The new, liberal, "Spiritual" Christians claim that even if the factual scientific claims of the Bible are untrue, even if the promises of giant physical miracles are false, still such things in the Bible can be see as spiritual allegories, anyway.

But there are countless problems with this all too common assertion. First 1) we might suspect that it is based on Vanity; now we have a "higher" and "more spiritual" assertion. Then too 2) the Bible itself definitely DID make lots of very material, physical assertions; not all of which can be allegorized or "spiritualized," as critics now note. Then too 3) the science that these new very spiritual liberals now denigrate, has been fantastically fruitful; in fact, these anti -science folks are criticizing science ... on computers it gave them.

So these very proud and vain "spiritual" folks - who make up the bulk of Liberal Christianity - might well be accused of inconsistency and hypocrisy.

In "How to Read the Bible", James Kugel says that spiritualized reading has been going on since roughly 300-200 B.C., when Jewish people set out to learn the relevance of their ancient stories and apply them to their current lives by reading them spiritually. So this method of interpretation predates the scientific revolution by over 1500 years.

Also, how do you justify your assertion that liberals who read the Bible spiritually are "denigrating" science?

1) Spiritual readings had been going on at least since Philo. Which would be well in time to read Jewish/Old Testament texts allegorically. Both literal and spiritual readings would later have been inherited by Christianity. As it inherited many Jewish texts in its Old Testament.

2) Early versions of science, engineering, were already well advanced in the timeframe you mention: just take a look at the Roman aqueducts and construction projects. For some time, Aristotle - c. 300 BC - was called the "father of science." Though current opinion changed that a bit, there was some truth in this.

In fact, even the relatively primitive sense of natural history of 200 BC knew that the literal reading of miracles did not quite square with observed reality. That is precisely the reason that allegories were considered: the literal physical reading seemed too obviously contradicted by hard facts.

3) By emphasizing subjective interiority, spirit, while at times even "hating" the external "world" (to use acetic and biblical language), liberals and spiritual gurus denigrate physical reality.

A denigrating attitude toward science is also readily apparent in current liberal attacks on Dawson and others. Which is apparent in this or other recent posts in DU.

4) Spiritualization is not entirely new; but is has become much more popular as time has gone on. Even as much of Christianity has remained literalistic. For example, until very recently, the Catholic Church insisted on the physicality of miracles; and stipulated that saints worked them. Until just a few years ago, no one could be made a saint, until at least three physical miracles could be shown to relate to a given candidate for canonization. Until about 1965 or so, it was also regular practice for priests and ministers to promise physical miracles; sick people could pray and be physically healed and so forth. Such things were usually not taken metaphorically.

Even if they read texts spiritually to avoid a conflict with science, they still get accused of hating the physical world and the science that observes it. This despite the fact that liberals are part of a tradition that has declared the physical world to be God's good creation AND have perennially concerned themselves more with expressing God's love and justice in this world rather than just waiting for the next.

the Biblical texts "spiritually" as opposed to conservatives is just so much word salad. (The actual difference in hermeneutics is between literal and metaphorical readings, which is not the same thing at all.) In fact, conservatives are tightly focused on spirituality and personal salvation through correct belief. It's the liberals who are intent on changing the real, physical world for the better. It's just sloppy thinking to fail to make the distinction.

Granted, fortunately, secular liberals are today more concerned with say, poverty vs. social justice in this world.

However? The high spiritual priesthood often was not. Ascetic monks and preachers often "hate"d the material "world," and believed that our rewards should only be in a (presumably spiritual) "heaven." For some time, until about 1966, even many liberals followed this model. The current Pope's call for "helping the poor" is considered a significant change or advance, by many.

"But Christians have recognized the allegorical nature of these accounts since the very beginnings of Christianity."

account for the large percentage of Christians who are Creationists? Obviously many Christians don't see these stories as allegory.

If you only talk to theologians in Oxford or Cambridge, you don't really know what Christians think.

Strawmen and NTS.

Literalism, as we now understand it, stems largely from the Reformation in the sixteenth century but really took off in the eighteenth century.

Here's a good short article framing it.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/feb/21/biblical-literalism-bible-christians

no one thought the Bible stories were real?

You were speaking literally about literalism.
Got it now.

I see that you were making a distinction between the bible being true and the idea that every word should be taken literally. Which your link says came about a few hundred years ago.
I'm not sure if the author is making that distinction though. Perhaps he delv3s into it in the book.

The churches always took things primarily, literally.

Until in fact the very latest round of canonizations, 2014, the Church usually insisted that saints worked real physical miracles; regular reversals of the natural order as defined by science. Until extremely recently, three physical - not spiritual - miracles were required for a candidate for sainthood to be finally named a saint.

Very rare physical events.

Canonization is a different subject entirely. Three are no longer required. That does not equate to the Catholic Church abandoning the notion of miracles.

2) And by the way, miracles were not always promised rarely: John 14.13 ff. has often been read by preachers as promising us "all" and "whatever" - and therefore, whenever - we "ask."

3) For that matter, at times it was said that the Eucharistic host changed literally, into the flesh of Jesus; which would seem to be a regular miracle. Later some spoke of it as a vaguer "transubstantiation." But we are still told that the host IS the body of Christ.

4) And for a very long time, until very recently indeed, having holy water sprinkled on you, was thought to cause miracles.

5) Many believers today claim a miracle, when their physical sickness disappears. Disregarding the immune system and so forth.

Attempts to distance Christianity from earlier promises of physical miracles therefore, even lots of them, run into countless objections.

It's like a tic. They cannot help it. And, of course, one could predict that Richard Dawkins would figure prominently, as he is universally perceived as the evil atheist curmudgeon. (Well, he is at least a bit of a curmudgeon at times.)

Myself, I prefer Daniel Dennett as the face of atheism. More thoughtful, in both argument and demeanor. Less likely to make off-the-cuff, cringe-worthy remarks. I like Dawkins a lot, too. But he sometimes does not do his image much good, which is why I prefer Dennett as a model. He also has some great ideas.

It is a universal that when one brings up Dawkins, one is going to malign atheism in some way. It's silly.

Its description on Amazon:

Is the Amazon description accurate?

Or is someone lying to us? Either Amazon or ...?

Surely Christians couldn't be lying to us?

Could they?

WAIT! If the Bible is just allegorical, does that mean when they often promised us actual, giant physical miracles, the power to walk on water and the power to real bread out of thin air, to heal real diseases ... they were just lying? Or playing sly word games with everyone?

Who would've thought.

who think many of the biblical stories are literally true.

Most see them as allegory and I rarely if ever hear from literalists, except when someone is insisting that you must be a literalist if you call yourself a believer.

Which, of course, is complete nonsense.

.... a very, very major element of traditional Christianity.

Which would mean? Many liberal "believers" have abandoned much - at least half - of what Christianity once claimed.

Probably it would be most accurate to call non-literalists, liberal believers, therefore say, "half-believers."

and there and a biblical literalist.

That doesn't mean they have abandoned christian beliefs at all and non-literalists are by no means "half believers". That gives too much credit to literalists as being the only true believers.

That is exactly what they would like you to believe.

Nobody can deny that people who do believe the bible is literally true are actively trying to change the way we educate. Nobody can deny that they are trying to force their views on the rest of us through law. So to bring this cringeworthy book up as some kind of "gotcha!" is dishonest to the extreme.

How literal they have been about scientifically-unacceptable assertions about the nature of the universe.

While in addition to that, I am noting that 2) even the allegedly higher, more "spiritual" Christianity of modern liberals, has many problems of its own as well (James 2.14-26; "false spirits" etc.).

The Bible itself for that matter, warned about problems even in spirituality: "false spirits" (1 John 4.1 etc.).

the idea of religion as a protoscientific explanation was fair for its day but is from 1871
Galileo pissed off all his friends, and then anyone who could help him: theories of celestial mechanics made heliocentricity mainstream decades after he got the ASOIAF treatment, and Tychonism was buried in the 1720s (by which time the fight was over whether Earth was grape- or pumpkin-shaped): 1870s invective based on fabricated stories is not accurate
nothing in Dan Brown's works is right, even the appearance and layout of Paris or Rome: if anything matches what he says, it's wrong
ditto William Manchester on the Middle Ages
double ditto Jack Chick's source on Catholicism
they haven't called it the Dark Ages since the 40s: they don't even use MEDICINES that were BLEEDING-EDGE in the 40s any more
in fact they blew the Antikythera Device out of the water
nobody literate or otherwise schooled believed the Earth was flat: "mirrors for princes" even advised the tutor hang an apple on a string and pass it before a candle to explain eclipses
the Baptists' founding myth isn't the only way to interpret late Roman history
no such thing as the "reptilian brain"
the Oxford Debate elicited polite chuckles more than invective
there was no right of First Night
Bruno was no science martyr, and in fact was way more of a mage than a hundred Aleister Crowleys, with his star-dæmons ruling each third of the Zodiac--and this was a period of Cabala-powered memory theaters whose Homeric images read you back as much as you used them as emblems, and where summoning the goddess Venus into the papal chambers with hypolydian music and a Zodiac board with the planetary gems in all the right places got you a full pardon and imprimatur for your books on perfect sun-worshiping Atlantis-styled cities whose walls are covered in hieroglyphs that naturally taught the inhabitants and mad them morally better
and Newton was terrifying!
ditto Hypatia
the big witch hunts were modern, topped out at 50-60K, and mostly Protestant (or "Germanic" I should say): the Spanish Inquisition kiboshed them altogether
history's not an upward march by a tiny handful of brave Übermenschen

but I know that history's important because people try to dismiss it--in fact, to erase it and just fill it with themselves, forever and ever: they're pointing to "history" while in fact the historians are telling them as loud as possible that everything they're saying is dead wrong

you can't fight fundies by being as rigidly antihistorical, anti-theoretical, anti-philosophical or as blindly slavish to parochial 19th-century cranks as they are ...

1) I clicked on "reptilian brain" ... and found that the standard encyclopedia mentions that this triune theory is not completely accepted, but has some notable acceptance.

2) I clicked on "First Night" ... and saw that the article rejects the notion of this existing in specifically medieval times, in feudalism. But then a lengthy bibliography notes a DOZEN references to it in OTHER eras.

Religious "historians" have been eager to try to "disprove" that they were simply scientifically backward people, believing that people can walk on water and so forth. But? Here as usual, it is their view of history, not atheists', that has been distorted.

Countless efforts HAVE been made by religious "historians" in the last 40 years to "debunk" the notion that Christians believed in much false history and so forth. And at times one or another notorious article claimed to have done that with it seems, most of the topics you mentioned. However? Aside from a few odd writings, the more balanced encyclopedic accounts you link to, do not quite agree WITH THEM AND YOU, that these problems with believers have been decisively debunked. Either by History or by Science.

In fact? It seems to me that your "History" is primarily the heavily-biased "history" of religious zealots. Who wanted to destroy the historical evidence against themselves. So they overconfidently developed the criticisms of their earlier belief.

They're the ones that want to deny the Inquisition; the religious persecution of science, and so forth. They want to "prove" History said no such thing. But outside their own biased efforts, real history resists them - and you.

But what do I know? Only one of my graduate degrees is in a history-related discipline.

Science doesn't support believers. And neither does real History. Even your own citations/links often do not support you.

Did you attend a religious college ?

on everything from theology to paleontology has been thoroughly debunked, I'd suggest you avoid asking such questions as "But what do I know?"

I can't quite claim to be "expert" in all 20 departments; but I've got a bit more in each than most grads have. As well as the ability to put them together in integrative paradigms.

By the way, as usual your response here is ad-hominem insult; rather than addressing the substance of my argument.