Pete, here's what I learned in Theology school:

The two creation stories in Genesis are beautiful pieces of literature, written in the poetic language of myth. The first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:3) uses particularly beautiful poetry, repeating each day in the same format and ending each day with, "And God saw that it was good. And evening came and morning came, the __th day." It's meant to show the wonder and awe of creation, and the fact that God was and is present in every moment of a creation that is still unfolding. God is present within the wonderful, evolutionary process of creation - not some external force acting from afar. Note, however, that the language and structure of the piece is poetic, meant to paint a word picture - not to describe scientific processes. Oh, and note that humankind and most animals were created on the sixth day.

The second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) is quite different. Man and woman were almost the very first things created. In this story, God is much more anthropomorphic than in the first story - in this story, God interacts directly with humankind. "Adam" (man) and Eve (woman) are symbolic representations of all humankind. The story of the "original sin" of eating the forbidden fruit (not specified to be an apple) is also symbolic of humankind turning away from good and choosing selfishness and sin - continued by Cain's sin of killing his brother.

These stories in Genesis are but two of many creation myths that came from the time. There are many similarities in the various myths, and many differences. But none of them are meant to be scientific descriptions of how the world and its creatures came to be. Science does a far better job of that. The best and most understandable I've seen is at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC.

This is a pretty conventional stance, held by theologians from the Catholic Church and most of the "mainline" Protestant churches, and many Jews. Very few people in these churches reject the idea of evolution, although most see God as active within the process of evolution. They make no attempt to prove the presence of God in evolution, because they view this as a matter of faith that cannot be proved. And in no way do they see the action of God as contradicting the processes of nature, as described by scientific research. They see no inherent conflict or contradiction between science and faith. They do see the creation stories of Genesis as sacred and wonderful documents of faith, but they wouldn't dream of taking these stories literally.

Many Baptists and most other "born-again" religions are the only ones who take a more literal view of scripture and reject the idea of evolution. These "born-again" religions are wildly popular in the United States and they are growing at an alarming rate in many parts of the world. We in the "mainline" religions try to be polite to the "born-agains," but we have nothing in common with them and can't understand or accept their beliefs any more than the atheists can.

Note that the Catholics and the "mainline" churches all have a few fundamentalist members, but generally not in leadership positions.

-Joe-