[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

And while I don't believe in divine inspiration, I don't agree with your reasoning here. You seem to be assuming that if there had been divine inspiration, the authors would have written a science book.

What I mean is that if divine inspiration had been a real factor, had god actually been dictating what to be written, then the book would reflect an omniscient being's knowledge of how the natural world operates.

Maybe so. 

Not being omniscient myself, I am reluctant to say what such a thing would do.

And now that I think of it, it is downright dangerous of us to assume we know how such a thing would operate. Our own values are very much contingent on our time and place. There is no reason to think that they are or should be universal.

One of the worst things religious people can do is look at their own contingent values (e.g. owning guns is good) and make the mistake of attributing this opinion to an eternal all-knowing consciousness. They shouldn't do that, and I think we shouldn't do that.