Religious texts should be read literally when they conflict with modern science. I grew up in a fundamentalist household where the Genesis account was taught as historical fact, but later studying geology made me realize that a literal six-day creation just doesn't match the evidence we see in rock layers and fossils. Some say the text is meant to be interpreted metaphorically, yet if you start cherry-picking which parts are literal, where do you draw the line? I've seen how allegorical readings can preserve faith in an educated world, but they also risk making the whole book seem like a human construct rather than divine revelation. However, I'm not entirely comfortable saying every ancient passage should be scientifically accurate, because the original authors used the cosmology of their time—so is literalism really about respecting the text, or just imposing our own modern framework backwards?