how the world began

I was kind of caught off guard while reading my History of Africa text. It told me that homo sapiens evolved in Africa. Whoa, how did I miss this? Embarrassingly enough, I realized I somehow managed to slide through middle school, high school and college without ever really considering the issue of "how the world began" or creationism vs. evolution. I've always kind of had it in the back of my mind that macro evolution or the idea that I evolved over millions of years from liquid to a monkey to a human--took things too far. But, I also never really believed that the world was created in 7 days as I was taught in Sunday school.

Just as I was reading my history text, Lance started reading the book "Case for a Creator." So far, what I think he's gotten out of it is that some of the examples used as arguments for Darwinism have many holes in them, although they are not taught that way. I have read only a portion of the book with him, so I have much more to consider, but I picked up another book at the library which I really am enjoying. It is "In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall" by Pope Benedict XVI. So far I haven't gotten to the fall yet and I'm interested to see what it says, but the first chapters on Creation are really hitting home to me.

So I have absolutely no new conclusions as of yet... I'm waiting to put it all together as I read more, trying to take the meat and spit out the bones of it all. One thing that I am observing though, is on such a hot button issue as this, sometimes Catholic understanding may be a little less "hot tempered chihuahua like" than mainstream or evangelical Christianity. American evangelical Christian culture seems to be scared that our whole belief system will be torn down if we consider that maybe the world wasn't created in 7 days, because we're afraid that will lead to people saying the Bible isn't truth. I can see that fear, but I think that fear shouldn't stop us from asking questions within the security of what we know to be true.

I'm kind of nervous to post this, as it is somewhat personal, but what the heck... it is what I'm thinking about.