[QUOTE]
Of course, the passages have absolutely no significance for the redemption of man from sin or the acceptance of Jesus, and him crucified. It's difficult to believe anyone would find this error a a barrier or challenge to their faith, compared to say, the problem of evil, unless that faith happened to be in a linguistically unsustainable literalism.[/B][/QUOTE]
And this is my point precisely.
If one's faith is based upon taking some parts of the Bible as literally true, then why not all parts of the Bible? How does one know which parts are to be taken as literal and which are to be figurative or allegorical?
If you want to believe that the Flood occurred, sans evidence, then you must also be willing to believe that rabbits chew their cud, just like ruminants do. You must be willing to believe that the stars are literally "set" into something like a firmament, and there is water above this firmament.
The reality of the situation is that there is no such thing as a person who believes the Bible 100% literally.
Everyone interprets the Bible, and once you start to interpret, then it's simply a matter of who's interpretation you like.
I mean, Creationism based upon the Bible anyway, not evidence found in nature. Why else would there still be such a thing as a YEC and a OEC? The evidence found in nature rules what is accepted in science, not what a particular interpretation of a certain religious book says is true.
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"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."
-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"