It's faithful people who are in a position to say that the exact details of HOW God created the world are not central to their belief. The Pope has seen the logic of that and stopped the damage done to the church by such arguments.
Much as Creationists like to think they are "fighting" evil Darwinists, the fact is that science pays the argument no mind. The fight does not damage science, only faith in God.
And it IS a big deal to a lot of people, the belief that God created humans directly, in his own image, and therefore they are special to him.
And it is especially a big deal that God took several billion years of hard work and patience to do it. Science describes that process as "Evolution", and I encurage you mightily to call that same action "miraculous". But the simple fact is that there is no difference between the two.
I believe that Evolution was God's first Creation. Species may have evolved by "chance", but it was God who created the very existence of "chance" in the first place.
And how can you or anyone deny that there are few scientists who are very religious yet also believe our very existence is random and our origins undirected?
I was taught by a church deacon, of one of the largest Christian denominations on the planet, that Evolution and Genesis did not conflict. That church deacon was also a science professor. I don't know the statistics on how many scientists are religious, but that's my experience.
That was back in the 70's, about 10 years before the "Creation Science" issue was brought up by a few folks who I'm sure were more interested in selling books than helping bring people to God.
Mainline churches fought this fight in the 30's and lost it and decided as my church deacon did that the conflict itself was more harmful than any specific interpretation on the few hundred words in the first two chapters in Genesis. I'm sure this episode of the Creationism fight that started in the 80's will die away eventually. I just hope it doesn't do much damage in the mean time.
Why are creationists more responsible for this "lack of faith" than the scientists who teach that believing in God is irrational, that naturalism is superior, that our very existence is due to some random circumstances, we are not special to God or anyone else, we are just another group of animals that will die out eventually, and throughout the duration of our existence, our only aim will be to fight for survival.
In your belief, how are humans created in God's image if they are really in the image of the apes who came before them? And were these ancestors also created in God's image? How is it logical to say that they were not? How could something made in God's image come directly and solely from something that was not?
It is your opinion that beliving God created us with a special purpose and plan in mind, and we are one step below angels, this is dangerous.
It is my opinion that believing we're just another group of animals fighting to be the "fittest" and survive is much, much more dangerous.