I think we have found some agreement, and if you'll allow I would like to expand upon what you said...
You said fundementalists muddy the waters. That leads me to say that the fundementals of the religion muddy the waters of science. With that said we non beliwvers see chriatianity and science not being together, that there are inherrant disagreements in both idiologies.
And yes, the church has apologized to gallaleo, how long did that take? Untill the late 17oos? So for hundreds of years they opposed it, even through the rennaisance period. They apologized because they looked like fuckin fools for standing against the science...
And hawkings statement is vastly different from a foundational christian beliefe, that god directly created man in his own image ss well as everything that exists in six days. I wonder though how we measured days for the first two considering the sun wasnt created untill the third day....hmmm, very unscientific id say
And alegorical?how do you figure? thats not what the church says. The church says that the bible is word for word the litteral word of god, how does that factor in the alegory statement?
And the passage of time in the bible, while obviously not exact, is noted. The singular voice of the church maintains the 6500 year old world theory, this is due to the old testament chronicalling of generations and age (asop begot jsep, josep begot aman, aman begot hezzekaih, hezzekaih begot poop-n-scoop...etc. As well as the 900 some odd old methusela....
I hit 'like' before I left because of the civil tone. I hadn't read all of the post. There are parts we'll discuss 
