[...]

Of course, I'm a right cruel bastard, so when a liberal Christian tells me that Genesis and the sacrifice of Christ are metaphors, I just ask "Metaphors for what?", and then they usually stand there gape-jawed like a fish and flounder trying to figure out what I'm asking. Calling something a metaphor is not a get-out-of-jail free card. It means there's a deeper meaning to extract.

There are certainly more scholarly Christians who can explain how to interpret a metaphor. Some do answer. Others clam up, not because they're stupid, but because they know if they go down that road openly it can quickly make the religion superfluous…and seriously, if you want to piss of the majority of Christians, try to get them to explain the crucifixion of Jesus as just a metaphor and not as a real historical event with direct metaphysical consequences. It's not pretty.

So let's consider the key tenets of Christianity as metaphors. These are interpretations that liberal theologians make, but surprisingly, they're also perfectly copacetic with atheist and humanist ideals.

[...]