>It’s all about what man says the Creator can do and what He can’t. That’s never been a profitable position.
This is true. A lot of the “If God is omnipotent/omniscient...” disproofs of God, are in reality non-statements, contradictions, and illogic. The classic example being “If God is all powerful, then can He make a rock so big He can’t move it (immovable)?” This is a ridiculous contradiction and should be thrown out; but let’s disregard that and play with it a bit first.
If God is powerful enough to create the universe, and he created a rock that was as big as the universe, then the rock (which defines the universe) could not be moved; however God could create more “universe and displace the rock and then destroy that old universe bit... so yes, God COULD move a rock so big it was immovable.
How about the question “Could God create a figure that has three sides, which has points all equidistant from the center?” Again, notice the word-tangling, logic-mangling, definition-mismatching that’s going on here: they’re asking for a triangle which has the properties of a circle! That’s plainly impossible in Euclidean geometry. It’s a stupid question that contradicts itself. But let’s try poking at it again, The assumption with this question is that the figure would be in Euclidean-space... but you can do a LOT of funny “impossible”/”nonsensical” things with math (like ‘i’, the square-root of -1! What preposterous rubbish! But it works... and there’re actually REAL-WORLD phenomena which demonstrate it’s use in the physical world! Weird!) What about having a three-sided figure which was that of a triangle imposed on the surface of a sphere, or the mathematical transformational equivalent? It would have three sides, and all the points would be equidistant from the center (of what we would precive of as the sphere).
Keep that in mind as I answer the next part of your question:
>Do you say it doesn’t matter because you don’t know, or do you not know because you don’t think it matters?
I used to think, and still do, that it is a literal 24-hr day. But, I could be wrong. And, in fact, I don’t think that minutia really matters anymore. Who am I to tell God “it has to be 24/hr days!” Honestly, He could have made everything 24 seconds ago... or 24 million-million-million years ago... Who am I to say “No, it has to be literal!”?
Do you remember the story of Elijah and the fiery chariot? Does it matter if it was a chariot made of fire? Or a super-bright rift in time-space? Or a Cadillac of light? Or a meteor? The point is that something super-natural took him off to be with God, still alive! That’s the exciting part!
Like if you’re hearing a story of navy seals going behind enemy lines to rescue POWs and killing several guards. One time you hear about one killing someone with a knife, one you hear of him killing a guard with his bear hands, another shooting a guard in the neck. Does that mean that this Navy seal didn’t kill anybody? I mean all these stories are different in his methods of quashing those who are in opposition to his mission of rescuing the POWs. Or, could it be that there are three different incidents which got stuck into the different SEAL team’s minds when reporting on their mission?
In fact that’s how the Hebrews would have thought about things, using something termed “block logic” which is something similar to a bunch of police reports on the same thing. This type of thinking is different from our “classical logic” thinking which says, basically, that if the premises are true, then the outcomes are true as well. (This actually gives us two points of “contention”/argument; one that the person’s premises are wrong, and two that his mappings/modelings are wrong, which is to say that the premises of the premises’s interactions.)
So, is the earth only 6 thousand years old. I think so. Does the bible explicitly say? not really, though you can look at the genealogies and life-spans and use that to present things in a young-earth world-view... but, also, we know that humans would not have died prior to the fall. If something so natural to us as dieing is in reality UN-NATURAL, then what of aging? Could Adam and Eve have been alive for thousands of years before they got kicked out of Eden? (And that getting kicked-out is when their “clocks” turned on.) It’s possible, but I think that’s not the case, I really don’t know.
In the many parables that Jesus told, does it really matter if they were actually mapped into real life? IE Does it matter if there really was a “good Samaritan”? Or was that point merely to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?”?
If God is unable to communicate clearly the days of creation, then what makes you think that the plan of salvation can be communicated clearly? Once you reject the plain reading of Scripture, anything goes (and does in some Christian circles). This all stems from first rejecting the plain teaching of Scripture and that is the big problem with your position.
"Do you remember the story of Elijah and the fiery chariot? Does it matter if it was a chariot made of fire? Or a super-bright rift in time-space? Or a Cadillac of light? Or a meteor? The point is that something super-natural took him off to be with God, still alive! That’s the exciting part!"
Yes it matters. Either God is able to communicate historical events or he is not. If you claim that he is not, you might as well be a Raelian and worship comets and the 'mother ship'.
"In the many parables that Jesus told, does it really matter if they were actually mapped into real life? IE Does it matter if there really was a “good Samaritan”? Or was that point merely to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?”?"
Again, yes it does. He used the Samaritan for a specific purpose. You need to learn that everything in Scripture is there for a purpose. That may help you with your double-mindedness. James 4:8.
Proverbs 25:2 - "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings."