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Here's something on the comments to my earlier post "The Dawkins Type":

I think Kevin's comment is valid. A lot of this has to do with a war of definitions: truth can be defined in various ways. Richard Dawkins wants to limit truth to the scientific, then to use cultural values attached to truth to champion science at the expense of other ways of understanding existence. But this last step is culturally conditioned, historically particular, and thus not at all objective: you can locate absolute truths, but any value you attach from there is utterly subjective and impermanent. This last move is perhaps an example of something outside the realm of science and objective fact that Richard Dawkins sees as truth: that science is truth and truth is good and ought to be pursued by all.

Art can reveal truth by making our world more meaningful- by telling us things about the world which may well fall beyond the grasp of scientific observation. In his poem "Ode to a Nightingale," John Keats talks about a bird for several stanzas, and in so doing reveals things about the human struggle with mortality and human anxiety in the face of consciousness, death, memory, etc. A scientific account of the bird would say nothing of human experience, and thus the bird would not mean anything to us. Granted, if you want to understand the workings of the bird out of some curiosity or necessity, you must go to science. But the work of art, the process of art- that does something altogether different.

The work of art has the power to reveal (what we might call) truth about our existence to us. For instance, science can tell me about death- what causes it, how to tell when a body is dead, how to stave off this or that particular physical cause of death, etc. But can it help me to cope with or understand death as an existential phenomenon? Not really, but art can. This gets at my meaning when I say that art clarifies while science confuses- at times, anyway, this is can be the case. Death is a certainty, yet it is terrifying and confusing. Science can tell me only long lists of facts about what causes deaths, how to prevent deaths, etc. But this does nothing to change the fact of my mortality. One struggling with such a problem as anxiety in the face of death would be hard-pressed to find relief in scientific statements about death- but the Bible, or a Keats poem, or a stirring lecture from a dying man- these things utilize art to reach the human imagination, which cannot be satisfied by science alone.

Science gives us no real grounds for action in most realms of our existence, no grounds for the sorts of actions that really matter most to us- ethical dilemmas, facing mortality, experiences of love and hate, etc. They can't really tell us about those at all, and what they can tell us- perhaps something about chemicals in the brain or how cancer kills an organism- doesn't really help us to cope and act. The experience of being human is often untouched by science.

I choose not to limit truth to that which is true for everyone at all times- but definitions will vary. When I think of truth, I think of things that matter and are meaningful to me, things that make the world comprehensible to me, things which are not scientific truths but which nonetheless I treat as truths every day. Science explains, but usually in a realm all its own.

Also, the hardcore atheist types like Dawkins cannot seem to see any difference between what a myth sets out to do and what science sets out to do-- they see both as merely explaining origins, but in fact there's a world of difference between the two forms. The Adam and Eve story is a myth, not a scientific or historical account. If it matters to humanity, if it has power- well, that is not because it gives out some bite-sized facts about the origin of the universe. It has value because it reveals different kinds of truths about existence- truths which will certainly not resonate with everyone or be in any way static or universal. The Adam and Eve myth has all sorts of potential messages about the nature of transgression, guilt, punishment, justice, the pursuit of knowledge in all of its glory and horror- etc. etc.

To attempt to write it off as a "Bronze age myth" which was only waiting to be rendered obsolete by science- that's just poor reading and bad scholarship. The Adam and Eve story was not written to do the same things as a scientific or historical document. To ignore what it does do, though- that could be quite a loss.