I giant rush of water wouldn't make U-turns.
It does make atheists because many people feel pressured to believe in an Old Earth and evolution instead of believing it's all a conspiracy.
Well, didn't Saint Paul make quite a stand early on, to the effect of "not putting barriers to entry in the way of those [gentiles] who would otherwise Believe" ?
The focus is Christ on the Cross paying the penalty for collective human sin since Eden, so satisfying God's Justice whilst working God's Mercy into the equation also. Yes?
Doesn't Saint Paul say somewhere that people should avoid arguing over minutia, over genealogies & numbers and so on?
I don't see any value in driving away Believers in Christ, on the Cross, in ~30AD... because of quantitative details of exactly how long was the primordial period of Genesis 1, prior to Adam & Eve in Eden in Genesis 2-3.
The Bible acknowledges a Biblically significant epoch of "gradually unfolding & developing Creation" (Gen 1)
prior to Eden. However long it was, is just some quantitative number. Some people say it was a big number X, others a smaller number x. But all agree, qualitatively,
x > 0, and x = Bibically significant, yes ? I mean, it is Gen 1, right??
I don't see the value of trying to drive people out of the Church, on such details, in the name of "only true Scotsmen" so to speak.
Of course, it would be dangerous to impugn the Moral Authority of Scripture. Whether Genesis 1 was X or x, 5-7 billion years or 5-7 days of shorter duration, is a quantitative difference of degree, not kind. It's not central to the crucial qualitative core concept of God bringing about mankind (one way or another), =Gen 1, mankind's disobedience incurring God's Wrath and a divine sentence of capital punishment according to God's Justice, =Gen 2-3.. which was carried out on the Cross so as to satisfy God's Justice whilst miraculously also working in God's Mercy unto Salvation, =NT.
So long as the qualitative steps are acknowledged, as well as Scripture's Moral Authority, I don't see why "X vs x" needs to cause yet another schism in the Church. Why not emphasize (qualitative) unity instead?
Where "rubber meets road", where doctrine impacts dally life, what is the noticeable difference in teaching, between those who say "X vs x" ? If just about zero, why argue more than that?