@John Re: "You can often tell the difference between atheists that were never religious, and those that walked out of religion."

Hey, John, how ya been? Interesting you should say that, because I thought I was the only one who noticed. *chuckle* Took me awhile being on the site to start seeing it, but - then - the differences do tend to be rather subtle, and one has to know what to look for. I find the "psychology" behind it fascinating in an amusing sort of way. Fun thought exercises, basically.

Reference Link

But at least the science I hold to be true actually has truth. Your bullshit is bullshit. Mind diarrhea. Mental vomit. Fantasy. Absolutely no truth whatsoever.

Imagiments of fignations.

rmfr

Well thanks for your explanation of why some christians reject the Fundy view of the Bible. I assume you are talking about yourself.

Yardstick: I really don't get the yardstick metaphor here, as if measuring is in some sense necessary. Interpreting the Bible as literature recognizes it as a colletcion of prose, poetry, symbolic writing. (After telling that to a Fundy guy at his house he reportedly had an exorcist over to get the evil spirits out of his house after I left.) Anyway, most of the literary devices used by Biblical writers can be found here, and/or at similiar sites.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-devices-definition-examples-qu...
that's the yardstick for lack of a better label.

I'll try and give you and example from what has already been noted in this thread. Someone brought up the instnace of a snake talking. Many Fundys get trapped into claiming the snake really talked. It doesn't really matter if the snake talked or not, what matters is what the snake said.

The snake example should be easy for you. The snake metaphor is very common in the english language. for instance, someone, even an atheist, might say something like, "that salesman is a snake."

Another metaphor not mentioned here that a lot of people have trouble with in the Bible is fire to purify. Most Fundy's take that literally, as if somone is going to take a blow torch to someone to purify them. In reality it is a metaphor taken from the refining of metal. As you may be aware, ancient people discovered when they applied fire to specific types of rock, they could seperate metal from the impurities. In forums such as this sometimes some people "flame" somone else. Not always, but often it is an attempt to purify the thinking of the person being flamed. It also could be to get the flamed person to leave the forum to purify the forum. In the Bible there are pharases such as the eternal fires of hell, and what not. They don't mean it literally anymore than flaming in a forum is meant to literally use fire. 'Eternal fires of hell' phrase suggests something like 'a person is deemed such a dead loss that flaming forever won't help.'

This is not actually a "yardstick" as I don't really know why you pick the yardstick metaphor. so the best I can do is point you to literary devices so when reading one can recognize the device and interpret accordingly.