You hit on the 'specifics' of religion that I've always found funny in humantiy. Why does it matter to most people if it is 6 days or 15 billion years? How does that change anything in actuality?

Most religious texts can just be accepted as "good human practices summed up in 4 pages".... but instead they have to be made into movements, and groups who believe 'my team is right and yours is wrong'.

My view is that - just as there are many tongues, religion of the same Creator is presented differently to resonate with those localities.

Why isn't civilization really moving past the stories to simply focus on the main points that are being relayed?

I believe dogmatic believers miss the forest for the trees; the non-believers use the trees to disregard the forest.

I think that reality is largely a story-based thing for many of us. There are as many stories as there are authorities. Science offers a story. So do the various religions. So do various other cultures.

Some stories can be called prettier, more compelling, more useful than others...

Most are consumed unconsciously. In childhood. And form the foundation of reality. So to mess with it can be ... disturbing.

> Maybe that 6 days is a metaphor.

If it is up to the reader to decide which is and which isn't a metaphor that should not be taken literally, than the text is no better than the reader's capability to distinguish metaphors from facts to be taken literally, is it?

Well, yes.

It's a failure of the medium. It requires an expert to interpret properly.

And most of us aren't that. And some of those in charge of translation and interpretation aren't that either.

Hah. I wonder what of experts you have in mind

> Maybe that 6 days is a metaphor.

right, so if a biblical number is wrong we find some reason to excuse it.

If it's a metaphor then it might not be wrong.