Follower of Christ:
Not sure I follow. The 6-day Creation myth is falsified, or at the very least, has MASSIVE problems to overcome. You've been on this board for a while now, FoC. Can you really, honestly tell me that NOTHING here is at ALL a challenge to literalist Creationism? The problem of insects? Biodiversity in different parts of the world?
So, if a literal interpretation of the Bible is problematic, how does this make a metaphorical interpretation less valid? What we're dealing with here is ACTIVE, defined falsification - The 6-Day creation and the flood myth just don't mesh with reality. They don't work. They don't work because they define very specific aspects of the world, and the world doesn't match those definitions.
The question of the virgin birth, Christ's teachings, and the atonement of sin are *entirely* different issues. We can't falsify those, not realistically. They will likely never be set aside as metaphorical. So you can allay that fear - No one's gonna be able to tear out Christianity's throat, not like that, not today.
The 'key' to Christianity, I've been told, is faith in the fact that Jesus died to atone for our sins, and from his blood, we are saved. No matter how hard atheists try, that's never gonna go away. (I, being an atheist, find this unfortunate.
But nonetheless.) Believing in a metaphorical creation and flood certainly doesn't diminish one's ability to believe in the Christ. It merely allows one to accept empirical reality.
Tell me, FoC. Do you believe that accepting the Bible, literally, as it is written, is a prerequisite for entering Heaven? If so, where do you get this idea from? It's not in the Bible. By the blood of the Christ, we're supposed to be saved - Not by the wood of Noah's ark, not by the mutations in our genes, not by death of Abel - By Christ, and only by Christ. So where is the harm in accepting what we have found to make sense, and leaving faith to faith? You believe you know Christ in your heart. By your faith, this means you are saved. You need not accept the Flood in a literal sense.
/me gets off pulpit, and wonders how he got up there to begin with.