Since this seems to be the real issue for you, I’ll respond to this alone. The rest of what you said shows that you were not really reading what I said carefully but instead heresy hunting, that is to say, reading in bad faith.
Like a fundamentalist, you are afraid that if we say that too many things are allegorical, pretty soon the whole thing will be allegorical. First of all, that’s a slippery slope argument, which is a logical fallacy. Second of all, there is no reason why it ought to lead to a spiritualization of the rest of Christian doctrine. The Gospels are written in such a way as to leave no possibility for a reasonable person to conclude that the authors are being allegorical. For example, they name specific places, dates ("the #nd year of so and so’s reign), contemporary historical events, landmarks and buildings, historical figures and important religious figures (who interact with the main people in the Gospel) and witnesses. They were written “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:4). The same is largely true of 1 and 2 Kings and other books like that. However, nothing even resembling this exists in the first few chapters of Genesis (roughly from Creation to the Deluge.) Also there is strong historical and scientific evidence that the truths (and they are truths) that are presented in these chapters are not straight “facts” in the form they are presented. What’s more, the literary structure of Genesis has features in common both with historical writing and mythic writing (and myth doesn’t men “false”.)
Now you are either appraised of the relevant science and history or you are not. That all depends on whether you’ve considered it worth your time to try and learn what you can about what contemporary sciences have to say about prehistory and human evolution, or whether you think that because this is secular knowledge, it is somehow unimportant and doesn’t have to be taken into account in your reasoning. I’ll let Augustine comment on that:
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
-St. Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis
I don’t see much more point in pursuing this issue. There are well established facts about the history of mankind and the history of the genus homo, of which the family of true humans is only one of several specialized offshoots. What we truly are is obviously not reducible to evolution, any more than we are reducible to atoms, but that is nevertheless how we were made. What I am trying to do, rather than stick my fingers in my ears and recite “it’s just stupid science, who cares?!” over and over again, is to find a way to reconcile the truth of evolution with the higher order truth of Man’s creation and Original Sin (the latter two of which, must be preserved.) Currently, there are two main trends among Catholics. One is to accept the evidence for evolution and sweep Original sin under the rug (unacceptable), the other is the accept a child’s version of Original Sin and ignore the evidence for evolution (which is unacceptable.)
The Church has to deal with this issue sooner or later. Sooner is better when salvation hangs in the balance.
