I’m trying not to deny the Bible because I want to believe in it. If I have to go through this ceaseless battle with young earth/old earth creationism/evolution, then I may very well remain an agnostic until I die. This is a supremely important debate.
Anyway, must we conclude that Adam was the first man? I don’t see that explicitly states in Genesis. It says he created mankind (man and woman), the man was formed from the dust, and placed in Eden. The current theory is that all living persons originated from a mitochondrial Eve through coalescence (last remaining lineage, the children of the others did not reproduce). The only problem is that this would have to be 200,000 years ago and she was not the only woman in Africa.
By the way, knowledge of the human genome is important in medicine. If you value your health and that of others, you should be happy that someone cared enough to decode it. The leader of the human genome project was a professed evangelical christian by the name of Dr. Francis S. Collins. He argued that evolution and the Bible were compatible and that made me believe in Christianity for a while. Now I don’t know what to believe.
I’m not a scientist, as I’ve said, and not in medicine. I don’t see how the belief in evolution improves medical research and in fact, I think it’s a distraction.
Anyway. God’s whole reason for creating man, is for fellowship. We broke that fellowship when we willfully sinned. We chose death and separation from God. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, he sent His son to die for us.
Death and suffering is a result of sin. That’s why Christianity is incompatible with evolution. Evolution teaches that death and suffering went on for eons before humans sinned, that God’s creation was imperfect and flawed. It dismisses Biblical salvation and the need for God to come down and dwell among us and take our sin upon Himself.
The fact that we’re sinners should be clear. The fact that sin is the cause of all this pain should be clear. The good news is God is willing to reconcile us to Himself. We just have to accept that reconciliation. I pray you’ll do that.