The Bible as allegory? Tell that to the investors in the Noah’s Ark theme park, which “proves” that the ark was real.

The great majority of Christians do not take the Bible allegorically. Many more take the Bible literally than not. This is much more important than traditions which do not significantly affect the lives of millions of believers and non-believers alike.

Just because some highly educated Jewish and Christian thinkers didn't take the myths seriously doesn't mean that the ordinary priests didn't inculcate such superstitious myths into the common people.

This is the same old "atheism is another religion" argument. I am narrow minded, apparently, because of my inability to take the ridiculous with the undue seriousness with which they embrace it.

There are is a wide spectrum of believers and most are closer to the literal description in the Bible. One cannot blame Dawkins for taking them at their word.

What's the criteria for determining what is literal and what is allegorical in the Bible? Don't fault Dawkins for responding to a healthy chunk of Christians who take the Bible literally.

People like dawkins can back up their lectures with proof....based on actual evidence.....show me one shred of evidence to back up any evidence relating to that fairy story book nutters call the bible

From what we have been seeing many of the evangelical Christians today talk about the literal statements from(a) bible - there are several versions. I am sure not all atheist agree on some of the finer points but we all agree all religious teachings are crap and only pollute ones mind. Dawkins is human and so can be prone to mistakes but my question would be how much conflict of interests are involved. Religion has a massive conflict of interest but there is usually little gain in helping people let go of myths. Looking at some of the links I suspect Gray is a stealth religionist. Denigrating science and glorifying religion shows that.

Yes, it's obviously Richard Dawkins who is closed minded. Ha ha ha.

Because there have been a small number of xtians over the years who purported that the bible was allegorical, it was obviously never meant to be taken literally.

And what about other bible stories? Believing in the literal resurrection and virgin birth is what defines a christian. A great many xtians also believe that the bible is the unerring word of god regardless Philo, Augustine, and Maimonides many have said.

The author makes Darwin's case, and then attacks his person, ascribing motives that are of no consequence of Dawkin's writings.

started reading but then found myself examining my navel & noticed a tiny amount of lint...

Nonsense. without the original sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, Jesus would be redundant. Of course the story is taken literally.

I think of him as the 'David v Goliath' figure who took on an organisation single-handedly and won. I read two of his books, The Selfish Gene and the The Extended Phenotype, and they are truly wonderful books. No doubt, he will come to be seen as a stepping stone among others who took us forward in our understanding of ourselves. That move forward usually involves modifying what has been done earlier so I trust Dawkins' work will undergo the same process.

What a waste of intelligence.

This is the same shit thrown at Sam Harris. His response is, "The majority of believers do believe the stories are literal. I am only responding to those believers who say they believe."

When fundie's don't believe catholics are even christian there's some serious translation problems in religion. Batshit crazy is what they all are.

There is perhaps no doubt that Dawkins is arrogant. But having said that there is perhaps a failing of logic in criticizing him for only attacking the easy target of fundamentalist religion, and failing to engage with the the, “ vast traditions of figurative and allegorical ”, when by definition such traditions are irrelevant to the debate between the literal interpretation of religious texts and science.
Especially as by some definitions such traditions could be said not to be religion at all.

I always figured Dawkins was critiquing Religion as currently (for the past 500 years or so) practiced, not as Augustine or Philo may have considered it. When he, or anyone else for that matter, denigrates Religion as an institution, it’s irrelevant whether Genesis is considered to be literal or figurative. It’s the basic function and purpose of religion that cause the problems, not the details of the dogma of its adherents. Saying that Dawkins has a closed mind entirely misses the point.

well, it is interesting to know that the bible's original readers (or hearers) were not encouraged to take genesis literally, but as for dawkins, i had been an atheist for nine years when his first book came out, so he had no influence on me one way or the other, and still doesn't.

g

The Dawk is a Bright.

I was reading Daniel C Dennett when I was in grade school. I didn't know until years later that he is an atheist. I wonder if that had something to do with my lack of belief and always questioning religion. I just know I couldn't make myself swallow the garbage the fundies were peddling. I could never get past the concept of original sin.

It's okay to respect Dawkins as a biologist and take his sociological claims with a grain of salt.

so how do we know which parts are an analogy and which parts are the literal word of god. Please pass on the bits that are literal......better yet.....why don't YOU re-write it so the christian world can be of one mind

Dawkins is trying showing that fairy tales are a bunch of bs. No matter how it's written.

As to the Genesis creation stories being considered allegorical, let us consider what everybody's favorite Genesis allegoricalist, Augustine, thought about the age of the Universe. From his book City of God, book 18 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120118.htm):

Chapter 40.— About the Most Mendacious Vanity of the Egyptians, in Which They Ascribe to Their Science an Antiquity of a Hundred Thousand Years.

In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that Egypt has understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred thousand years. For in what books have they collected that number who learned letters from Isis their mistress, not much more than two thousand years ago? Varro, who has declared this, is no small authority in history, and it does not disagree with the truth of the divine books. For as it is not yet six thousand years since the first man, who is called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed rather than refuted who try to persuade us of anything regarding a space of time so different from, and contrary to, the ascertained truth? For what historian of the past should we credit more than him who has also predicted things to come which we now see fulfilled? And the very disagreement of the historians among themselves furnishes a good reason why we ought rather to believe him who does not contradict the divine history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the citizens of the impious city, scattered everywhere through the earth, when they read the most learned writers, none of whom seems to be of contemptible authority, and find them disagreeing among themselves about affairs most remote from the memory of our age, cannot find out whom they ought to trust. But we, being sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion, have no doubt that whatever is opposed to it is most false, whatever may be the case regarding other things in secular books, which, whether true or false, yield nothing of moment to our living rightly and happily.

(the "chapters" are all very short" )

Yes, Augustine was a young-earther, and most Christian and Jewish theologians were young-earthers until the last few centuries, despite many pagan philosophers believing that the Universe is much older than what one would calculate from the Bible's genealogies. In fact, some philosophers believed that the Universe is infinitely old -- eternal.