And if you are a Christian, you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, meaning everything in there is fact. Thus, you couldn't be a Christian and believe that God used evolution.

Well, *some* or even *many* Christians might believe that everything in the Bible is fact, but I can point out at least *one* counter-example of a Christian that *doesn't* think everything in the Bible is fact, let alone necessarily "inspired". Why?

a) Jesus taught in parables, right? I.e. stories. The stories weren't about fact, but were used as illustrative purposes to get a point across. If Jesus can do it, then why can't the people that wrote the Bible, inspired or not? Presumably Genesis was written for a bunch of people that did not have our scientific education, right? No matter how inspired a writer might be, do you think many people would really, honestly, truly understand if he went off about the big bang and primordial soup and micro-organisms and carbon based life-forms and DNA and evolution, supposing that that's what really happened? No. What would people of that era understand? "God spat on the earth, and out of the dust and mud, created man in his image." Now, is the inspiration of God found in the literal meaning of the text, or is the inspiration of God found in the ability of the writer to get the point across to his audience of the time?

b) The Bible has been translated from language to language to language. There are concepts in some languages that are un-translatable into other languages. For example, the Chinese word xia has no direct translation in English -- a loose translation is chivalrous hero, but that does not embody all the concepts of what xia really is (take that, Mom -- watching Kung Fu movies *did* teach me something!) Similarly, the Inuit have something like 40 different words for snow. We have... uh... about 4. I think it necessarily inevitable that something has been lost in the translation. Multiply that by the number of generations of translation before you get to English version, and you end up with something in which it would be impossible to have the identical meaning and context as the original. Heck, biblical scholars can't even come to an agreement over the original untranslated versions!

c) The content of the Bible has been under the control of people who's aims have been less Godly than Worldly. Texts have been included or not included based on political motivations. Popes and Kings have a vested interest in having the Bible say particular things.

d) The begats. I have no doubt of their truth, but really, just how inspired does one have to be to put down an historical lineage of a people. There are lots of folks into that sort of thing today, but does anyone call them "inspired by God"? I hardly think so. In my opinion, since there is one section of the Bible that could have been written without any need for divine inspiration, then there could well be others.

Science and Christianity (and religion in general) are not mutually incompatible. Religion does a great job providing one with some moral standard or code for living life, but it does a pretty bad job at explaining how things work. Science is the opposite -- it's great at explaining why or how things work, but you'll never get a decent answer from it about anything in the metaphysical realm.

FWIW, I was raised Christian, but part of my church's tenet is that any religion can only be interpreted through an individual's personal experiences, and is thus very much a subjective experience. Ergo, I was taught Faith, but not blind acceptance. To me, being told that the Bible contains only Absolute Truth hearkens back to the age when the Bible was only written in Latin in order that the Popes and priests could dictate what the unwashed illiterate masses would know about the Bible -- i.e. *their* version. After all, the instruction is "seek and ye shall find." How exactly is one seeking if one never questions?

Uhh.... am I ranting? I'll stop, now.

Cheers,