Darwin or Traditionalism?

Where do we come from? I have struggled with this question since I was in grade school. I was always told that we came from the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve were our parents. God made the Earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th. I could never really wrap my head around this. It didn't make a lick of sense. Six days to create the earth and all the animals. God must have been pretty imaginative.

Then, I went to public school. It was my first real class in science. I learned about the body, cells, and the theory of evolution. This made more sense to me even though the Catholic ways were indoctrinated in my brain. Until recently, I cast away my youthful beginnings and believed in evolution. Then, my grandmother died, my father, and my son followed soon after. My thoughts went back to when I was young. Heaven sounded like a good place to go. I would like to think that I would see my loved ones again in the afterlife.

Was I a Christian? Did I believe the stories of my youth? Or did I just not know? During my Native American studies class that I had to take as a pre-req for this MSW program, I read up on some Native American stories of their beginnings. Some Tribes believed they came from a particular cave. Some believe they came from the stars. Some believe that they came from aliens. This made me delve into creation stories of other cultures. There is a Indigenous tribe in New Zeland that believes they were born of a rock ( a large rock). How can each of these cultures have different creation stories? And which one is right? Are any of them right? I had a conversation with my husband that is very much a believer of the Darwin theory.

Unfortunately, neither of us are very well versed in the theories that sound the best to us, but we had a lively conversation anyway. He did not understand how I could believe that any creation story sounds more valid that one that is backed by science. How do we know? Really, if it happened a million years ago, maybe there was a continent that we named Pangaea (sp?) and all the species colonized each end of the earth that way. Or maybe the aliens came down from space and left us here to wait.
Personally, I'm tired of waiting. I just want to know. Maybe the stories of my youth are really where it's at. If I believe in those, I can believe there is a heaven. I can believe that I will live there forever with the man I love after this life.

I'll take that for now. Happy Valentine's Day.