believe me CraigL, it seems at times that the church has done more harm than good . . . . and you have to separate the 'cultural' christians from the 'authentic' christians
Not quite the way I would put it. It's seems that too many who 'have an axe to grind' would use these exact words to counter arguments for religion of any sort.
Man does the harm that you speak of.
Every institution is run by, organised by and made up of Humans so it's only natural that all of them, regardless of their origins would have their share of morons. The Church or churches aren't immune to this, for the reasons of 'Gods non-interference policy' that I put forward earlier.
Anyway, as for the 'creating the Earth in 7 days' bit goes. Time, or the measuring of it, is a manmade concept to express the passage of age.
I am as 'sprituaul' as the next man nad have studied at much length, these questions, and my understanding is that the simplest solution would ordinarily be the truest.
I believe that much of the Old testament is 'symbolic' in nature. the deatails are not important because the truth iof the matter isn't contained in the specifics but in the overall theme. I believe that the Earth took Millions or Billions of years to form and that all the processes that needed to take place for everything to exist as it does (from a scientific point of view) did occur.
The fact that it is 'documented' by the original writers (whom no one knows) of the 'Old Testament' or Jewish/Hebrew 'Tora' of which it is a part, as taking 7 days is simply a 'representation' of the fact that it was the work of God and secondly that He did it all of it, and this is (for sake of argument) the order in which it all occurred.
A day, a month, a millenium, an eon. I doesn't matter. It was just a pretty nifty trick!
An behold! It is very good!