I grew up SDA (Seventh Day Adventist). I went to K-12-Electrical Engineering degree in the Adventist school system. I grew up in an environment that mocked those silly scientist who believed that the earth was millions of years old. SDAs are semi-fundamentalist who believe that the earth was created ~7k years ago and was once covered by a world wide flood. There are also some good aspects of our religion such as the health message.
Some pretty basic science shows that this world origin idea isn't true. Take the decay rate of C14. Take the forest from Germany or Santa Barbra. Prove the world has been around for greater than 7k years. Show the world was never covered by a world wide flood. This is trivial to do even with a fundamentalist science education.
In my experience so far (I still go to church), there are a couple religious rebuttals to the above evidence. The first one is that the atmosphere was different before the time of the flood and this is why the C14 dating is "inaccurate". Since the tree rings are bookended for greater than 10k year the record of what the C14 was is recorded and calibrated. If the C14 generation was wonky, it would show up in the tree rings. This rebuttal is just silly. The second religious rebuttal is that some things just have to be taken on faith. Faith is defined as believe in things not yet seen. The other one is that Satan has created false evidence to confuse the scientists. Nice.
I asked in Sabbath School once, "What is the continued belief in things that can be seen to be not true?" That wasn't popular... I don't see much religious value in the fundamentalist view of the origins of life. I do see big risks.
When I realized that some of the things that I had believed for the first 20 years on my life were bogus, I started wondering what else was bogus. I asked myself if I believe in God. When I tell people in my church that I believe there has been life on the planet for significantly longer than 7k years, they ask me if I believe in God. In people's minds, if you don't believe that the world is only 7k years old, you must not believe in God. If Satan has indeed done anything, it was to weave scientifically disprovable doctrine into the core of my religion. Bummer.
I do have faith. I have faith that there is a God. I have faith that there is a heaven. These things are not the realm of science. If a scientist says he has proven there is no heaven, there is a 100% chance that guy is an idiot. Similarly, when a religious nut says they world is only 7k years old because that is what they bible says, they are also just ignorant.
I started a small group discussion at my religious college before I graduated. I had two questions, the answers which I currently use to deal with this clash between religion and science. I asked, "Should we even be questioning this stuff, or should be just believe the bible and move on?" The answer from the physic professor who was about to retire was, "If God wanted you to think about this stuff, he would have given you a brain." Sweet. My other question was, "How do you deal with people in the church?" The same retiring professor said, "I keep coming to church whether they like it or not."
If you are looking for a science model for your children, find someone who as managed to integrate their belief in God with science.
