[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[GrandizerII]

I personally have no problem with anyone adopting a position because it's comforting for them, 

The trouble I see is that people sometimes assume this is the reason why positions are adopted, without really knowing. So you've got zillions of Christians and other religious people believing a wide variety of things for a wide variety of reasons, and somebody will just announce "they believe that because it's comforting." Well, maybe, but we don't really know. And it's not good to pretend we can do mind-reading.

After all, some Christians do their own mind-reading, and announce that atheists deep down really do believe in god, but adopt an atheist position because it's comforting to think there's no judgment. 

I don't want to do that kind of thing.

And no one here is. They're just going with what's obviously the case in specific individuals who have made it clear they're adopting positions for comfort rather than for the sake of intellectual honesty, even if those people wouldn't explicitly state it like that.

Yes, indeed. People will come here and confidently proclaim that their position is correct, based on their mind-reading. Or their intuitions. 

I would like people to back up what they say with intellectual arguments and concrete evidence. Somebody here was making a classic argument from ignorance just yesterday: "I don't know of any evidence therefore I am sure the thing doesn't exist." If it's bad for Christians to use logical fallacies, then it's bad for us too.

In the case of God, then one can reasonably believe God (in the supernatural sense) does not exist because the evidence that is strongly expected for such a grand entity just isn't there. If it isn't there, then it's very likely such a being does not exist. If someone says they're sure, though, based on lack of evidence, then that would be unreasonable.

or adopting naive and clearly false understanding of cognitive/developmental social/psychological phenomena ...

This is a constant problem. 

For example, it's been frequently and confidently asserted that religion is a failed attempt to explain natural phenomena, and that it started out 100% literalist and due to the advancement of science had to be converted to figurative. 

This is an over-simple, almost certainly false understanding of complex social/psychological stuff.

Yes, but here's the thing. If you can actually explain how what they're saying is wrong, most of them (I bet) will pay attention and correct their stances on this matter. But in this whole thread, I haven't seen anyone (theist or atheist) show that (almost certainly) Genesis was meant to not be taken literally from the start. Instead, when I asked for supporting argument from Acrobat, I got the kind of response that showed they don't have a good understanding of how myths can start and then develop. Stories progress over time with more details and tend to be more elaborate over time to the point it becomes almost a different story from the original. Furthermore, it is clear that people in the past took for granted all sorts of absurd things we don't accept anymore thanks to modern science (a skim through a history of religion book would do good for those who question this).