Thoughtful christians including scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller accept the evidence for evolution unconditionally. The only thing that distinguishes their understanding of life from the views of Dawkins is that they believe god planned and started the process intentionally.
Just a word about the subtle but vital distinction between "theistic evolution" and "Intelligent Design"...
Over-simplifications alert - Intelligent design is creationism in disguise. It is a modern twist on the "Paley's watch" argument. Michael Behe et al assert that certain molecular systems like the blood-clotting cascade and the bacterial flagellum are too complex to have developed by unguided evolution. Therefore "god did it". ID is an intellectual parasite that contributes nothing to the advancement of knowledge.
Theistic evolution accepts that evolution is a fact. Every living thing including humans descended from a common ancestor by an unguided process. God is not a tinkerer, evolution did not need his constant input to get over difficult hurdles. Unlike ID, theistic evolution looks for naturalistic explanation for scientific questions.
ID is intellectually dishonest pseudoscience: theistic evolution is science PLUS the belief that god lies behind life giving it ultimate purpose and meaning.
So I would be interested in discussing theistic evolution. I would also be interested in discussing ID on another thread.
To get it started here are some of my problems with theistic evolution - I acknowledge that individually none of these are knockdown arguments against god.
Evolution is a massively wasteful process. Over 95% of life forms that have ever lived have gone extinct, they got thrown on the scrapheap of failed designs.
The line that leads to modern humans came within a hair's breadth of extinction on more than one occasion.
Evolution is an effective way to maximise suffering. The majority of life forms have settled on a parasitic existence. Most of the rest are engaged in an endless "kill or be killed" struggle.
Although suffering of creatures with limited consciousness can be easily dismissed there were millions of years of dismal struggle by the forebears of modern humans. Take the case of the famous fossil known as the Tang child. He became the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus, he lived in the Pliocene era and died aged just 3. Professor Lee Berger of Wits University's palaeoanthropology unit discovered that a bird of prey similar to the African crown hawk eagle had swooped down and seized the child with its large talons and beak, killing it immediately. He said the evidence was so convincing he could "prosecute the eagle killer in court". His skull had features of eagle damage on bone that was different from damage made by other predators like big cats. These included flaps of depressed bone on top of the skull, keyhole-shaped cuts in the side of the skulls made by the eagles' beaks, and puncture marks and ragged incisions in the base of the eye sockets, made when the eagles ripped out the eyes of the monkeys. A god must have observed suffering on an unimaginable scale for millions of years.
Modern humans Homo sapiens have been around for approx 200 000 years. People with all of our capacity for thought, reflection, emotional and physical pain. For most of this time humans died young and mostly in pain from disease, bad teeth, childbirth, starvation, and predation. God's passive role in all of this has to give us pause.
That's it for starters. The topic is the logical and moral implications of theistic evolution, your comments pro and con are welcome. Please play nice.