Thanks, Freedom777, that was interesting. I have always been uncomfortable with the interpretation of the creation period in Genesis as being anything other than 24-hour days, and an illustration of the power of God.
However, when we look around us, we see overwhelming evidence of a very old universe. With a literal view of Genesis, it seems that you are left with two alternatives:
1) God created the universe to look like it was old. The more we look, the more evidence we see of an old universe, but that's because God created it that way.
2) The universe may look old, but when we really understand more than we do now, we'll discover that the universe is really young, and in line with Genesis.
In either case, it seems that the most important thing to do is to keep investigating, to keep learning. If (1) is true, then God created the universe like this for some reason, and isn't it our obligation to try and understand His creation? If (2) is true, then science, being progressive, will eventually come to this conclusion.
I'm an atheist, but I have no problem with working shoulder to shoulder with someone who believes in either (1) or (2), moving forward together to try to understand the deepest mysteries in the universe. If you truly believe that God made this all, then science will ultimately lead us to that answer.
But to just say "the universe was created in six days" so I'm going to stop learning, stop looking at what God created, I don't think that's what God wants.