If you walk into your house and your fridge is open and empty, yet when you left that morning for work it was full, you can deduce that some process led to your fridge being emptied and left open during the time you were gone. Most likely that process was a person coming into your house and taking things from your fridge.
The same way, if we observe a yearly layering of ice in the longest frozen regions of the two poles, we can deduce that each year ice is layered there. If we dig that ice out in cylinders we can examine how many layers of ice there are. A logical conclusion to make is that one layer of ice equates to one year, since we have observed yearly layering. Thus if there are hundreds of thousands of layers of ice, we can safely conclude that the Earth is at least hundreds of thousands of years old, since this ice is hundreds of thousands of years old.
If we study trees and see that every year, a ridge is created inside the tree due to the shrinking and expanding caused by the change of season, we can conclude that a ridge is equal to one year. Thus if there are seven, eight, nine, ten thousand rings we can safely assume this tree is how ever many thousand years old.
If we study our whole world this way, finding out how the world works then projecting backwards, we can come to understand how the Earth's existence progressed in a physical sense. All the evidenced suggests that the world formed just as other planets form, that the Earth is billions of years old. Evidence also suggests that life evolved gradually over long periods of time.
Suggestion is not certainty.
The evidence of
adaptation within a species is
not evidence of
evolution of one species into another.
That's sloppy nomenclature because biologically they are not the same.
There is no conclusive proof of evolution of one species into another.
The study of physics and mathematics lead us to establishing unbreakable laws of the universe. For instance, no energy can be created nor destroyed, but all energy can only be changed in form. That in itself is
an immutable universal law. We have many laws like this.
And many see such immutable laws as conclusive evidence of an Intelligent Designer/Creator.
Using these laws and studying our Earth leads us to our conclusions.
Now, the issue with the creation story is not that the universe was 'created' - in fact there is no scientific consensus that says the energy of the universe was or was not created by some unknown mechanic - however the issue
is that the creation story asserts all of this Earth's progression, right up until
the birth of human life,
happened in seven days, which is a statement contrary to scientific evidence.
First of all, scientific evidence cannot conclusively prove the evolution of human life.
It is a theory only.
Secondly, a six-day creation is not contrary to scientific evidence,
because science has no evidence of the origin of the earth, et al.
Its conclusions are based on the assumption that the process of origin is the same as
the process today, that all of the past has been like the present.
Actually, the only record we have of the origin of creation was given by its Creator to Moses 3600+ years ago.
And that
record states that the process of origin is not the same as the process we observe today,
that the earth and plant, animal and human life were created/originated in their
mature forms.
And sci
ence has no way to conclusively prove this is not correct.
It oversteps its purview in postulating to the contrary.
And with nothing to absolutely unseat this ancient record, there are many who chose
to believe it based on the authority of its writer.
Of course, if a day is like an age to God, then there is technically not a contradiction between current science and the bible's creation timeframe.
You need to revisit that verse in its context for its real meaning.
There is in fact room for a person to say; 'if a day is as an age, then the creation of everything took many ages.
Your use of "age" denotes eons of days and nights.
However, the creation account limits a day to one revolution of the earth on its axis,
and it reports creation in six of those revolutions of the earth on its axis, not eons of them.
Your interpretive theory of creation does not fit the Biblical account.
If animals were made first, then it is possible that man evolved from animal. It is also possible to say that this slow process of growth, evolution and change was God's design. It is also possible to say that since the laws of physics are as they are, that God deliberately created them to be that way'.
So there was an Intelligent Designer?
Then why would the ancient written record of the six-day creation given by the Creator be questioned?
Would the Designer Creator be unable to do that?
You are the one who creates a disparity between science and faith when the reality is there need not be one.
No. .it is
science, with its assumptions and absence of observation of the process of creation,
it is not crossnote, which creates the disparity between science and the Bible.
If we teach science classes and tell kids about theories formulated from evidence,
However, the theories are not formulated from observable evidence of creation,
but from assumption that what is observed today is the same process as its creation.
But it seems to me you deny evolution, deny the Earth's old age and deny that the scientific method should be taught in science classes and so all of this is just going to fall on deaf ears.
Pretty much like the deaf ears that use lack of observation and assumption
to try to overturn the ancient written record of creation given by the Creator to Moses.