But that's consistent with the religious masses being confused about the nature of religion. In the modern period, religion has been influenced by science, so the Bible has to compete with science textbooks, which is foolish. Monotheists should cede the business of empirical modelling to science, and recognize that scriptures are myths, fear-mongering prophecies, codes of law, propagandistic hagiographies, and so on. The most profound parts of the Bible are about the meaning of historical events, or about how they seemed to the ancient Jews. They should be read almost phenomenologically, with a view to uncovering the ancient Jewish psyche.

Doing so poses the challenge of whether liberal secular culture likewise imposes its perspective on phenomena. And that's the challenge that all great literature presents: by showing us an alternative perspective, we're poised to question ours, to search for what might be a better, less mundane and complacent one.

Obviously, most monotheists aren't so humble in their reverence for their scriptures. They see them as divine revelations which therefore can't be seen to fall short of new cultural standards that arise such as the secular, science-centered ones of modernity.