You're welcome, and may I say the same of you. Look (and this isn't just directed at you) I agree that interpreting the Bible in certain ways would make things a whole lot easier between what we observe (in the scientific sense) and what we (or at least most of us) know to be true in our hearts and the privacy of our thoughts, but I can't deny that these conflicts exist. I'm not against metaphorical and allegorical interpretations, especially in the case of Genesis, but I haven't yet found that any of these arguments have merit.
I was going to continue with more, but something just came up and I have to go for now.....
I was out for a while with my buddy John. Good friend of mine, and I love him dearly. We discuss God and the Bible often, and have some very pleasant conversations. Every now and then though, when we're talking about Genesis, he stops me for a moment and says, "God only created three things...1) the heaven and the earth, 2 ) the spirit in man, 3) and the great whales"...although upon further discussion, and prompting by me, he acknowledges that God did indeed "make" everything. I then proceed to try to get him to understand that he's making a semantic argument here, and that it's really not important since it means the same thing....hoping of course, to move back to our pleasant conversation.
To make a long story short (since this has been a reoccurring theme for a long time now) some biblical group that he was involved in years ago, caused him to believe that this distinction between those words is somehow significant, and I'll tell ya, it's really rooted in there deep, and at times, it affects his interpretation of things...sometimes very oddly, at least from my perspective.
He's a good man, but, damn if it doesn't make for a very frustrating conversation.......