Actually, the young-earthers don't even hold to a literal meaning of the creation story. The word "yom" has many meanings, ranging from part of a day, to a day, to a lifetime, to a very long and unspecified length of time.
The Young-Earth Creationists insist that "yom" has to mean a literal 24-hour day in the creation story. Yet there is nothing in the Bible that points to that notion.
Young-Earthers use a bad interpretation of scripture and try to twist science to match their beliefs. When people laugh at them, they believe that they're being persecuted for the cause of Christ. In reality, they're being persecuted for being ignorant.
Well yes there is, and since this "bible" that you are referencing is the 6000 year old Torah of Judaism, you should take the argument up with the Orthodox of that religion not Christians, we got it from them.
Your understanding of yom is incomplete. It is more well defined than the English “day” in fact. Your gripe against the literal view is something you should take up with 3500 years of Judaism. Every Jewish child knows a yom is from sunset to sunrise... Always.
I agree. I’ve also heard that the Hebrew word does not necessarily mean “day,” although I’ve had discussions with a fundamentalist friend who insists that it does.
The Book of Genesis is full of profound meaning, but many of these fundamentalist-literalists can't find the woods for the trees. What is important about the Garden story is not that a snake talked, or that a literal Adam and Eve lived in a physical garden in India, or Ethiopia, or wherever some people think it was. It tells us how Satan and temptation usually work: Not through threats and brute force, but with soothing language which plays on our hopes, fears and weaknesses. (Sounds like 0bama, doesn't it?) It tells us that man is incorrigibly, hereditarily prone to evil, and sin is deadly, but that God will provide a remedy in due time. It tells us that we are free moral agents, ("knowing good and evil"), unlike animals. (Even most evo-fanatics realize that people are fundamentally mentally unlike animals, even apes.)
I was fortunate enough to receive a good education in literature, where I was taught that great truths about the human condition can be conveyed by good fiction. I was shown how to read through all the narrative filler, character and plot details, etc. and find the meat, the deeper meaning. Whatever else the Bible is, it is great literature. The Book of Job, for example, is full of pages of poetic detail, but it really conveys simple fundamental truths about man's condition and relation to God, like 1) It's wrong to blame God for your misfortune or question his actions. There are things affecting us which are beyond the ability of human intelligence to comprehend. (Interestingly, atheists always challenge theists with Pharisaical questions like: "If God is good and infinitely powerful, why does he allow evil?" I would like to say to them: "That's not your business. Your business is to control your own behavior and show love toward others.") 2) Bad things happen to good people. Satan loves to pick on good people. (Basically, Satan in Job is saying man is not a moral agent capable of sincere love, but an animal who likes those who treat him well. That's precisely the kind of cynicism and behaviorism which Marxists and radical materialists like Skinner and Dawkins preach.) 3) Again, God will provide relief in due time.
Jesus, of course, told lots of stories which were clearly fictional, about generic kings, fathers and sons, etc. They were no less true because they did not refer to specific literal people.