God created evolution

Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible are neither mutually exclusive nor irreconcilable. Yet t would appear from recent news that no one holds this position. The two sides have dug their trenches and now are embattled. The battleground: the U.S. education system.\nIn a recent survey, 31 percent of American schoolteachers said they felt pressured to teach creationism and other non-scientific alternatives in the classroom. Only 5 percent of the teachers felt the pressure from school administrators.\nMost of the pressure must come from groups eager to place their own agendas ahead of a rational education.\nCreationism is not rational, nor is it scientific, yet its most vocal adherents would have it masquerade as such. Teaching it in schools would be harmful to developing minds because it would encourage students to accept a theory based on nothing more than authority rather than reasoning and scrutiny of evidence.\nGranted, evolution is still no more than a theory, but it is one that is scientifically watertight. It took Darwin more than 20 years to develop and publish his ideas, which are based on observation, analysis and reasoning. Of all the theories on the development of life, Darwin's is the most compelling because it makes the most sense, and that is why it is the method currently prevailing on this subject.\nIf creationism were given the same weight as a well-reasoned theory, then what is the point of even instructing science? We should then give equal weight to the geocentric and heliocentric universes and argue that gravity and "the nature of things to fall" are both valid theories.\nThis would be absurd. It throws out the window the achievements and lifetimes of study devoted to better understanding our universe.\nBut if Darwin is, in fact, correct, what does that mean for those who believe in the Bible? Nothing at all. The story of Genesis is no less inspiring, no less believable. Those who would have us believe its contents word for word are reading what they believe to be God's word with the superficiality of a comic book. They miss the deeper meaning.\nWho is foolish enough to believe that "seven days" refers exclusively to seven 24-hour periods? The interpretation of the creation story as something more than what the words say is no new idea. Saint Augustine, one of the most revered Church fathers, wrote in his book, "The City of God" that "seven days" does not need to refer to the human measure of time, especially because days elapse before the sun is created. The world, he states, could be any number of ages old.\nNon-literal reading is not religion recoiling from Darwin and compromising itself. This was written in the year 413, so people saw the symbolic importance of Genesis and realized its scientific unlikelihood 15 centuries before Darwin. Creationists are, in a sense, betraying both reason and a long tradition of Christian teaching.\nI believe in the Bible -- all 73 books of it, including Genesis -- yet I also accept Darwin's theories as solid enough to be taught to the exclusion of creationism. And I still sleep at night. In fact, I attended a Catholic grade school, where evolution was taught and creationism was not even mentioned. My school's attitude was that evolution shows how God works continuously and subtly to lead up to the present.\nSo it is possible to be religious and believe in rational science. Then why don't creationist proponents realize this and spare the education system another lawsuit? Evolutionists, too, need to realize that their views in no way undermine their opponents' beliefs.\nReligion and science are two ways of observing our world, so it is completely possible for them to be reconciled.