6000 year old earth question.?

Yes they do. People who believe in a young earth believe so for biblical reasons, which is the same bible that states that the universe and the earth were all created more or less instantaneously, within days of each other.

Because these people (I believe it's young earth creationists you're referring to) take the bible literally and are very stubborn on the 'day' mentioned in Genesis being our present 24 hours. Other christians, who are the Old earth creationists, have suggested that there probably are errors in translation and the 'day' might have meant a lot more than just 24 hours. They use the verse below as a possible supporting proof saying that a 'day' to God is different than that of a 'day' to us, that God might have waited millions of years before creating humans. 2 Peter 3:8 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Personally I think it's rather flimsy evidence for a young earth. But ultimately does it even matter how many years you think the earth is? I mean it's not THAT serious of an issue that people would take up arms and fight against each other because they disagree on the issue of the earth's age, or so I think.

In general, yes.

These people usually associate the creation of Earth with the creation of the whole universe, as their "source" claims there was nothing before.

However, some are willing to accept that the world could be around 11,000 years old (the seven days of creation being equivalent to 1,000 years each, as per an epistle by Peter).

The Bible itself does not give a date. Those who use the 6000 year figure (they should use 6,013 -- and indeed some of them did prepare for the end of the world in 1997 -- not to be confused with a separate prediction of the Rapture for 1994), base it on work that was done in England (and in the UK in general) near the middle of the 17th century (i.e., around 1650).

It was very common in those days for philosophers to write "Chronologies" which were meant to be complete history of the world, normally based on events recounted in the Bible. The most "popular" of these British Chronologies had been prepared by Bishop Ussher (a Calvinist) who was bold enough to even set a date in October, 4004 BC (the eve of October 23, in case you want to celebrate).

At the time, the English Church has already split from the Roman Church (because of Henri VIII in 1534); therefore the Roman Church had information (mostly from the region we now call the Middle East) that the world was older than 7,000 years. This information had not been widely shared outside the Roman Catholic Church (it was not available to Ussher).

When Rome received Ussher's Chronology (in the 1650s), showing the world to be less than 5700 years old, they rejected it. Ussher, being very anti-papist, took this rejection as a proof that he was on to something. Also, most other great philosophers in the UK agreed with his date (at least, they were close to it): Newton (4000 BC), Scaliger (3949 BC), Bede (3952 BC).

For centuries after that, the idea that the world was created around 4000 BC was taught in schools in Britain and in British colonies.

It does not fit with modern understanding of how things work. The disparities between required changes in rules (for example, a rapidly changing universal speed of light) would require us to believe that God is devious and changes the rules just to fool us.

In most non-English-speaking cultures, this idea is not popular.

It's impossible to disprove the idea that an omnipotent god created the entire Universe 5 minutes ago, with everything in place including the photons coming from distant stars and the memories in your brain.

Without evidence, however, that's a crazy idea. We have to deal with the world as we see it. Multiple observations clearly indicate the Universe is 13.72 billion years old.

This belief can be made to be true if we assume that the word "year" as stated in the bible does not mean the same as it does today (i.e. one biblical year is NOT 365 days). The same argument can be applied to the idea that the Earth was created in seven (or six) days so long as a biblical day is not the standard 24-hours that we define it as today.

While I do not believe what I just posted above, you are making a common mistake: asking a religious question and applying scientific reasoning. Religion and science don't mix.

"God has no place within these walls [school], just like facts have no place within organized religion." -Superintendant Chalmers

Most likely, but they probably don't do alot of thinking about it. The few nuts who try to argue these theories tend to supply all the inertia that "believers" need, not that they are inclined to examine their ideas from the standpoint of real evidence or scientific principal. They tend to take the view that the nature of things is inscrutable anyway, so why worry about it.

Only an imbecile would believe this age for Earth or the Universe. I am a scientist, and don't believe in fairy tales.

I will assume that if they are stupid enough to believe that earth is 6000 yrs. old they will be ignorant to believe that the universe is the same age.

I've never understood the open hostility toward the religious

community that emanates from many in the scientific community.

The fact that someone else believes something different from me doesn't

make me angry. It just makes me different.

It was restricted to European cultures not shared widely outside of it.