Genesis 1-2

"God doesn't just make the world; he does something much more wonderful. He makes the world make itself." That, apparently, is one of Richard Harries's favorite quotations, from Frederick Temple; he seems to use it every time he writes about evolution, to describe his theological approach—which I share—to the creation stories in Genesis: A literal understanding here, diminishes our sense of the wonder of Creation, while the light of modern scientific knowledge illuminates God's work, allowing us to see just how incredible it is, allowing us to imagine God simply waving the universe into existence and then waiting ("he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done."), content in the absolute certainty that in 16 billion years or so, Abram would be right here, waiting.

Harries puts his disgust with young-earth creationism this way:

Literalistic young earth creationism is an insult to the idea of God. The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that we can reconcile it with young earth creationism only by assuming that God deliberately planted false evidence, in the rocks and in the genetic molecules, to trick us. Could a cruder blasphemy be imagined?

If there is a cruder blasphemy, it may be hinted at in so-called "Intelligent Design theory," which posits, essentially, that God spent the time between Creation and the beginning of human history tinkering with molecules and fiddling with biochemical processes, as if He couldn't figure out how to make everything run right in the first place.