Pardon my pomposity, but I did raise a couple of issues that seem rather profound and deep to me, but you danced right past them.
My question that involved Laniakea addressed the not-outlandish notion that intelligent life may exist elsewhere in the Universe. If such life exists, Christianity will prove irrelevant to these other creatures, which means Christianity is just an Earth-based invention. After all, if The Story of Jesus is supposed to be so awesome and jaw-dropping, why wouldn’t it apply to other beings in the universe? I know the answer to that question. As for you, I’ll let you figure out why Christianity is just an elaborate fiction with many moving parts — and sects! (whereas “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a “narrow” and self-contained work of fiction). There is no compelling reasoning to embrace Christianity or any other religion because all of them have supernatural elements — assertions, really — that have nothing to do with how the world works. More on this in a moment.
Also, you said nothing about my question about morality. Maybe you said nothing because you understand that evolution accounts for our moral impulses, that what we humans call morality has all to do with our biological natures and nothing to do with having been gifted these impulses by some ludicrous Being. Good! That’s one road for you out of the dark forest of Christianity and into the light of day of secular humanism.
Regarding literalism, there’s a question that non-literalist devotees of the Bible seem to never want to ask: Why does this literalism go on at all? If all these stories are just morality tales dressed up as fables in supernatural garb, why does anyone on the planet take these stories literally? Take “creation.” It’s fact that all creation stories, no matter the religion, are false. Life evolves. There was no first human male and female that suddenly appeared from out of the blue as if by the snap of a Cosmic Finger. Given this fact, why are so many adults to this day entranced by the “Adam & Eve” story? Second, because this story is gravely misleading with regard to how humans came to be, why do we keep indoctrinating children with it? No child needs to hear about Adam & Eve. No child needs to hear about Noah and his stupid ark. No child needs to hear about “angels.” Angels! Wow.
Whenever I go after religion, the undercurrent remains the same: Assertions and claims about the nature of the world and the universe are made — and none of them hold up to scrutiny, and yet humanity has this bizarre penchant to go on believing in things that are not true. The origin of this state of affairs is due to with the aforementioned indoctrination that most believers experience in childhood. If you’re a Christian you believe this, if you’re a Hindu you believe that, and round and round we go on the Merry-Go-Round of Make-Believe. Why, after all these thousands of years, does humanity continue to embarrass itself with these inane stories as if they had some connection or lock on to what’s true and valid about the nature of the world and the universe? “To Kill a Mockingbird” is great. But note the essential distinction: Through its powerful story about the loss of innocence among other things, it remains a secular work of art that makes zero supernatural claims about the world or the universe. By contrast, religious stories do make outlandish claims that are nothing more than pure fiction— and billions (!) of people embrace all the supernatural nonsense! It’s incredible. Nobody reads the Harry Potter books and thinks wizards are real, but people read the Bible and think angels are real. People are funny.
