First let me give you some of my background. I am not scientifically trained. Nor am I particularly religious. I was baptized, and barmitzvahed. I went to a Protestant Boarding school and took theology for 3 years, followed by many history courses dealing with the Church(basically the years following the death of christ to the 16th century). What I speak about comes from 17 years(from age 13 to present) of asking questions and wondering.
From my own meager observations I have come to a few conclusions. One. Evolution happens.
Two. Organized religions are devices to control the thoughts of the masses. They will lie, cheat, bend the truth, do whatever they need to do to stay in control.
Three. Many people need to feel they have a purpose, and having an all powerful diety that controls their destiny, and gives them a purpose makes them feel better about their lot in the universe.
Four. Scientific Methods and Creation theory have a hard time co-existing.
Based on these observations, and what I know about the bible, I have come to this conclusion. Darwin was right, but so was the bible. It is my position however that the bible was never meant to be taken as a literal history of the earth, and man. Rather, to be used as a moral code. What if Genisis IS right? If it is to be taken literally, then the earth was created in 6 24 hour days, all living creatures placed upon it, man and woman to rule them. However scientific methods have shown that there are fossils older than the the bible would have us believe possible. That men lived for hundreds of years. That a worldwide flood destroyed all life except what God(Yaweh the war god, who was kept in the arc of the covenant) deemed worthy of life. Instead consider this. The bible is in fact a bunch of parables. This would allow for much wiggle room, and make all these debates null and void.
Consider Genisis. Creationists now contend that the creation talks about the physical body. What if the authers were talking about the soul? God created the earth, placed the animals upon it and let them evolve. He infused our ancestors with a soul, a soul created in his image, and that is what makes us what we are. That interpritation no longer is open to debate, and becomes a philisophical ideoligy. It also allows for evolution, which has sufficent evidence to back it up as far as I have seen and read, to hold true.
The problem as I see it is that creationists, for all the talk about science, are using a religious book as a reference. A religious book that is comprised of stories that can be traced back to a time before the cannanites existed. A book that has the nature of God changing from chapter to chapter. Think about it. Yaweh wanted the jews to destroy all those that stood in there way, and take an eye for an eye. Christ does a complete 180. There are some fundimental problems with this. If the bible is literal, then God essentially changed his mind. Omnipotent all seeing, all powerful beings don't change thier minds, they know from the start what is the best course of action and don't need to change, that part of being an allpowerful, omnipotent being. As a parable, God can do whatever the author requires god do to teach a lesson. The inherent contradictions of the bible make it impossible to be taken as the literal word of god. But, as a metaphor it works fine, in fact is flawless, as it is impossible to prove or disprove the meaning you take from the metaphor. It is a personal experience that relies faith, and that cannot be argued. What I find rather ironic is that this thinking would end the discussion once and for all, Darwin AND the bible could be "right," but rather than consider that notion, creationists are to Proud(pride is a sin I believe) and would rather spend their time trying to be right. In essence they need to be connected to the universe so they have a purpose and can get into heavan, but rather than find a way to be right along with an evolutionists their pride, something that can keep them out of the very place they hope to go, prevents it.
I know this was problably a hard read, its early and I wrote this on the fly without much preperation in terms of grammar or spelling, which are not my strongest allies