Why read the Bible literally: take two

You seem to be raising the question of whether there is discrimination against creation science.Firstly, let me point out that you are way off topic for a Bible Study forum.If you can suggest a new (or existing) thread topic, perhaps in Is It Science?, then I would be happy to discuss it with you there. I don't want to perpetuate the off-topic posts here. I thought that Scientific American was wrong about that. In fact, I discontinued my subscription shortly after that, although their treatment of Mims was not the sole reason for not renewing. Whether Mims was a creationist was irrelevant to the type of article he was authoring in SA. He should have been judged by the quality of his work, not by his beliefs.

This is a response to what Faith wrote in Message 11. She requested that I copy it to a more appropriate thread where she could respond. Since it relates to literalism, this seems to be an appropriate place. I'll suggest that this is wrong. Conventional science simply deals with observed and observable reality.Sure, there are some people who attack the Bible, and some of those are scientists. But science, as an institution, is not involved in these individual actions.Many scientists consider themselves to be studying God's creation, and learning how to interpret what God himself carved into the rocks, the mountains, the fossil beds. They see nature itself as the word of God, as written by His own hand.For myself, I see the Bible as the word of man. It was written by man. Only a relatively small portion claims to speak directly of the words and actions of God, but even in those parts it reads as a narrative written by men. But men are fallible, and some of what was attributed to God in the Bible might be mistaken, much as some people today are mistaken in what they attribute to God.As I recall from my youth in Australia, and as a member of an evangelical congregation there, people at that time were attempting to reconcile the Biblical account with science. Thus there was a day-age theory of the creation. There was the theory that the flood story reported a regional flood (the then known world). I'm not sure where the conflict between religion and science started, but it is my impression that it is a mainly American phenomenon, and that it is certain religious groups who chose to attack science rather than the other way around.

Aren't those "if"s being used as a rhetorical device, and not to express doubt?