How do you reconcile faith and science, such as evolution and advances in neurology?

"How do you reconcile faith and evolution?"
This was asked by a close friend of mine and it reminded me of this old blog. Thought I'd post my response here, if only so I can come back to it and criticize it later...

This is my personal view but it plays more to the question of "can we reconcile faith and science or does science necessarily disprove faith?" Many atheists will respond with a resounding yes, citing evolution as dismissing Genesis and citing advances in neurology dismissing "God moments" in the brain, including near death experiences.

Many Christians make the mistake of seeing these as attacks on the faith and respond like a child hearing something it doesnt like - plugging its ears and holding its breath hoping it will go away (or worse, screaming in opposition). I think the atheists have a fair point that is inevitably come to by their theological view, but the problem between the two is that it is like having an argument when the premises of both sides are different (like comparing a football and a rugby team to see who is better - in the end, it doesn't really make sense because the issues are different).

My view is that faith and science build on each-other - as Einstein said "Religion without science is blind, science without religion is boring." I think that as someone of faith who was given the tools of reason, doubt, and most of all choice, we are supposed to struggle with these perceived inconsistencies.

With evolution, I believe in it. The science is considered to be sound and it does not conflict with the Bible, a book of parables and stories as much as it is of fact and history. Christians argue this is bunk since they can trace the lineage of Christ to Adam and therefore the Bible must be infallible and evolution is wrong. I'm not of that camp. I think the Bible, notably the Old Testament, is a history of a people written at a time of a) oral tradition and b) when stories were used to explain history and culture.

The other issues i struggle with is the neuroscience behind faith and God moments, thus "reducing" them to molecular changes and assigning cause and effect on a neurological level. My view is that just because we know how something happens, doesn't necessarily rob it of it's meaning and validity. Otherwise, all human emotion is subject to that cold view. Giving someone flowers is a symbol of love but deconstructed it is merely giving someone dying organic matter. Friendship is just an evolutionarily built molecular change in our brain to help with survival. That is too extreme for me (and so is "it rains because Jesus is crying silliness") We assign meaning to our lives. That is why we have art, philosophy, and other things of that ilk.

Faith is similar in that way - it is a lens through which we view our lives and not something to be disproved or proved. Trying to do prove or disprove it is just a circle-jerk. That is the point of the leap of faith - you accept you don't understand and may never know one way or another but you fall into it nonetheless. There is also a leap of atheism as well, but one that is less pronounced and more based in the trust in man, rationalism, and empiricism as the exclusive sources of truth.