If the Bible is metaphorical then perhaps so is the God of the Bible

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To those who only take certain parts of the Bible literally, how do you determine where the metaphors end and the facts begin? Maybe God Himself is simply a metaphor for something else like the forces of nature.

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Good question. This is exactly what the YEC "biblical literalists" are afraid of. If they allow metaphor at one point (e.g. the Genesis creation account), then where does it stop, and how would we avoid seeing God as metaphorical?I don't think there is a simple formula to determine this; each account or passage must be taken on its own. But here are some thoughts:
1) "Metaphor" is a literary device; determining metaphor requires study of the literary genre, structure, etc. of the account in question.
2) Study of the history and culture of the writer (and the neighboring cultures that may have influenced him) is important.
3) There should be something in the account itself that suggests it is metaphorical (i.e. in the grammar, the literary aspects, the history, or the culture of the original writers). I.e. identification as metaphor should be primarily motivated by the text itself, NOT primarily by a desire to twist the text to fit better with the scientific or cultural theories of the day. (But it may be that conflict between our interpretation of the text and current theories will cause us to re-examine the text and to see evidence of metaphor where we had previously overlooked it.)
4) The goal of biblical interpretation is to try to determine authorial intent. Did the author intend what he wrote to be literal or to be metaphor? Determining this requires study of the original history, culture, grammar, and literary aspects. (It should be clear to anyone that the biblical authors did not view God as metaphor, but as a living being.)Edited by kbertsche, : added point 4

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Yes, I'm interested in authorial intent. How do Christians determine that the authors intended the Genesis creation account to be metaphorical, but the story of the resurrection was intended to be literal?

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This field of study is called "hermeneutics" (i.e. biblical interpretation). Proper interpretation requires historical, grammatical, and cultural study of the passage in question. The best way to understand hermeneutics is to read a good hermeneutics text or take a course in hermeneutics. I recommend the text "Protestant Biblical Interpretation" by Bernard Ramm.Descriptions of the appearances of Christ after His resurrection seem to indicate a real, literal resurrection. Paul says that without the resurrection our faith is in vain.The Genesis creation account, on the other hand, is highly structured, ordered, and repetitive. This suggests that it may be a literary rather than historical sequence and arrangement. There is a large amount of symbolism in the account itself, suggesting that the author may not intend it to be literal. There is a strong similarity between the apparent cosmogony of the account and that of the neighboring cultures, suggesting that the prevailing cosmogony may have been borrowed as a vehicle to teach theological truth.

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In other words it is entirely subjective.

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Absolutely not. My explanation that "proper interpretation requires historical, grammatical, and cultural study of the passage in question" implies the opposite. Hermeneutics has a scholarly, objective basis.

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Are the days of creation literally 24 hour periods?

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Christians (even conservative Christians who believe that the Bible is inerrant) have a wide variety of views on this. It is a huge study with many, many books written on the topic. All of the different views cite textual evidence as support, and many also point to extra-biblical evidence. Here are summaries of a few of the views:1) "Young-earth creation"--the days were literal 24-hour days during which God created everything, occurring sometime in the past 10,000 years or so.2) "Day-age view"--the days were long periods of time during which God created everything. The time period could be millions or billions of years.3) "Gap theory"--the days do not describe the original creation of everything, but describe a recreation of something originally created much earlier. The days are generally seen as 24-hours by most adherents.4) "Days of proclamation"--the days are literal 24-hour days during which God described (either to the angels or to man) what He had done earlier, perhaps over a long period of time. The days are not days of creation, but of description.5) "Framework view"--the days are a literary framework used to describe the creation; the account is not necessarily describing the actual sequence or timing which God used.6) "Ancient near east cosmology"--the days are a historical/cultural framework borrowed from the creation stories of neighboring cultures; the account is not necessarily describing the actual sequence or timing which God used, but is a cultural vehicle to teach theology (which is radically different from the theology of the neighboring cultures).

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Was the first man literally created from dust?

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Was the first woman literally created from a man's rib?

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Again, there are a variety of views. Probably most Christians see Adam and Eve as literal individuals. "Theistic evolutionists" (Christians who see evolution as God's mechanism for creation) are split; some see Adam and Eve as literal individuals, but many view Adam and Eve as symbols or archetypes.