Quote:

It is the concept that things may APPEAR older than they are because of the way that God created things. It is obvious that Adam, one minute after being created, was not a baby of only one minute in age (or a fetus, etc). It seems rather obvious that Adam was a full grown adult. As a result, if we were there and saw Adam we would assume he was maybe 20 or 30, but the fact would be that he was only moments old. Perhaps this is the case with the rest of creation as well



I haven't thought so far about Adam's age, but indeed, this sounds like a convincing argument for an apparent age of the creation. Since God certainly did not want to place Adam on a planet of liquid lava, he had also to create the earth with an initial age. Thus there is no reason to assume that this initial age was not consistent with the measured age of 4.55 billion years.

Quote:

As far as fossils there is a misconception. It has been reasoned that it takes a long, long time for fossils to form. However, when Mt. St. Helens errupted several years ago (was this in the 1980's?) and quickly laid down layers of ash scientists were excited to see what they would discover within. What they found surprised many of them. Animals that had been trapped in the ash were completely fossilized in under 4 months. Obviously the prossess of fossilization does not take very long periods to occur. I mention this only to state that this observation may lend credibility to the idea that the majority of the fossil record was created by the great Diluge (the flood of Noah) and thus the fossil record (and the strata they reside in) may not be as old as some think they are



Yes, the mere fact of fossilization is not a proof of the age of that fossil. (There is however one exception: fossils in amber. Amber needs millions of years to form from tree resin). Normally, fossils are not dated from themselves, but from stones or rocks found in the same strata.