innocence/brokensword.html