Believing the unbelievable

Moby Dick is a classic example of a book requiring a non-literal interpretation. Otherwise, all we have is a tale of a whale and a crazy one-legged coot chasing him. If the fundies had the idea Melville was a divinely inspired prophet, we'd all be in whaling ships hounding an endangered species into extinction and completely missing the point of the story. Admittedly, there's a certain convenience in having the answer to the mysteries of life spelled out in black and white in a book that everyone can read and understand, but if you take it literally, you miss the point. Early Christian writers like St. Augustine and Origen, for example, argued it would be absurd and embarrassing to take Genesis literally. Apparently, Pat Robertson didn't get the memo.

I've never read The Importance of Being Earnest, but I don't think Oscar Wilde ever claimed to be divinely inspired or to have anything to say about ultimate meaning. Same goes for Fight Club, although it gives insights into aspects of reality. On the other hand, the scriptures of the great world religions and some writings of great philosophers ( Spinoza and Whitehead, etc.) do contain important spiritual truths. I've drawn on these to gain a deeper understanding of God and my own Christian faith.

I agree that atheists provide support for scriptural literalism by focusing on the apparent problems with the text. Atheism in that sense resembles fundamentalism. Biblical literalism is a distraction from the true meaning of scripture, and provides an easy target for those who think they have discredited Christianity by refuting obvious absurdities. Was the real point of the Jonah story that a man could live in the belly of a fish for such a long time? Was the "fish" Moby Dick?

 

Misfeed.