It's interesting to me that many "New Atheists" are happy to disregard the majoritarian authority of god-believers worldwide (some 80% of our species) on the question of God's existence, but rush to reinstate that majoritarian authority when considering the question of literalism vs. metaphoricalism. They are happy to support an elite minority position on the existence of a literal god (as am I) but seem mostly disinterested in acknowledging the value and historical standing of an elite, metaphorical interpretation of world scripture. The response I hear so often is "But an overwhelming majority of believers do take their scripture literally." Yes, they do, but does that give them authority?

There are some exceptions. Michael Shermer for example:

"They're making the mistake of linking their belief in faith, in their religion, to actual factual tenets. These are not factual stories to be taken as historical events, they're really stories about how we should live our lives. They're moral homilies. What can I personally get out of the Bible for me, today. That's what those stories are about. And to take them literally is; you're missing the point of the Bible!"

Other of the New Atheists, such as Dan Dennett and Sam Harris, have on occasion let slip the token acknowledgment that a metaphorical interpretation might be of some limited value, but continue to regularly refer to "religion" in a wholesale condemnatory way.

This inconsistency seems to me to be due to a tribal identity impulse that, unfortunately, resembles the tribal identity that likely drives the phenomenon they are trying to condemn. Maybe there is some justification for fighting fire with fire, but as the aphorism often attributed to Gandhi warns us, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

In the largest historical context, the insistence that the word "god" must refer to only a literal, sentient, all-powerful, creator-person is a view held more often by the majority - of both believers and atheists - than by the intellectual elite of either. This is why I don't identify as either a theist or an atheist; because a majority of both camps are literalists, and I am not.

When people ask, "But how do you know which parts are supposed to be literal and which parts are metaphorical?" my answer is, "Easy. It is ALL metaphor." Religion is Art, not History. The fact that art often includes, in its depictions, places and people, or things that happen to actually exist, in addition to imaginary things, does not mean we have to struggle to decipher which parts of the painting to take seriously and which parts we are free to ignore. It's ALL Art. It's ALL Metaphor. Metaphor does not equal "lie", or "unnecessarily decorative language". Metaphor is a symbolic, rather than literal, means of conveying truth.

Science tries to describe in the most literal way possible 'what is' in the objective sense. Religion tries to impart, with metaphor and allegory, what the human race has learned over the millennia about resolving our subjective conflicts. One of these subjective conflicts is our natural (understood by science) tendency toward tribal identity. Rational thought does not deny that humans are emotional creatures, and I will claim that the perceived conflict between science and religion is an emotional construct rather than a rational or historical analysis.

Theists and atheists who find themselves locked in disgust toward the 'other' camp are experiencing identity conflicts rather than soldiering for the truth. There is no substantive conflict inherent between fact-finding and peace-of-mind-finding. Believe science. Make peace.