"3) If the parts of it which talk of a 6,000 year old Earth are part of the divinely inspired part, were those parts meant to be taken literally, or to illustrate vital moral truths in a way that even the Bronze Age Wal-Mart crowd would get?"
I can get behind this idea 100%. These stories were written as parables teaching people to live right, but divinely inspired? Why are the Hebrew stories divinely inspired as opposed to the hundreds of other religions? Why should I, an agnostic, believe the Bible over the hundreds of other religions?
The answer is too unwieldy for a brief answer, will have to wait...
In brief, you are countering Pascal's wager with a counter-dilemma of higher multiplicity.
And for the nonce, illustrating *why* the flying spaghetti monster is so appealing (or appalling) depending on one's views :-)
Cheers!
There are at least two kinds of agnostics: those who actually do not 'know' the answers to the questions they ask; and those who do not WANT to know if there are any answers to be had.
To be able to 'answer' your questions requests a bit more knowledge of you - which kind of 'A' are you?