I’ve never had an issue with science having odd conflicts with religion.
I’m really good at reading into the story, and understanding more than what’s said directly on the page. As I read scripture, I can see plenty of spaces where things haven’t been said. The authors of scripture are unreliable narrators. The only view we get is directly through their eyes, at the exact thing they are looking at. Then things get cut, moved around, translated, abridged, and on and on. We don’t have enough details to say much about the world that these prophets resided. This makes pockets of mystery in the narrative. Which, when you’re just there for the spiritual advice (the main focus of scripture), you can move on past. But when you delve into the pockets, and try to use the vague shapes there to build structures of thought, things get weird.
While I like delving into the mystery, I try to stay away from the weird. If the things there were important for us to know, we would have had it been brought out into the light. There’s no need to try to build with the odd stuff. It will be brought out in the future sometime, when all things are revealed.
And that’s part of why things like the age of the Earth don’t bother me. Maybe it is a few bajillion years old, maybe its 20 minutes. I don’t know, but I don’t need to know. If it was created sooner than it looks, then it was done in a way that all the tell tale signs indicate it was longer. A good forgery, but it’s not something that matters to me either way. If the Earth took more than 6 days to form, it won’t bother me. On the other hand, it also won’t bother me to know that God cheated some how, making the processes work faster.
End the end, what’s important is what’s in front of me. What am I going to do in this world that has been provided? What choices will I make? No matter how much Past is behind me, or how much Future lies ahead, the me in the Now is the only thing I have control of, so I had better focus on that.