I generally do not like to state this, but I will: all of the evidence is faked. But, not by the people, by God. People forget - or never got it - that what we actually live in, is God's mind. Scientifically speaking, this is more akin to a virtual reality or dreaming reality. That is science fictionally speaking.
One, why don't people like this answer? It is far beyond most people's capacity to believe right now. Two, the morality can seem, on the surface, sketchy.
God warned of a great lie to be sent in 2 Thessalonias, this is it.
To a strong degree, God has been proving a lot of the more extraordinary things in science, and consistently keeping those matters so these principles can be worked on.
But, this is the same illusion we always face. The illusion of the reality - not "dream" - of "the world".
I'd go a bit further compared to the title statement --
Rephrasing: Always the Reality of God and His works are amazing and often Beyond what Humans can Believe
About the idea God made the Earth and the Universe appear old, but made them more recently -- that is plausible and possible.
He can do anything.
But first let's consider this one part (before the other part you pointed to): this young Earth would only
fit the text of Genesis chapter 1 just as well -- not any better -- only fits it just as well as the mainstream science 'facts'. Yes, I know this can be about 10 million posts of discussion with people arguing science, etc. but the only pertinent questions are how much time passed during verse 1 and whether there was time between the days, which is not revealed in the text (
and for a very good reason! see below), (and for some like me, perhaps also the realization that cloudy days (as the Earth would have continuously for some vast strectches of time we think) would mean the sun, moon and stars are not visible early on from the perspective of the surface of the Earth (as seen in a vision), but only much later (day 4....)).
(Also here we should notice that science facts are not the
opinions people usually add on top of the 'facts'; e.g. it's just a measurement 'fact' a moon rock is dated to be 4.5 bn years old for instance by a technique, quantitative, but after that, a (wrong!) opinion can be put on top of the data that claims it disproves something in Genesis chapter 1, but that itself relies on reading the text only one certain way with extra assumptions!).
What 'facts' make the Earth and the Universe appear vastly old?
Here are simple and repeatedly tested and proven facts about how old star light is:
1. The observed finite
speed of light (which implies it takes time for star light to get to us from distant stars of course) -- about
300,000 km/second in a vacuum. This has been tested in many ways, over and over, and always confirmed.
2. The
distances of nearer stars shown by simple trigonometry -- "parallax" (trigonometry -- as we move sideways, nearer things appear to move sideways also against the background of more distant things; anyone can test this in 1 minute in a back yard) -- showing the distances to stars out to about 7,500 light years distance, the limit of our telescope resolution to detect using parallax trigonometry.
3. Among stars shown with a parallax determined distance are some
Cepheid variable stars (which have a relationship between period and absolute luminosity), and very notably:
the north star, Polaris.
Because the nearby galaxy Andromeda has Cepheid variable stars in it, we are able to use them to verify it's distance by comparing their period to their apparent brightness! This shows us that the Andromeda Galaxy is shining light to us from about
2.5 million light years distance, and that means we are
recieving light in our telescopes from Andromeda that then would have been presumably emitted 2.5 million years ago.
Now, God could have set this all up, created light on it's way to us out in empty space, to make things appear older while making them more recently.
Can't rule it out! He is able. He can do anything.
But....it's not necessarily a given of course! Consider --
He is the creator, meaning He created not just some things, but everything. Meaning He created physics! God's design of nature -- physics. And His design is amazing, elegant, sublime, good.
So, while He could have done it more recently and made it look old, I don't know any reason to think He would have -- the
delusions sent to those with hard hearts were also before modern astronomy!
Before.
And still.
No need to make the Earth look older to accomplish that.
Consider further also -- The Earth being 4.55 bn years old fits scripture well, but also is not obvious,
and that's good.
It would pre-empt faith for people if God had actually revealed to us the precise age of Earth as being 4.55 bn years old in scripture.
If He had, then when we finally found evidence for that age (4.55bn years old) in the 1950s....then suddenly at that time (in the 1950s onward)
it would have simply proved the Bible conclusively without any faith needed! But faith is the thing we are meant to come to, not optional!
Therefore, it would not have fit all the rest of scripture, which is often about our faith, to preempt and preclude faith, and prevent it from being sought -- "Seek and you will find" He said instead of easy proof! And He knew we would eventaully be able to estimate ages of things. So, He foreknew that we would.
Instead of easy proof, we have, just as before 1950, the situation that we need
faith. Instead of unambiguous proof no one could deny. At least for the initial coming to Him.
He knew this all this would come in time! He knows what He is doing!
