IOW, you regard the Bible as a series of parables? I find that quite reasonable, actually

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

There are actually a lot of us reasonable Christians out there. I don't believe the Old Testament is a straight history textbook and i don't really see a problem if nothing in Genesis, for example, ever really happened the exact way the Bible says it did. Genesis 1 tells us that God created the world, whether that happened in six days or six billion years doesn't change the fact that God did it. While it was inspired by God, it was written by humans. Every story in the Bible has a theological truth behind it and that is all that really matters, not the historical accuracy. Whether the story of Noah in Genesis 9 happened makes little difference to the overall message

(oh and interesting side note about Genesis 1 and those that think the world was created in 6 days, 2 Peter 3:8 says "But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day." So one could argue that literalist six day creation belief isn't even biblically supported.)

Now the one exception to this is the story of Christ told by the Gospels. Since Christ is the foundational figure of the religion i do believe that what the gospels tell us about Christ happened. Anyway remember there be a lot of reasonable Christians out there, where just not as loud as the unreasonable ones.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

Non Sequitur, I guess I don't know what you mean with a 'theological truth'. There seems to be no point with your god's covenant with Noah and all living creatures if the Flood story is just a parable. As far as I understand the story, the key to any truth expressed with regard to the deity's judgement of his creation is that it actually happened and it won't happen again. In other words, if the Flood is a parable then the covenant is a parable as well and can't be given any kind of truth value. Unless of course your concept of a 'theological truth' is something very different.

There may of course be quite another point to the story than the covenant - namely tribal heritage - and that's very probably a theological truth to some of those who are able to use Noah's sons for justifying claims of heritage (which is probably why this old Mesopotamian myth ended up in the Bible in the first place). But in order for that to be a 'truth' as well, there literally had to be just a handfull of people to replenish the earth or the justification becomes nothing but hot air.

All in all, couldn't (and shouldn't!) the story of Noah simply be omitted alltogether if the story itself is to be taken as a parable but the crux of it is not?

I guess the best way i can explain it is that what the story of noah tells me is that Gods will not destroy the earth and i need not worry about that sort of thing. Whether or not he did before doesn't really matter to me. Another thing that the story of Noah tells me is that God is the ultimate Judge. He has the right to make and unmake creation cause he is the creator. It is fully within his rights to destroy us for our sins, but he wont. I know its hard, and I'm probably not giving the best explanation, but thats what i hold about the story.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

I entirely respect your views on the matter, and, FWIW, I'm also a Christian. I just like to play "devil's advocate".

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

When was the last time you saw a monsoon, tsunami or earthquake in America wipe out a few hundred thousand people? I see it happen in Bangladesh & China seemingly every other year (and somehow these people still number in the billions!), but we lost a major American city about a year-and-a-half ago and, if I'm not mistaken, the death toll was relatively light compared to what a similar flood might have caused in, say, Dhaka.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

First New Orleans,,Then Georga. Could California be next with an Big Earthquake or a Tsunami?

Nope. Florida's next. Gonna be a BIG one, too.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Wait til the New Madrid Fault pulls a repeat of 1811-12. . .

New Madrid Seismic Zone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

ha ha oh well then I'm assuming you in the ranks of the rational Christians.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

I was with two friends from Utah this weekend. Both are Mormons. One is a church historian. Guess what we talked about all weekend? The End of Faith by Sam Harris. An open-mind is all I ask; that, & some rationality.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

Is there NO END to your demands?!!

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The apocalypse is coming... we're gonna need more ammo.

What I want to know is what USPO did to piss God so much that he saddled us with Steveox.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

I don't want to. I live very close.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Yeah, you do part. Check out the impact zone map on that link. It compares the 1895 New Madrid quake to the 1994 Northridge quake. The visual is quite sobering. . .

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson