eyesay writes: Most literature fails to tell you that you're free not to read it literally. Where does it say in Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz or Star Trek, for that matter, that it's just a story? Religious texts are not different from much other literature in this regard.

Cough. Bull****. Cough.

From Alice In Wonderland, last chapter:

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

`Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long sleep you've had!'

`Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice

In Star Trek, the moment when the credits roll up tells you it's fictional, or if you want a contextual example, the end of The Final Frontier, where the whole cast turns to camera, smiling out at the audience.

And the Wizard of Oz is simply too obviously fictional. The Tin Man, Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion have no ecology; they only exist for the story.

On the other hand, the Bible:

Matt 5:18 "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."

This is Jesus talking about the authority of the books of of law in the Old Testament, the very books that "modern" Christians would prefer to forget.

Religious texts are totally different from almost all literature in this self-referential regard.

Even a book like Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang which begins:

I LOST MY OWN FATHER AT 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silence my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.

is clearly fictional. The author isn't, after all, one Ned Kelly, but a chap called Peter Carey, and the book is being sold in the fiction section of the store.

LM -- to your "does this mean you are saying" two straw men, no, and no. I (clearly) wasn't saying either of those things. Straw men are just _so_ much easier to knock down, aren't they?

eyesay asked "Where in [three examples] does fiction say it is fiction?"

And my mistake was actually answering the question. Perhaps eyesay picked three poor examples, though, and perhaps the larger issue is still undiscussed, so let's take it from where we seem to agree.

Yes, some fiction is written to "appear" as non-fiction. However, most fiction does not command belief, as religious texts have a habit of doing. That's what makes it different. Arguing that fiction doesn't claim non-authority -- even if true, and it ain't -- doesn't lessen the fact that religious texts do claim authority. With me so far? Let's move on.

It certainly does appear there are a lot of people who have trouble distinguishing fiction from non-fiction.

All people who believe in god fall into that category.

Perhaps that's why, when it's perfectly clear to any person not indulging in magical thinking that Alice in Wonderland is fiction, that you and eyesay are having trouble working out which way up or down the rabbit hole to climb. But don't assume that your difficulty is shared by others.

This is an example of (yet another) problem that religion has: the assumption that its "solutions" for life are general and applicable to all.