My friends over at The Shrubwalkersbloggers experienced bloggish friction recently. Justin, writing on the left side of the page, began a series of Bible-readings from the perspective a lampooning atheist. Eric, writing on the right side of the page, gave a thoughtful objection.

And then Justin stopped!

Well, what can I say? Friends disagree, and agree to disagree, and then agree to not annoy each other so much in public. Or something.

But the cessation of argumentation can be in itself disturbing. So I can't help but prick at the scab of this debate. Take Eric' main objection to the Bible readings:

[Justin] wants to take on some set or another of fundamentalist Christians by demonstrating that a surface reading of the Bible, taken literally, is absurd. I just don't see what's supposed to be enlightening about that. Almost anybody could dismantle this sort of literalism in less than five minutes to the satisfaction of anyone not prone to arguing that "the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true." So, fine, demonstrate that. Take 10 minutes, even. But move on. That horse is done beat to death already.

Well, has it? That's an interesting question. Are we to judge by enough by Eric's standards or . . . by some cultural calculation?

Here's what I see: the country is filled with a growing number of intelligent people who hold to exactly the unenlightened view of the Bible that Eric finds so easy to argumentatively destroy. The continuing influence of these people is what spurs on Justin, I'm sure. The increasing influence.

I think the reason many of us who pillory fundamentalist interpretations do what we do (and I guess I'm putting myself in Justin's camp), is that the sheer numbers and increasing loudness of the Bible-Is-True-Because-It-Says-So Camp provoke us.

Not every theist is as sophisticated as Eric. And it is a pity that he feels he's getting fire in a war he wants no part of. Think of it as collateral damage.

I'm in a similar position to Justin. I don't blog next to a theist, but most of my family is precisely the kind of theist who does believe the Bible as literally true, and will quote the Bible to support this contention! I don't try to convert them. It is my sincerest wish that they not read this blog. I don't try to convert nice people who do no harm.

But people who go out into the Arena of the Worldwide Web looking . . . I don't mind attacking strangers' notions. And not all fundamentalists are as nice as my family. In the public arena, where they attempt to influence education, where their friends in high places edit scientific papers, and the like, they can be very, very obnoxious.

And, further, I am very curious about Eric's theism. We've never talked about it.

Of course, I almost never make fun of Mormonism because every Mormon I've met (even the guy at the bar who discussed Nietzsche with me, at length) has been kind and decent and well-spoken. Mormons don't whine. I've never heard one complain of being persecuted. They don't seem to have a chip on their shoulders. A famous man once said, by their fruits you shall know them, and by this Nice Fruit Standard, Mormons desrve being cut a bit of slack.

So I rarely attack Mormonism in public.

But really, I don't attack the worship of Ba'al, either. Not very often, anyway.

Why? The worship of Ba'al, Ashtaroth, Isis, Ishtar, and others is just as risible to me as is the worship of Yahweh. Tribal gods. Ancient gods. Ye Olde Competitors to Deific Thrones.

There are few worshippers of the old gods. Only Yahweh and Allah have memetically survived into modern times, with huge fan bases.

And what bugs me about the literalist worshippers is, well . . . it's as much the truths they deny as the untruths they assert.

I dislike denials of an ancient earth, and of the scientific methods that have allowed us to learn so much about the course of its longevity.

I dislike denials of (or avoidance of) the consequentialist foundations of ethics, and I despise easy dismissals of relativism . . . especially in the course of holding to incredible dogmas with misty origins in ancient myth.

I dislike avoidance of reason, and of evidence. Especially when bad evidence about religion is held to be good evidence, and faith gets farded up as an answer to . . . anything.

Well, my dislikes are pretty obvious. So, in the face of such denial, it seems a natural to take the given, bedrock notions of these deniers and pillory them.

But I have to come clean, here. I don't really understand the support for any Old Time Religion. Genesis is not literally true. The world did not come to be in the manner specified in the time period specified. Similarly, the world was not destroyed by a flood, and saved by an animal-filled Ark. This is pretty obvious stuff. This is myth. Interesting, fascinating myth. Myths I actually love as much as the Greek myths, as much as Gilgamesh, more than the Egyptian tales. But literally untrue. False. Didn't happen.

You can say that the point of these myths is not their literalness, and I agree, to a point. But I will also note that the bulk of the tellers of these myths sincerely believed these myths as literally true for thousands of years.

So why worship the deity who grew out of this mythic tradition? Why bother? Tainted sources.

Of course, the value of a thing does not depend on its origin. But the existence of a being for which we have no evidence? The source indicates the belief's true nature.

So, while Justin and I may pillory the risible notions of literalist Old Believers, I suspect that the thing we don't mention much, the continued beliefs of more sophisticated thinkers like Eric, puzzles us even more. We really don't get it. We don't understand why anyone would bother.

The social aspect of religion is understandable. But is that all that really spurs on the more sophisticated theists? Religion just seems so neat? The myths are too nifty to give up entirely? We have to retell them, and gloss them in new ways, to keep them alive like children are supposed to keep alive the existence of fairies simply by clapping?

I can't speak for Justin. But I know that, as much as I pillory fundamentalism, it's something I understand. More sophisticated approaches to theism, though — the neo-izing of the Old Time Religions — seems to me sophistic. It's not very dangerous, so I don't like to complain about it. But I am truly puzzled by every instance of its continued existence.

I prefer humanistic readings of the old myths. I am a big fan of the old myths. Of many traditions. And I try to keep congnizant of the obvious fact that my readings cannot have the same emotional power as fundamentalist readings often have. To read a myth as an artifact and as art is one thing, and an important thing. But to read it as a member of the cult of that myth, something very other.

But I don't know how the sophisticated read the myths. I don't understand their allegiances. I confess to bafflement. Are they too sophisticated for my simple soul?

Or, as I've sometimes remakred, just sophistic?

I'm not suggesting a dialogue on this subject, though that would be fascinating. I suspect that the rift between secular humanism and religious humanism/humanistic religion is greater than between secular humanism and fundamentalism.

Which is why friends with such disagreements might want to keep mum. Rather than continually pick at the scab of their division.