[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Acrobat]

Some writings are clearly meant to be taken symbolically such as Revelation. But it's not really clear to me that any part of, say, Genesis was originally intended to be symbolic on the whole.

When you were a kid, and the teacher read a fable, like the three little pigs, Where you confused as to whether she was reading a historical account or non- historical one? Did she need to preface it with a warning, that it's non-historical.

I dont think it's that hard to recognize that the Genesis accounts aren't literal.

You make two buckets. Take all styles of writing we know are non-historical, and all the styles of writing that are historical, and then ask yourself which bucket the style in which the garden of Eden story, the flood, etc.. written resembles the most?

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I dont make assumptions about the Genesis accout, and i am not basing any of my beliefs on that. How about you?

What i know is that a literal meaning wuld be objectively wrong, since science has long disproven it.

What a believer (which i am not) had to do now, is to show that it was meant in a non-literal way, in what way it was original meant and tell his findings. Good luck. If there may not way to figure out what Genesis´ background and intention was, then i will happyily keep suspending my belief(s) based on that. How about you?

Why would I start with the default assumption that it was intended literally, then demonstrate that it wasn't? Why not the other way around?

I don't read anything as intended to be read as history, unless I have good reason to think so. Is that unreasonable?

I look at the style of Genesis, and can recognize that it resembles the style of writing of non-historical stories. I can see that the writer gives no indication otherwise. Based on this I read it as non-historical.

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As for what is to be taken literally and what isn't, exactly, that's a matter of dispute among Christians.

Like I wrote earlier you must explain the way you can discern truth amid the metaphors. What is allegory and what is real? How do you tell the difference? This is particularly difficult for Christians, because the historical evidence for Jesus - that is, for a real person around whom the myth accreted - is thin. And evidence for Jesus as the son of God is unconvincing, resting solely on the assertions of the Bible and interpretations of people writing decades after the events described in the Gospels.

How do you tell the difference everywhere else, between sarcasm, metaphors, similes, allegories, fables, histories,etc..? Do people constantly need to tell you that they weren't being literal?

Most of us seem fine discerning these things in everyday life. People who really struggle with this, typically have an impaired inferential capacity, like those on the autistic spectrum.