I really don't see how evolution and creation are mutually exclusive.
Or as I would read that, science seeking to understand
how it is happening, irrespective of any deity; and religion saying its deity is making it happen, irrespective of how.
So, no, they are not mutually exclusive. They ask different questions.
The problem boils down to some deeply-religious people afraid or unwilling to accept that there exist, four basic but important differences:
a) Between belief in, doubt of, and outright denial of, the existence of any deity - as exemplified by the reductive notion expressed in the OP.
b) Between different but usually sincere interpretations or expressions of belief in their own chosen deity; let alone between theirs and any faith worshipping any other god(s).
c) Hence between believing generally in a mystical but creative deity, and in scriptural descriptions of ancient interpretations of that deity.
d) Between the natures, aims and purposes of science, and of religion.
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Naturally I do not believe in re-incarnation, but I sometimes wonder what the ancient Hebrew priests would make of it if they could come back now and see what has been discovered well over 2000 years later.
They were not stupid, they simply did not have available the breadth of knowledge we enjoy now. I think once the basics were explained so they could grasp simple summaries of the natural sciences, and the vast scales of time and place involved, they would embrace that modern knowledge as showing their God's handiwork to be far more beautiful, sublime and majestic then they could genuinely have imagined. And yes - including the principle of evolution.
I don't think Speedyman is an outright Creationist despite his binary question, but what would those scribes re-incarnate make of that philosophy? I think they would regard it, as I do, as demeaning not only them, but also God.
