Re: Observe the trend

On Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:38:00 -0700, Bob Casanova <nospam@buzz.off>
wrote:

If the literal meaning of "literal" is irrelevant, the
phrase has no meaning and the accepted definition of the
word itself might as well be "a word means whatever I want
it to mean, no more, no less" a la Humpty Dumpty. It's
always been my understanding that agreement regarding
meaning is important for communication, but perhaps I was
mistaken.

As this very topic shows, different people use "literal" to mean very
different things, which is the case with almost all words.  That other
people accept and use different meanings than you do doesn't make
their meanings incorrect or inconsistent, or your meaning the only
correct one.  I know you know this.

More to the point, that isn't even my point, which you continue to
conveniently ignore, as usual.  WRT the original context, and once
again, my point remains: the meaning of "literal", whatever it may be,
doesn't sensibly apply to any interpretations of Genesis texts, any
more than does the meaning of "orange".

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge