[berned]

Thanks for you answers. Reason I ask is because if one canculates the age of the Universe from how long it takes light to reach us from distant stars/planets, then wouldn't your calculations be off if it turns out the speed of light was not always 186-K? (What if it's slowing down?)

Also, geological evidence depends entirely on the assumptions we place upon it. Suppose God really DID create the earth as the Bible says. That brand-spanking-new earth would, by necessity, have SOME "geology" to it, no?

If an alien race found a manufactured golf ball, they might reasonably wonder how long it took for the white skin covering to naturally "form" on it. How many eons for that skin to become dimpled through the effects of erosion, or perhaps gravity. They might be stumped by the rubber center. Did it form first, or was it compressed into a sphere by the billions of years of gravity acting on the outer skin... etc.

[Dimensio]

While some new research suggests (note: that is suggests, as in it has not been subject to sufficient peer-review for any conclusions to be drawn) that the speed of light might have altered slightly, even those suggestions are not enough to greatly skew the approximated age of the universe. Any significant changes in c would mean that a lot of current theory based on E=mc^2 is bunk (which includes atomic theory) or it would have catastrophic implications in the "early" universe when c was somehow "very high".

If God created the planet as-is with apparent ancient age in a matter of days, then science can only speak of the apparent age of the earth. Science cannot take into account supernatural intervention when observing the universe.

Comparing the formation of the earth to the construction of a golf ball is somewhat pointless until you come up with a working theory for the formation of a golf ball.