Re:Literal, and a whole lot more than and less tha (Score 1)

You are quite right. And I certainly think that simply playing around with words makes an all too easily defeated argument. But arguments aside, many people do use it the way I do in theoretical circles and theological circles,(though probably few of those who created the museum do, which you are quite justified to point out. And for me , that is the problem.) but primarily it gets used to mean the relative opposite of that. I actually had a discussion about this with my prof, Paul Fry, who informed me that there are many problems in theoretical writing where people conflate the two types of literal. What Thomas was calling attention to, I think, would be helpful if many people, not just on this site, had a chance to think about. The term //literal// can be confusing, and often in several post-modern discussions the term seems entirely useless since what it refers to may not actually exist. But what the discussion at hand boils down to is exactly how one does interpret the question you laid out.

But the question is simple: Do you believe that the bible retells, in specific detail, the actual events of 6000 years ago? And for the museum creationists, the answer is an emphatic yes.

The creators of the museum would say, apparently, yes. But they first made the assumption that the Bible's account of creation speaks of, and specifically tells of, events 6000 years ago. Last I read the passages, there's a long chronology of people and their children which count up the years from Adam's birth/beginning of existence. And a passage which places Adam's creation in a particular day. But the assumption that his beginning occurred in a time less than seven 24 hour periods after the creation of the world I have a hard time with. That's a rather large assumption for me. (So I'm one of those people who question what //day// means in Genesis before the sun existed, which makes me think //day// has a figurative use.) And indeed for those who say that the passages are figurative but refer to a literal truth which is possibly obscured it is such assumptions which seem to cloud our understanding. Finally, I'm not even sure the question above actually frames a literal interpretation of the Bible, even given the more common definition of literal.

Further, the assumption that Adam was exactly a lone man in a total wilderness of nothing like himself also seems a little dubious. But if we were to think that the whole process was describing something only like what its talking about, which I and many would argue is always the precondition for language, (Though Thomas might not have agreed, I think Augustine would have.) the whole story becomes its own linguistic figure revealing and maybe concealing its intended meaning. Is no language literal? Is any language literal? Well, that's a problem that's far too worn-out for any interesting discussion. But as for theology, and this discussion, to keep it on topic, I find that most people who say they take it literally in the way you defined it here, actually take it more like what I defined, but would never say so. Or more accurately, when confronted with poetry in the Bible they would side with the "literal sense," the way I outlined above, when confronted with what doesn't seem so literary they would side with literal language, the way you defined it. For me, such a practice may be too selective. And the Bible may be far more literary than often thought of. Such is not a problem for me, though for some it could be.

I do think it would be fun to continue discussing conceptions of literality and figurative language, I'm not sure there is a good consensus on what these things are or are not, and thought I would bring up something which does just that. Thomas questions what exactly is literal, though often never goes so far as to doubt literal truth somewhere in the whole mix of things.

To bring it back to science, I think it would be immensely helpful to get a greater consensus on what people mean by //literal// and in what contexts they mean it. How is a description of an observation literal? How can it be more precise? What is the role of figurative language in scientific programmes? How do we know that future people won't take our metaphors literally if and when we use them? What do you think?