Perhaps I was too soft in my last post. The wild stretch of the imagination is such a wild stretch it is nothing short of faith/belief.
It may seem so to someone who hasn't studied it deeply or who has taken all their information from purveyors of "creation science". I know that for as long as I learned about evolution only from anti-evolutionists, I also thought it was a wild, fantastic --- and godless --- theory. It was learning about it from a scientific perspective that took out both the "wild stretch" and the "anti-god" qualities of evolution.
And I also believe that evolution tends to remove God from the minds of people (not all) when they view his creation.
I think this is far less common that you suspect. For myself personally, evolution opened my eyes to the wonders of creation. I am of the opinion that the alleged pathway from evolution to athiesm is seldom travelled in real life, and that this danger is highly exaggerated by the leaders of the creationist movement.
I would also note that, in my experience, those who are most likely to abandon faith in God as a result of accepting evolution are those who have been indoctrinated in the tenets of creationism.
Have you ever read the testimony of Glen Morton? Google the name, you will find it quickly.
It also drastically erodes the authority of the Bible. If the Bible can't even get the creation right, what good is it beyond a moral code?
But the TOE does not say the Bible erred about creation. In the first place it never denies that God is the Creator. As for HOW God created, that is a matter of scriptural interpretation. Some interpretations of the process of creation are incompatible with science, but the authority of the bible is not tied to any one particular interpretation.
The entire Bible, God, life, and his creation in general make a WHOLE lot more sense without evolution.
That's your opinion. Other Christians hold other opinions. If you learned more about evolution, you might change your opinion. For that matter, if you learned more about the bible and various interpretations of the bible, you might change your opinion.
If the Bible is wrong about this much stuff, it cannot be from God and we might as well throw it out. If someone could convince me that evolution was true, it would be equivalent to me disbelieving in God.
If the Bible is wrong, it ought to be thrown out, but in regard to the scriptures you cited, science does not show that the bible is wrong.
Tell me, if someone could convince you that the bible supports the concept that God used evolution to create the diversity of living things, would you still be hostile to the theory of evolution?