Full disclosure: I firmly believe in evolution and have faith that God created our souls.
How could I answer this survey with those ridiculous answers that either pigon-hole me a as scientific illiterate, or someone who thinks that the entire universe is deterministic.
There's a middle ground that I feel is wise: Trust the evidence you see, but remain hopeful that there's more to this world than a fleeting life, death, and permeant non-existance.
Your view is the same as mine. Chemical engineer here with an interest in quantum physics. A lot of people take the view that God directly created "stuff", as in He literally created the earth or literally put together the universe. My view is a little different -- I think he created the laws of physics (and math itself essentially) in such a way to form everything exactly the way it is now.
It's a much deeper level of creation than most people consider, partly because the laws of physics are generally taken for granted as simply existing on their own.
See, that's what makes it intriguing. Simple systems can become incredibly complicated over a few iterations very quickly. It is one area that humans are (currently) horrible at predicting -- thus it's barely science if you can only barely predict it.
God, almost by definition, would know the results for any chaotic system and can set up the defining parameters to produce a particular output. (Note that this is different than a fine-tuned universe as I am referring to fine-tuned laws rather than natural constants).
As one who lives a religiously observant lifestyle, I've always been a bit of an outlier on the topic of religiously motivated supernatural beliefs like these. I don't believe in souls for the same reason I don't believe in a Cartesian duality of the mind and body. Any rationally grounded support for such a belief vanished as soon as we developed reasonable alternative and scientifically motivated theories of the mind.
However, for some reason my mind's stubborn refusal to let me believe in the supernatural has not eroded my sense of religious commitment. I think this is because I realized long ago that the crux, and contemporary import, of religion for me (and this is entirely my opinion, and mine alone) is not in instilling belief in any specific historical event or supernatural phenomena, but rather instilling the notion of belief, in the broadest sense, deep within every individual.
This is ultimately what differentiates humanity from all other forms of life that we know of. That is, we are conscious creatures (mostly) capable of lofty pursuits, and there is value in exploring unknown territory and working together with other human beings to achieve great things. These are religious concepts at heart, because they are predicated on the belief that human achievement and the pursuit of knowledge are not merely the means to some material end. The journey itself is the point.
How could I answer this survey with those ridiculous answers that either pigon-hole me a as scientific illiterate, or someone who thinks that the entire universe is deterministic.
There's a middle ground that I feel is wise: Trust the evidence you see, but remain hopeful that there's more to this world than a fleeting life, death, and permeant non-existance.