I appreciate your response (great verses by the way.) I'm not concerned with the different creation versions, I'm concerned with being able to learn the scientific basis with which I can try to get across to atheistic "intellectuals" who think that because we (read: "by the grace of God") have made strides in medicine and technology that we have now become our own Gods, that it makes more sense that we came from inorganic matter than a Master Creator, and that essence resides in matter (or existence precedes essence however you'd like to call it.)
Well, several things are needed I think, having talked with atheists a great many times now over the last 6 years. First we should never respond in anger. And this will come up, because a favorite tactic is to be insulting, so as to shut down real discussion.
We really need to be talking to anyone at any time only in love for neighbor.
One big aid is to pray with faith the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 as a preparation (which is needed to do also just as being a Christian), with real faith as you pray. Those are basic right-place things we all need all the time regardless of whether we are trying to open a door for someone or just meeting a neighbor.
Atheists usually presume naturalism, sometimes without even knowing it.
Naturalism (a typical assumption, even if unconscious) directly implies God doesn't exist as in scripture. Naturalism presumes all that exists, including a God also then, is only inside nature, an object/thing of nature, subject to nature and limited by the laws of nature (physics), etc.
This assumption of course assumes that God does not exist as able to create nature, but to assume it to argue God doesn't exist is then simply circular reasoning.
God as we know anything about Him, from scripture, is the creator (of nature), and that implies God cannot be subject to nature, but must be independent of nature or above nature, the lord of nature. So naturalism presumptions aren't a logical way to consider God as we know of Him from scripture.
One can't teach anyone anything like this by saying 'you're wrong' in any way, but instead it would have to be part of a friendly discussion.
Atheists that want to see humans achieve immortality through technology may actually be someone who could be interested, if the discussion is friendly, to find out that eternal life is a gift given though Christ, the one Who taught us to "love one another". But this is usually a long-term seed for them to know about. One that could matter later for them, to know.
The atheist thinking most common is to believe there is no afterlife. And....often we will see them use some form of that presumption to make some suggestion or logical argument that God doesn't exist.
For example:
"If there is a God, then why do innocent young children die in earthquakes or by disease?"
Premise -- mortal death is final, there is no eternal life. Logic -- since there is no eternal life, then that death of an innocent shows 'God is evil', or could not be real.
But, once you see the assumption, often an unconscious one -- that death is final; there is no afterlife -- then you can see any implication/conclusion about God is merely circular reasoning. Presuming death is final is presuming God doesn't exist to begin with.
Often of course atheists have a version of the Old Testament in their minds which they often think they know better than believers (and of course many believers indeed have not read through the Old Testament). Pretty much 99%-100% of the time this presumed knowing they think they have of the Old Testament is erroneous in some key ways, often by taking some verses or situations out of context, which is easy to do in many places, due to how sometimes the full context isn't even in that same book of the Bible (example: Sodom was destroyed actually for the list of reasons given in Ezekiel 16:49-50, even though the destruction is in Genesis chapters 18-19.) So atheists often really do believe, delusionally, that they have a good knowledge of the Bible, merely because they saw some dramatic verses out of context, or read perhaps 2% or 15% of the Old Testament, or read more, but didn't see everything there, etc.
Because of these factors, it's pointless to argue details about evolution. If there is no afterlife, if death is final -- if God doesn't exist as the assumption -- then how could God even manage evolution for instance in the commonplace view (of some believers) of Genesis chapter 1 as symbolic?
It can help some atheists or agnostics though to find out that about 1/2 of Christian believers in God think the Earth is old, as it appears to be in accepted science, and think God managed evolution, also in accord with the predominately accepted science. So, talking about evolution to an atheist past merely pointing out God could use and/or manage evolution is going to be just unheard. To merely argue science only makes one seem disreputable.
After all we don't believe: God could not use evolution.
That's not our faith.
Instead we believe: God is the creator of the Universe and thus all in it, and that He sent His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus, to save us from our wrongs, and that Christ rose from the dead, and through Christ we can be born anew, and by faith and following Christ we will be given the ultimate gift, eternal life.
