Write Only What You Know.. or not!

I've heard people.. writers say this a lot to other writers: 'Write about your environment. Write only what you know.' I've been told too, several times. It's good advice, but it's quite myopic. Here's why.
 

Those who believe in it usually say that the Bible was written by men while God dictated. Going by the advice of 'write only what you know', those writers ought to have said to God: 'Oh man, these are strange things. We ain't familiar with many of them. We don't feel comfy writing about them. Why don't you tell us to write about something close to us, like that sexy girl next door with big boobs??' And then there's Bram Stoker who wrote Dracula, set far far away from his home environment. I read somewhere that he'd never been to those parts before he wrote the book. Don't know how true that is, but the important fact is that the book became a huge success even though it wasn't set in his backyard. You can write a bestseller that's set far far away from your village, town, state, country or even your planet! If we all wrote only what we knew and were familiar with, that's how we'ld grow too and we'd have still been in the Garden of Eden by now, running around naked with our dicks and breasts flapping about in the open. Eew! Not a sweet sight.
 

So bottom line, fiction is imagination. Nobody should be encouraged to write only what he/she knows. Like Nico & Vinz asked: "Am I wrong, for thinking out the box from where I stay?... Now am I wrong, for trying to reach the things that I can't see?' Instead of saying 'write only what you know', let's start saying 'Do your research and write anything you want.'
Happy Writing!