Why should the Bible be taken literally? Why should any claim of devine revelation be taken seriously? Why should any incredibly sparse account of geological history--such as the Noah flood myth--trump decades of well documented scientific effort?

Can you name one scientific theory (and I'm talking about an accepted, working theory, not some creationist philosophical speculation) that has emerged from Biblical literalism? Relativity? Quantum mechanics? Continental drift? Genetics? The sun-centered solar system? The large-scale structure of the universe? Germ theory of disease? The basic neurology of the human mind? The primate bases of human psychology and society? Solid state electronics? The musical preferences of American teenagers? Anything?

Attempts to "fit" modern science to any particular religious text are wastes of time and reason. You're part of this universe, you're stuck here, and you're not going anywhere else--do you really have time to waste?