I went pretty fast and loose with both the Biblical text and with the 7th grade science class -- I am not a proponet of ID and felt no compulsion to try to do a detailed comparative analysis. But I do find that at a very general level there are some parallels which are very interesting for a people who would have had no special knowledge of the origins of the earth other than that received either from other cultures' myths or special revelation. Though you obviously disagree, I still think the Bible sounds a lot closer to the Stephens (Hawking and Gould) than it does Gilgamesh.
Actually ... I think old creation myths that are NOT creation ex-nihilo—like the Enuma Elish
and Genesis—have more in common with modern science than the way
Christians have (wrongly) interpreted the Genesis myth as a creation ex-nihilo story.
*(Gilgamesh is not the Babylonian creation myth; the Enuma Elish is)
And while my general acceptance of the origins of the cosmos are enough for me not to take the opening chapters of Genesis literally, I would be interested in hear more of your "robust" answers that are provided by evolution. I don't see that in a universe where the value of a bacterium, an earthworm, and a human being would all be over equal insignificance.
Well, I don't think the theory of evolution has any answers for the origin of the cosmos.
Evolution is limited in scope to biology and tells us nothing about astrophysics.
As for "value," I would question your assumption that value is innate, and not assigned. Why is a diamond more valuable than a lump of coal? What determines that value? We do. (Though I don't think we're the only creatures who assign value.)
Aside from that, I'm not really sure where to start. Evolution tells us a lot about our brains, our morals, and our societies. We can look at chimpanzee societies and see the precursors to our own social activities: hunting, dominance hierarchies, tool use, communication, altruism, even adolescent rebellion. We can evaluate just why each of these things arose—what advantages they conferred on our ancestor species, and at what costs. We might even be able to see which behaviors are vestiges that can be discarded or modified.
As far as Obler's paradox goes in conjunction with the speed of light. (Assuming the univerese not to be expanding faster than the speed of light.) I imagine that some of the stars are so distant that the light from them has simply not reached us yet. And when it does, just as I know that when looking at the North Star that I am looking at light that set sail with Columbus, so we will be able to look up at that new starlight and looking back in time be able to see the exact moment when God spoke and said (at least for that particular star), "Let there be light."
But infinite space would mean infinite time. Still infinite light in the night sky.
