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Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ
I agree with you that the Garden of Eden story is not literal, and you are right that thinking of the Genesis creation myth as metaphor is presumptuous. Metaphors assert (and all metaphors assume a metaphysics, but that's another discussion for another day) a significant similarity between two referents or concepts. I'm more apt to value the Genesis creation myth as metonym.
I'd caution you not to implicitly equate truth with fact when you declare things like the Genesis creation myth false. I'm well aware of the scientific arguments you are marshalling against TB and I agree with them. But indicting the Garden of Eden in terms of fact is not the same as indicting it in terms of truth. Fiction can have great truths when it speaks to how we understand the human condition. Nonfiction, such as autobiography, can be jam packed with lies. People can find truth in the Genesis creation myths if the find they human condition in them, regardless of their factual foundation. A psychoanalyst could find them to be true to the degree that they accurately depict patterns of sexual repression that beset Western culture. A transcendentalist, like Emerson, could find that they teach truths about how humans relate to nature.
I'm sure you are aware of these things. I wrote them mostly for the benefit of passersby.
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Indeed, I actually find the Judeochristian creation myth to be quite beautiful, and there might certainly be profound meaning in there for those willing to look for it. I am personally more apt to think that the writer thereof was simply wrong due to inevitable ignorance, but certainly whoever it was included some very interesting and potentially meaningful stuff besides.
It just saddens me when people insist on thinking that it's literally true, when it just obviously isn't. It really does reduce our ability to look at it in the same way we look at various other creation myths. If nothing else, it provides a window into the lives of ancient people, but when so many people are foolish enough to think it's actually true, it just sours the whole endeavor.