This question has stoked controversy among conservative Christians in recent times, but it has proved to be of little interest to theistic evolutionists (those who accept evolution as God's mechanism in creation) and those rejecting Genesis (Gn) as God's inerrant Word. The debate has been primarily between young- and old earth creationists, who believe that God literally created the various kinds of living things (as opposed to the common descent of Darwinism). Both sides hold that humans have not descended from other species, and both reject the atheism and macroevolutionary theory of neo-Darwinism. The two creationist camps, however, differ in interpreting the creation days of Genesis. If the days were consecutive 24-hour periods, and if the earth was created on the first day, then calculations based on biblical genealogies reveal that the earth was created only thousands of years ago. If the days were either of indeterminate length or nonconsecutive, then the Bible does not reveal when the earth was created. Interestingly, both sides agree that the genealogies reveal that Adam and Eve were specially created only thousands of years ago. Young earth creationists (YCs) interpret the days as 24-hour, consecutive periods for reasons such as the following: (1) [b]The days in Gn 1 are consecutively numbered and comprised of an "evening and morning."[/b] (2) Exodus 20:8-11 commands a [b]literal[/b] week of six days of work and one day of rest based on God's original creation/rest week. The two weeks would seem, then, to be of equal duration. (3) According to Rm 5:12, "sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin," but old-earth creationism would have animal death entering the world before the sin of Adam and Eve. Old earth creationists (OCs) argue against 24-hour creation days for reasons such as these: (1) The Hebrew word for "day" (yom) is used in different ways in the creation account. For instance, Gn 1:5 refers yom only to daytime (daylight), not nighttime. Also, Gn 2:4, literally translated, speaks of "the yom that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens." (2) God's rest on the seventh "day" has no evening and morning (Gn 2:2-3), and Heb 4:3-11 portrays this same Sabbath as continuing to the present time. (3) Adam could not have named all the birds and animals in 24 hours according to Gn 2. Both sides believe they have strong arguments favoring their interpretation and rebutting the other side. And historically, debate regarding biblical interpretation has often led to a clearer understanding of God's Word. But it is also highly debatable whether this issue merits the rancor and division often attending it. Some YCs accuse OCs of compromising the Bible with evolutionary science. Some OCs charge YCs with undermining biblical credibility by generating a false conflict between science and the Scriptures.

However, the credibility of the Bible has pointed out that in all of it's recorded history, plus non-biblical history, amounts to a little less than 10,000 years. Let's assume that the hybrid belief is true. Why would God encourage the earth's progression through a long and self-enduring process only to then make himself known to His creation when He can create anything He desired immediately as He did with Adam and Eve?

Because God by his very nature made the universe with rules and logic so it would only make sense for the being that set up those rules to operate in a way that conforms to those rules as a general rule of thumb.

So you're saying God is limited to His own creation? Okay. Then what is the origin of God?

I'm not saying he is limited, I'm saying that he runs the universe in a logical way on purpose to allow us to grow

Is it not plausible, being God, that He can will what creation to come into existence instantly?

I believe that it would be within the power of one that created the universe to do that. However, I don't believe he would because there's a reason he made rules for the universe and I believe he would want us to recognize that they apply to us too

If you believe in evolution and call yourself a Christian you have fallen to the great delusion and are a weak minded Christian and should stop giving Christians a bad rep.

And I assume that you think the earth is only 10 thousand years old too?

Prove other wise. Are you aware that in the last 100 years the earths magnetic field has dramatically slowed down? And how about the sun, are you aware that it shrinks every day?

-.- 1. It's called carbon dating, we have found fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old. Not only that, but you can also date things using the half lives of radioactive materials 2. The sun changes size based on the seasons due to the angle of the earth's rotation and the elliptical shape of its orbit. 3. That's not how magnetic fields work.... Electromagnetic fields travel at the speed of light through free space but through objects it drops by a certain amount depending on that on the dielectric ratio based on the dielectric free space constant. As for how I know this, I'm an electrical engineer. 4. I really hope you're trolling and not actually this ignorant.

I apologize I said the wrong thing the magnetic field is getting weaker and the earths spin is slowing down. Is what I meant.

That isn't true either. You know it's not because the days have stayed the same length of time and if the speed of the earth's rotation had slowed down by a significant enough to change the magnetic field then it would affect the length of the day. The magnetic field is moving its strength to a different area of the world however, this is called a magnetic pole shift and it happens every few hundred thousand years.

That's a logical fallacy the earth is slowing down we are losing seconds year by year. If the earth was billions of year old then ground speedos winds would have been in excess of 500-600 miles per hour. And the sun is shrinking as we know if the earth were billions of years old, people would have been cooked alive.

You just stated the most uneducated scientific statement I have heard since my ex told me people rode dinosaurs

And no the size of the earth the gases are burning so the sun is getting smaller day by day due to the burning of gases.