"But the doctrines are interpreted nonliterally, seen as apt metaphors or parables for informing our understanding of ourselves and our world and for seeing how we might improve both. To say that God made a covenant with Abraham doesn’t mean that, long ago, some very impressive figure with a white beard negotiated a bargain with a Mesopotamian pastoralist. It is rather to commit yourself to advancing what is most deeply and ultimately valuable, as the story says Abraham did."
What fucking purpose does that have? If you are an atheist, you don't believe in the 'god' end of that proposition anyway. So accepting the story as allegory doesn't even advance 'what is most deeply and ultimately valuable'.
I note the interviewee doesn't even define what he thinks that is.
"Pragmatist that I am, I have little sympathy for strained discussions about whether God had to allow evil in order to create beings with free will, and even less for cheap gibes to the effect that religious faith is analogous to a child’s belief in the Easter bunny. Let’s be inspired by the world’s collection of religious metaphors insofar as they help us improve the human situation. Humanism first, atheism second. The atheism I favor is one in which literal talk about “God” or other supposed manifestations of the “transcendent” comes to be seen as a distraction from the important human problems — a form of language that quietly disappears."
Ah, another compartmentalist. One that thinks that you can take the beauty, and leave the ugliness, as if accepting some aspects of theistic faith doesn't carry along doctrinal baggage.
Why? To what purpose? To make the transition to atheism simpler, more palatable?
This entire interview really didn't say much at all.
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