It’s a variant of Magic Book-ism; when all you have in your faith tradition is the Bible, you have to make it self-referential, until you get to “The Bible is true because The Bible says so!” and wind up inside your own event horizon, where Faith becomes denial of physical reality instead of the substance of things hoped for. (Islam took that route with Mohammed al-Ghazali around 1000 years ago, and we’re seeing the long-term results.)

My church (RCC) gets around this trap with what it calls “the Magisterium”, a tradition of precedent and teaching authority based on experience. Two thousand years of institutional memory can make a guess as to what interpretation holds water and what doesn’t.

As far as I can tell, the creation stories in Genesis show every sign of Classical Hebrew poetic structure. It was written as a poem, not a textbook.

My understanding of this is that for some (many? most?) Christians, if the creation stories aren’t true, then the Fall isn’t true, and if the Fall isn’t true, then we didn’t need Jesus to die and be raised. Or some variation of that.

Dawkins says that Evolution Proves Atheism, QED?

The guy’s a funhouse mirror of Young Earth Creationists! At their core, YECs believe in the same thing as Dawkins — Evolution automatically means Atheism, Evolution automatically disproves Christianity. It explains a lot.

Eleven Minutes in, another “Say What?”:

Dawkins, Hamm, Hoving — read St Paul! It’s “if the Resurrection didn’t happen, all Christian belief collapses”, NOT the Six-Day Zap! So why all the Creation-vs-Evolution knock-down-drag-outs as the core of the Faith?

Thirteen Minutes in:

“Religion is dangerous because it always leads to violence?” Skipping what happened when the French and Russian Revolutions made atheism into their State Religion, did Dawkins ever write Star Trek fanfic? “Religion Equals Primitive Superstiton, NO EXCEPTIONS!” was one of the core axioms of the Star Trek universe! I remember a couple Next Gen (AKA New Testament Trek) episodes that hammered the viewer over the head with just that dogma!

He’s well-beyond Atheist and into Anti-Theist.

It’s like he’s channelling Madelyn Murray O’Hare or something.

Reply to Dawkins’ attacks by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.