I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity

The more general point is that there's nothing in the bible that wasn't known at the time it was written.

Biblical literalism is a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps 500 yrs old. Really taking hold with the Puritans. Prior to the wide spread availability of a printed bible that people could actually read the practice of Christianity was based on ritual and symbolism. The idea that the bible was meant to be taken literally is ridiculous and, therefore, criticizing it from a literal standpoint is also missing the point.

I keep hearing that. So could you post a list of the bits that should be taken literally, who wrote the list, and whether he or she should be taken literally. Otherwise, people like me are inclined to see all of it as ritual and symbolism, including god.

No, cannot do. There is no such list. And it's fine for you to believe whatever you want to believe.BUT, if you are willing to put as much time and effort into learning stuff like that as you would in learning geology or mathematics or chemistry or physics or history, you might be surprised what you could learn. The hardest part will be putting aside all the things you know are true that are actually false starting with the concept that there is The BIBLE

If you are saying that the writers of the bible were more interested in converting the followers of other religions than telling us anything remotely fundamental or even unknown-at-the-time about reality - Then I agree.

Stuff like what? Could you elaborate?Which aspects of the bible are worth adopting as wisdom, which should be discarded as fantasy and how do we decide which are which? If one wants to believe things that are likley to be true how does one decide which parts of the bible are helpful and which are a hindrance?

Stuff like the history of the books, the canons, the peoples and cultures.We decide which are worth adopting just like we decide about adopting anything else.

OK. And what is it we would hope to learn by studying these things? What is the surprise? Can you give us a sneak preview? Really?When Newton published his Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica containing the inverse square law of gravitation or Einstein published his 1916 paper on the General Theory of Relativity - On what basis were those ideas adopted? Was it the same way that people decide which parts of the bible to adopt and which to reject?

Nope, of course not. It will depend on how many things you think are true are actually factually false. I hope so. You test to see if things help you, if you learn something new, if ideas work.

What do you mean by "work"...?Does General Relativity "work"? Which parts of the bible "work"?

General Relativity works within it's limits.All parts of the Bible work or worked within their limits.

I am sure that you are familiar with what it looks like when a digital signal begins to break up. Say there is a picture of a face and then one eye goes all blocky and the picture freezes. You instinctively know that the picture is not right. You know this by trying to integrate the information with what you already know.So when you hear a story about a talking snake you know that it is a metaphor because snakes don't talk. Not now and not ever. When you hear a story about a 900 yr old man you can be pretty sure that there was an accounting error. The man may have existed but you can be pretty sure that he was not still alive when he was 900 yrs old.The metaphorical parts are the parts that look like a metaphor. It takes a fairly complete disconnect from reality to think that the world was created in 6 days. I do not see how any rational person could dismiss all that we have learned about the universe in the last 2500 yrs in favour of a story written by folks who never even heard of gravity.Contrary to popular belief, it is not fine to believe whatever makes you feel good.

What do you mean by "work"...?(Take the "within limits" part as read - All knowledge is "within limits")

Another silly question.By work I mean accomplish the intended purpose or adequately describe what is observed.But I'm still totally lost about what your point is?Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

That's an unusually poor argument. They had no knowledge of Australia so the concept of "upside-down" people was no problem for them. As it happens, I passed a construction site the other day where the sign was upside-down so I assumed that the contractor was Australian - no problem for me either.