Aztraph, I sympathize. Many of us have gone through a similar crisis of faith. It's not fun to have the belief system you've been taught and held to since you were a child shaken by education.
When it really comes down to it, only
you can decide what you are going to believe. Here at EvC we have representations of just about every step from fundamentalist, literalist Christian to full-blown atheist.
I think it's important to remember that there
is no black-white conflict. You
can remain Christian and still hold to science.
When I went through a similar crisis of faith, I asked myself what kind of life I want to lead. It turns out that, for me, the teachings of Jesus work. I
want to be that kind of person. Next, I asked myself if it really mattered if the Bible was literally true or not. It turns out I would want to be a follower of Jesus' teachings even if He never existed, and the Bible was a fairy tale. So, the challenges presented by science to a literal interpretation of the Bible were swept away for me - it doesn't
need to be literally true. Further ivestigations simply backed up that idea. Archeological finds like the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets that predate the Flood story (and were likely the basis of the Flood), modern observations of the way religious leaders can promote basically any idea as God's Will, and other things along similar lines showed me that literalism is highly unlikely. So, I take the message I get out of the BIble and interpret it by looking at the people who wrote it, their motivations, their culture, etc. But this is what works for me - you may find that a different path makes the most sense to you.
When it comes down to it, Aztraph, all you can really trust is your own heart. For Biblical literalism, all you really have is the say-so of several people who already believe that way, and a really old book that says it's all true. For science, you have theories based on reproducible experiments that, while accurate in describing the world around us, are beyond your ability to experiment with yourself (well, not all of them anyway). I would say that one is the more
rational choice, but personal faith doesn't have to be entirely rational. Since you say you believe in God, regardless of Biblical literalism, I would advise you to pray. He won't steer you wrong if you're asking for help. My advice would be to put your faith and trust in your own heart and God. Whether they tell you to believe in an old book about God, or science, or a little of both, you can never go wrong trusting in God and what you know to be true deep down.
Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.
™ Version 4.2
