The Creation of the World

Monday Musings:
I have always found it conflicting trying to be a believing and practicing Latter-Day Saint and a Scientist.  Now, technically, I am not a scientist  since  don't do any original research, but I do have a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and I have taken graduate level science courses and taught science for 5 years.  Even now that I am a trainer, I still love reading and understanding science.  I find that there are a lot of similarities between good science, good scientists and good religion and good believers.  More on that in another blog, but the reason I bring it up is the major conflict between most religions and science is the Creation.  The fundamentalist Christian, stated doctrine on the creation is in part that God created the world "ex nihilo" from nothing, and that it took place in seven 24 hour days.   That is at odds with the stated doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, especially the first part.  But what I really wanted to muse about was the interesting features of the sequence of the creation and the differences in 3 of the versions we have in the LDS Church.  It has gotten me working on something I did once before when I was in college, but I am working on a comparison day by day of the Scriptural descriptions of the creation. When I get it done I'll post it.  What I do know, despite the variations in the accounts, there is a distinct and definite plan.  I am not a proponent of divine design as it is usually described, and I definitely don't believe it belongs in a science classroom.  But I do like the term.  It took me a long time to come to grips with my own conflict about my scientific beliefs and my religious beliefs and for a long time I felt they were in direct conflict, now I feel more like my views on science and and my views on religion are involved in a begrudgin alliance.  They are both ways of getting at an ultimate truth that I am both limited in my ability to understand and to consolidate.    I also think it is very significant that every belief system that I know of has it's own mythology of the creation of the world.  It seems fundamental to human nature to create purpose for the world we live in and as creators ourselves we see in the world a creation with purpose.