“For the account in Genesis to be literally true, you would have to postulate a God who planted false evidence to deceive people into believing in an ancient Earth and Universe - everything from the light of distant stars to radioactive decay to fossils.
Seems to me that requires a rather malicious deity - one who tests people’s faith in literal Biblical truth by intentionally deceiving them with contrary evidence.”
Come on, man! Use your God-given brain. Instead of denying God (how CAN anyone intelligent do this when everything in creation indicates it “suffers from” design which indicates a Designer), why not use your finite mind and find reasons/theories why, Yes, the biblical account IS so?
Stop using “No God” as your beginning point and you’re on your way. Or are you simply an atheist (Geez isn’t that easy. All you have to do is stick your head in the sand when it comes to the question of where did it all come from?)
Science is the search for natural explanations for the things we observe. It doesn't use the supernatural as its starting point to explain phenomena.
Why? Occam's razor. If you don't need to invoke magic, the supernatural, or anything else ad hoc to explain something, then you don't. There's no need to invoke God, gods, or magic to explain lightning storms when we understand static electricity. The same applies for astronomy, geology, and biology.
This line of argument doesn't require atheism, it just means not invoking God's design when simple physics and chemistry suffice. I don't know if you're Catholic or not, but both Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II seem(ed) to agree that you can accept scientific, material explanations for things and still believe in God.