A Wide-ranging Criticism of Christian Fundamentalism

Literalists often take the Bible less literally than non-literalist Christians. For example, if you read the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2-3) as literally as you can, you will find no story of the Fall of humankind in it. You won't find most of the things literalists claim it says--that God walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve, that they had a close relationship with God, that the serpent was Satan, that they were created immortal and lost their immortality by sinning (disobeying) and that they were also expelled from the Garden directly because of that disobedience, and that when God said they'd die if they ate the fruit he meant "spiritual death."
     In the book I'm writing, I make these points in everyday language and logic. For example, if you were to substitute "cookies" for "the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge" and say to the kids, "On the day you eat any of these cookies, you will surely die," would you mean that they would lose their immortality?
     The book is an extended criticism of Christian fundamentalism. My hope is that it might influence even just a few people to never become fundamentalists. My primary motivation for writing it is to help fight against the Christian Right's efforts to tear down the wall of separation between church and state and Christianize our forefathers and their intentions in ways that are false and self-serving.
     If you would be interested in finding out more about the book or being notified when it is published, please email me at steve.gok2006@gmail.com.
     The book culminates in a chapter with the working title"Christian Fundamentalism in the United States." But leading up to that chapter I explain the folly of Christian fundamentalism from many angels, from interesting tidbits such as the point that the Hebrew Scriptures make no mention of a character with the proper name of Satan or that Adam and Eve were not expelled for what they'd done but for what they might do to more major points that the Gospels were composed anonymously, why neither experiences of Christ nor prophecy fulfillment nor the biblical text can prove that the Bible is the Word of God or that the Gospel is true. The Bible never claims to be the Word of God and, if it did, citing it to prove that it is would be a vacuous argument. In fact, it is quite apparent that the claim that its origins are divine is not divine wisdom, as fundamentalists please themselves to think they preach, but mere human wisdom, if that.
     The decision to read the Bible literally is a decision to interpret it that way and, given everything else we know about myth, the mythic mind, and the development of history-writing by the first century, it would be a pretty silly way to interpret it. But sometimes, when assessing certain fundamentalist Christians claims about what the Bible says or doesn't say, reading certain verses literally can be a useful tool. It can be useful too in showing the emptiness of the liberal bromide that the message of the New Testament boils down to "Love One Another." It says, literally, in about twenty passages, that unless one believes in Christ, one is condemned.
     One of its most important points is that the Bible teaches, in places, that it is okay to challenge God and that one does not necessarily have to do whatever God demands....even that there are times when man must intervene in the affairs of God.