[whattajoke]

So you are willing to admit that some of this is a metaphorical account written in a way to describe it to people who didn't have the scientific capacity to understand concepts we recognize today?

I've been telling the literalists for years that if one of them produces a color-coded bible which alerts readers as to which passages are literal, and which are metaphoric, they'd be rich. And since they all have the innate - yet undefined - ability to discern which are which, it should be a pretty easy money maker.

and yet... no takers yet.

[blackpacific]

St. Augustine already did that in his monumental work “On Christian Doctrine”. He used the word figurative. He did emphasize that love-of-God and love-of-neighbor must be the substratum from which to interpret the Biblia Sacra. An unbeliever picking up the text might not have good success with it if charity is not operative.

I have no problem with someone believing God meant 6 Earth days literally. I wasn’t there. I’m also willing to live a lifetime waiting for the answer to be told. If you believe that “time is the measure of motion”, then it may be the case that many strange effects, e.g. event horizons, occur when the material universe came to be ex nihilo.

It is also instructive to let the data speak, and not be constrained by obsolescent theories which may be hard for some to let go of. The trees standing in the face of an onslaught of kinetically sorted mud flows is instructive.