Atheist Fundamentalism

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Same with the bible. Nowhere does it say 'this story is allegorical', so how on earth are we supposed to know when talking to a theist what part they accept and what part they reject unless it comes up in discussion?

Sacred texts do not exist in a vacuum. They are nested within cultures and traditions. They are particularly complex and one must receive proper instruction about them in order to make such subtle judgments. Demanding the precision of mathematics is simply unrealistic when navigating through the many and various circumstances of life to which the texts refer. Such a demand by an atheist is just as fundamentalist and literal minded as the believer he condemns. That I believe is the jist of the OP.

I'm not demanding that people do anything with their holy book(s), I'm just reflecting the reality of what happens.

Proper instruction from whom? What would be the 'proper' instruction and how could one tell? Is it not simply another assumption to presume that the a given holy text exists as literal in one context and allegorical in another? How could we tell that, and where would we garner this information?

I understand the point completely about contextual readings of the bible, but there's no consistency. You'll have one person quoting Leviticus about why gay marraige is bad but ignoring Deuteronomy saying you should kill a woman if you marry her and she's not a virgin. Which is more contextual and why (not)?

I'm certainly not demanding the mathematical precision you indicate, but when we consider what books like the bible actually are (supposedly the direct word or 'inspired' word of a supreme celestial being of unknown quantification), then surely something more concrete is achievable/preferable? These are not 'normal' texts to those that believe in them.

Even you few theists that are regulars here often disagree on many points about the bible and it's interpretation. If not even you guys can agree, and you're the one's who believe in all this stuff, what on earth are we supposed to think?