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So then you would agree that someone who thinks that a "day" in Genesis can only mean a literal 24-hour day, precisely as we understand "day" to mean to us, might have to rethink his conception of God if such a literal interpretation turns out to be contradicted by the evidence around us?

General, I assume it was you said this. The above is pure nonsense. The Bible itself never gave a definition of "day." Therefore, whatever time unit "day" may refer to in Holy Scriptures, it is not nailed down as "law." Meaning: We are free to speculate as to what "day" means as a temporal frame.

Lest we get too carried away with this problem I think we shouldn't forget that God does not operate within the time order that is familiar to humans. He is outside the space-time order altogether. So when God says "Day", how in hail would we humans have any idea what that means to Him?

Certainly, this does not appear to be a problem worthy of bleeding and dying over, for Heaven's sake.

Why would anyone have to rethink his conception of God over a mere quibble like this?

By way of response, I must merely point out that your argument here lies not with me, but with those who insist that a six-day creation means six literal days exactly as we understand them. And I'm sure you know that this is hardly a strawman construct of my own invention - there are plenty of people who insist on the literal truth of every bit of the book of Genesis, right down to six literal 24-hour days of creation. As you excellently point out, such a hyperliteral reading of the book of Genesis is tendentious at best, and I have little choice to agree with you on this point.

Certainly, this does not appear to be a problem worthy of bleeding and dying over, for Heaven's sake.

Why would anyone have to rethink his conception of God over a mere quibble like this?

Alas, some folks are just not as eminently sensible as you, BB, and have invested a great deal in what you rightly call a "quibble" - to them, it is far from a trivial matter, for some reason. And thus they are forced into the increasingly uncomfortable position of choosing between their literal reading and the evidence of their eyes. Abandoning such a reading seems like the sensible thing to do, but that means rethinking one's conception of what the nature of God is - and people tend to find that difficult for one reason or another...