"I believe firmly in God, and I believe that evolution is a fact. And I don't find anything contradictory in that."
This is an excellent point, and I'd be willing to wager this the exact position of most religious people who work in the science and engineering disciplines, if not the position of most educated people in general. There is no conflict between science and faith, because they answer to separate questions. Science is only about the 'how' while faith attempts to answer 'why.' I believe the only conflict between science is faith is that which people make, and to push religion into science does a disservice to both science and faith.
It's pertinent to point out that even Orthodox Judaism isn't unanimous on the point. For example, the famuous British Orthodox Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz (1872-1946) wrote on this subject:
God the Creator and Lord of the Universe, which is the work of his goodness and wisdom; and Man, made in His image, who is to hallow his week-day labors by the blessedness of Sabbath-rest -- such are the teachings of the Creation chapter. It's purpose is to reveal these teachings to the children of man -- and not to serve as a text book of astronomy, geology, or anthropology. Its object is not to teach scientific facts; but to proclaim highest religious truths respecting God, Man, and the Universe. The "conflict" between the fundamental realities of Religion and the established facts of Science, is seen to be unreal as the soon as Religion and Science each recognizes the true border of its domain.
As a creationist, I simply don't understand the big argument between theistic evolution and ID. The ID'ers aren't saying that the world was created in six 24-hour days but that "there is a designer." Anti-ID theistic evolutionists say exactly the same thing. I'll never understand what they're arguing about. PS: Rabbi Hertz was not only a theistic evolutionist (though he insisted on the Divine dictation of the Torah), but he accepted "scientific" critical theories of the Bible outside the Torah itself, which is even further out of the mainstream.
Very well said!