So secular historical records are sacrosanct, but biblical accounts of history can go straight in the trash heap?
Secular historical records are great resources because they are proven truth for the Bible and obviously shuts down any unintelligent arguments about "xyz" being a metaphor. That is the great thing about evidence.
Do you ever stop to wonder why this supposed flood allegory isn't written anything like an allegory? Why are we given specific genealogies, ages, months, days, durations, desriptions of geologic processes and specific geographic locations? How do all these details contribute to the moral of the story?
Yup, and the example I gave, which is taken from a sports article contains the same factual things but there was a lot of expressive/artistic details in that article such as "spitting fire" etc. Do you understand this stuff or are you just ignoring it?
In actuality the Genesis flood narrative (like most of Genesis in its entirity) is written more like a factual news article than the allegorical interpretation you want to force onto it.
We don't have much evidence of it being a factual/historical event as accurately described in the Bible. Some Jewish people to this day argue that Noah was more than 1 person who represents all the people who survived the flood. If you think that is wrong and we must take the Bible literally, then tell me how did Chinese, Russian, Caucasians, Mexicans come to existence if only 1 man (assuming he is Jewish) and his family survived that?
Why go out of your way to convince yourself that black is white? What's so hard about just believing God did what he said he did?
Because it isn't "black and white". There are apologists and theologians for a reason. Literature utilizes artistic expression to help create an emphasis so that the readers understand what is going on, and since the Bible was written from BC-AD, the writers would use artistic expressions based on what their culture understood during that time in addition to applying their current understanding of the physical world.
Where did I say we must believe everything literally? The Bible is full of allegories, parables, metaphors, symbolism, etc. And the dinstictions are usually quite clear, sometimes even explicitly described as such.
Well the fact that your arguments have been that I must take it literally or i'm not some "true christian" is indirectly saying that you believe it has to be literal. So how do you know then these distinctions, especially when you start cross referencing to historical documents, scientific possibilities, original translations, and even the Talmud?
What I have a problem with is professing Christians taking a painfully obvious historical account like those found in Genesis (i.e. this happened, then this happened, then this happened, on these specific days, at these specific times, etc.) and then using mental gymnastics to twist it into something they want it to be... just so they can be considered "reasonable" to non-believers.
If it was an accurate historical account as told and as you believe, then there should be evidence. I'm not sure about the flood, because i have not looked into how legit the whole "discovery of Noah's ark" is but there is no denying that many details in Genesis aren't to be taken literally.