Believe it or not, I do not find comfort in evolution. It is just a theory that has evidence to back it up. Actually, I find the theory cold and disheartening. However, as a scientist, I have to accept the evidence presented.
I have to wonder if there is not a similar story behind 80% of evolutionists.
I would doubt it. Much of the scientific community agrees with evolution.
I imagine those calling you names were probably the most outstanding church goers.
This is true. However, in the end I became a born again Christian fundamentalist who accepted a 6000-year-old Earth and Heavens. I took the bible literally. (Did you know I have read it thru a number of times?) However, as I studied the evidence as I continued my education, I began to see discrepancies between what was written and evidence I could measure with my own instruments. Over time, I had to abandon the quaint notion of a 6K-year-old universe and embrace the far more complex vistas of science, cosmology, astronomy, geology, biology, and evolution. (I fought doing that tooth and nail at first. Hey it's hard to shake your very faith to the core. But the evidence and my scientific training forced me to).
This is where I come from.
The dispute is between those who accept evolution and those who insist on a literal interpretation of the bible as they read it.
One can be an "evolutionist" and a Christian, but many here would disagree.
I'm fond of the ancient Greek tradition of attributing divine parentage to kids of dubious lineage. The girl would just say: "A god came to me when I was alone in the woods." Charming.
The 6,000 years from Adam to now v the age of the universe is not a problem to me due to relativity and the inflationary model. Six days from the inception space/time coordinates are roughly equal to 15 billion years from our space/time coordinates.
There is no conflict when I consider Genesis 1-3 applies to the creation of both heaven and earth and describes events in both (as in Colossians 1:15-20) - that Adam's calendar doesn't begin until he is exiled to mortality in Genesis 4. The "clue" is that the tree of life is in the center of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2) and in the center of Paradise (Rev 2), i.e. spiritual or heavenly.
Seems like doctrines which insist that Adam was the first mortal man will always have a problem with science unless they assert that God created an old-looking universe, 6000 years ago.