Hi Jeannie, it's nice to have a new voice here. Thank you for sharing your ideas.

I think that you are highlighting part of the problem with extremes that currently exist in this kind of debate. On one side, there are people who read the Bible word-for-word and insist that everything it says is literal -- commonly called YECs (young earth creationists). On the other side, there are scientists like Richard Dawkins who are evangelical atheists and who believe that science is the only and absolute route to knowledge; whatever we don't know now, science is capable of discovering in the future. I've spoken to people like this myself. I am not one of them, I don't think anyone here is, and I think their outspoken agendas are frankly insulting to people who believe that spirituality and religion can be integral and wholesome parts of a person's life.

Most scientists have some kind of theistic belief, and there's no reason why this and science cannot co-exist. Why does accepting one, have to necessitate throwing the other one out? As RAZD has said, you can believe that God gave us brains and curiosity so that we could use methods like science to find out about the world.

Mainly what the evolutionists here have been doing is trying to tie discussions down to solid evidence. My own usual method of debate goes something like, "If you believe evolution could not have occured, how do you explain x, y, or z?" The main body of evidence I personally find convincing comes from the fossil record, dating methods and genetics.

Would you like to choose something in particular to discuss -- maybe something that recently came up at school which you were not "sold" on?