In the latest issues of Newsweek, there's an article about what atheist scientists have contributed to society. Some were described as absolutely confident that there's no God, others as being skeptical but openmindedly agnostic. What they seemed to have in common was that, like me, they take the Bible as literally as their own textbooks.

Of course.

I mean, I don't take their science books literally, just the Bible. They put an awful lot of faith in their tentative findings, and the way they frame their arguments, it's obvious they never did more to engage the Faith than read a few tracts by our brethren who have more zeal than actual Bible study under their belts.

I mean, those tracts are pithy but they're not the Bible. I suspect these scientists were so busy trying to disprove God that they had to rely on the predigested work of other, full-time atheists (like most biologists and astronomers, but I mean the ones who don't pretend to offer anything else of concrete value to society, although these scientists do often try to make less concrete contributions in nonscientific arenas, which makes me think atheism really is a religion rather than just a lack of one) to come up with any arguments that actually related to the text of the Bible.

You really can't do that kind of thing. You need to read the Bible for itself. It's not that hard. God may have allowed the appearance of multiple layers in the Scriptures to the extent that he utilized the writing styles of the humans he compelled to write the Old Testament and such--I used to do such things in English class just to seem clever--but the only important message to get out of the Bible, the one God really intended, is the topmost and plainest one. Even if one passage doesn't seem to fit other passages, but more subtle ones do. Those submerged ones are just there to "confound the learned." We'll just have to wait for a more gifted pastor to come along and propose a reconciling theory, and we're free to throw in with him or not.

But taking the Bible literally? I guess they're smart enough to realize that only those of us who insist on a direct interpretation (If you can call "adhering to the basic and obvious meaning of the words" an "interpretation") pose any kind of threat to their position. I'd say it's an intellectual threat but they're really challenging God on this. There's no intellect involved as far as I'm concerned; just them running around in circles, and me only pointing at the Word.