Are religious people selfish?

[Astonished]

So why bother with scripture?

Because of the brain.

The brain is an organ responsible of logic and understanding, it also stands guard over the genes. It can make a person hold their breath under water, or make them donate blood, and in extreme cases even die for a cause or an idea.

To believe in God, is to believe in the instructions he gives us to control the gene.

What would be the advantage of being capable of passing on one's genes if one's instinct were to neglect the well-being of their children and by extension, others of the same species? That accounts for it far better than 'that's just god touching you'. It also accounts for those aberrants (mutation) and the fact that there's the whole nature vs. nurture deal where greed and selfishness can be taught as the dominant position to hold. Self-preservation is also a trait that will tend to increase one's personal genetic line's chances of being passed on, and there are degrees of that too. Using a god as a placeholder explanation...isn't really an explanation. "Why does deus X do that?" "Because it's jeebus." Very informative.