creationism is unjustifiable

Creationism is a broader topic than many people make it out to be. Nor is it as simple and one sided against science as my opponent purports it to be. First, I would take issue that Creationism is the literal interpretation of the Bible because the Bible as most of us who read it know and understand is actually translated from several different languages, dialects, time periods, and understandings. This in and of itself lends any true understanding of the idea behind Creationism to be one of interpretation. This distinct issue of interpretation is very easily seen by simply examining the variety of religious understanding and belief that ignite from various interpretations of 'scripture'. To support my first example let us take a simple verse from the King James Version of the Bible "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Right away in this instance there are many many issues taking place on how people understand these simple phrases. What does Created mean for instance? Does it mean spawned from nothing, formed overtime, or some other ubiquitous meaning lost in the annuls of time and cultural understanding? Perhaps you mean to define Creationism as someone who believes that the world magically popped into existence in six days? Which is in general what it seemed you were going after. However if you have studied the first chapter of Genesis at all this quickly must be discarded. The Hebrew itself denotes time periods, though some might well call them days. Now lets instead look at the basic story of Creation and see if there is something that goes along with science. First The Earth was formed. There was a lot of water. One location where all the land exists oh say for instance Pangaea. Then comes plants. Then comes animals. Finally here comes man. All of this pretty much follows exactly what science tells us happened. I fear the main issue here is that Creationists as you perhaps have met define things as instantaneous and 'Divine' rather than thoughtful, planned, and time consuming. However I consider myself a Creationist and yet I see nothing immutable in the science from the theology. They walk hand in hand, coexisting together. For what is time to a God? The Alpha and the Omega, beginning and the end? As for the whole Adam and Eve thing... Do you consider that part of Creationism? It seems to me rather an introduction to the idea of what it means to be formed in "God's Image", in other words to make choices and separate at an intellectual level right from wrong, which by definition of the Bible itself is the very design of God. To know good from evil and choose the good. Some may take the story of Adam and Eve as literal but the truth is that based on the theoretical science ( which seems fairly well grounded ) it is more than likely an extension of understanding rather than fact. However Human Evolution is still at its very core theoretical. It is our best guess based on the evidence provided. However the theory behind trait selection and change is well established so I would tend to agree it exists. We can see it in many various species and man has been using trait selection to breed animals for many thousands of years now. Now I then bring up the last thought on Creation which is that Creationists believe that God formed things rather than chance and chaos. We do not know or understand the workings of the Universe or why there would be a move to continual order rather than a degradation into ought but chaos. We see laws in existence yet understand little about them, oh we measure them, we notice them, yet understanding the actual purpose and reason behind them will be a long time in the making. Finally I ask one last question as to whether 'God' could create a world and populate it with plants, animals, and man. If we by science believe that all these things are theoretically possible ( for did they not happen? ) why is it so hard to believe that an entity that knows all things managed to bring them about? Are we not moving in a direction to understand the basic principles of 'Creation' Would we not wish to create circumstance across the universe where life might exist? Perhaps all of this simply occurred, the spark of life on this planet was meant to occur and through random chance and biological evolution it was bound to create a species capable of rational, independent, and completely unique forms of communication, understanding, and philosophy. I contend that this is possible, however I contend that even more likely is that a being of infinite knowledge and power triggered, nursed, and even now watches over His Creation. For a purpose that we cannot fully understand nor fathom barring there be an actual way of speaking with him as the rest of the Bible seems to purport there to be. Perhaps my opponent grew up some place where critical thinking was discourage, where he was taught that faith and science were at odds with each other and as each new understanding of science and its explanations came about he saw how brittle the understanding of those who believed in religion were around him. When you accept something as dogma, heck even scientific theory as dogma, you close your mind to growth and realization of truth. However by shutting out the story of Creation he has managed to do the same thing. He sees the flaws ( which there are many that exist in a document written close to 3,000 years ago ) yet cannot see the remarkable correlations of the story with science. Is it 100 percent accurate? Well I would suggest no, but is it pretty darn close in correlation. I would also suggest that as the person who 'received' this information did so from God and that person would have had to write it down according to their understanding of the world and would have had to attempt to explain it in a way that others could understand and relate to. Imagine attempting to explain evolution to someone who had no reference of the immense time it takes and you having no evidence of it to show to someone. They would be skeptical and not entirely prone to believe it ( heck many don't believe it now WITH evidence ) So you would keep the concept general and without much depth or detail, an explanation of concept rather than mechanism. Perhaps my opponent was looking for someone to simply say. Evolution is a crock and have no evidence to support what they believe except through vain attempts to discredit the information as it exists in science. However as evolution is a good working theory I see no cause for this, I also see no problem with how the world was formed or that it took billions of years to do so as being against the story of Creation. Some may well argue that what I am advocating is not Creationism but rather a different form of Divinism such as "intelligent design" which I accept as a possible critique of this defense of Creationism. I do not believe that God simply formed the Earth out of nothing. I do not believe that Man simply popped into existence. Yet I still believe in the Story of Creation as it can be understood with the information we have. So it took God a few million years to form man in his image... So it took God billions of years to prepare the earth as a habitat for man... Whether it be a billion years or an instant can the effect not have been the same? The purpose behind it still as viable? Why get hung up on the details when that is NOT what Genesis provides. It does not say HOW God formed the Earth, only that God did form the Earth. Heck it does not even really get into the rest of the formation of the Universe, it is only a page in length!!! Meant to point to a creator and give a general sense that He exists.