It also occurred to me that the idea of a 6000 year old earth is still within the realm of possibility. And although I personally don’t believe in a literal fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis, I will give a defense for the Christians who do. If God can create a brand new universe, he can likewise create an old one. Consider how we tend to imagine the creation of Adam. The Bible does not say, but we usually don’t think of Adam being created as a new born infant who then grows up in the Garden of Eden. Rather we tend to think of God creating him as a fully adult man. For the sake of this example, let us presume an age of 21. Now what if a team of doctors and scientists built a time machine and visited Adam the day after his creation and examined him? How old would they conclude he is based upon scientific analysis? Technically, Adam is only one day old, but a scientific and medical examination would conclude that he was 21 years old. What I am suggesting is that the same thing could be said of planet earth (i.e., that God could have created an already mature earth rather than a brand new one).
