Seven days or billions of years? - Near instant makes more sense of the evidence
The evidence actually shows that everything had to come into existence at the same time, almost instantaneously, or things as they are, wouldn't exist or persist.
From the various interdependencies of solar and global cycles to those of animals and the environment, body parts on other body parts, or cellular systems on themselves, we can see evidence for how things can’t have formed incrementally. No direct, gradual route leads to their production, since if one part is missing, the whole system is useless or the interdependent parts would be lost, before their function could become realised and sustained.
Cycles speak of rapid implementation (and of organisation, design and a designer). They have no natural beginning or end.
So long development times would stop them forming and even if they didn’t, 60 billion years isn’t mathematically enough time.
Young or old earth? - A bit of both, but young makes more sense of the evidence
Atoms could be any number of billions of years old; the Bible doesn't preclude that the atoms first covered by verse 1 of Genesis, didn't sit like that for billions of years, before verse 2.
However, evidence (geological, astronomical, population numbers, population locations, races, animal kinds/species and fossil records) supports the idea that the origin of life as we know it, animal and vegetation, is more like 6,000 thousand years old, with a major adjustment 4,500 years ago, where the human and land animal population dropped to nearly nothing and our geological formations were rapidly pummelled.
It's worth then addressing why we hear so often that the universe is so much older...
The common dating methods, which date rocks and bones as millions or billions of years old, all have major flaws.
Since time was made/"injected from outside", along with matter and energy, how long did it take to make time? It is immeasurable from within time and irrelevant outside of time.
Also, ageing atoms is different than ageing their formation, position and groupings. As stated above, the Bible doesn't preclude the building blocks of matter, used in creation, from being anything from moments old to any number of billions years old.
But that an atom is very old, even if ignoring how poor our dating methods are, that it has sat there with the others like it, in that orientation for the same length of time, isn't a given.
Planned or blind luck and lots of goes? - Everything was designed makes more sense of the evidence
We accept that a planner and maker is needed for our inventions. The natural world is unimaginably more complex.
Scientific findings and mathematical principals support this.
Information, Language and "life" are known to originate outside of the world science observes.
Everything displays purpose, design and information through it and this never occurs without input or by chance.
These things speak of a designer.
One really has to compartmentalise and forget the sheer level of diversity, mathematics and complexity in the living world, to consider it a fluke.
Common trates don't point to common ancestory, but a common maker.
If we were an accident, how can we believe our accident born minds?
Isn't stuff still evolving? - Adapting & declining from original designs makes more sense of the evidence
Formation happened, it hasn't continued. It's now just adapting.
The observed purpose, design and information, is adapting to survive, as originally primed, not evolving to new.
Designs are adapting from originals, with no new ones forming. Species and sub species have formed from the Original "Kind", from a pair of Super-cats to all the species of cat now present and gone.
Natural selection shows this, not that truly new things have since come about. Other theories on the formation of new species/kinds and the origins of initial life, aren't scientific and don't match the evidence. Fossil records support this.
Scientists say everything is supernatural? - Afraid so. The evidence points to an external source.
What went bang and how? Nothing can't go bang, but as well as this fundamental question, there are other observable traits of the universe that suggest a big bang couldn't have been the mechanism.
Scientists agree there needs to have been a primer from outside of nature.
Something externally made everything come into existence, created the known laws of science, inaugurated matter, energy, time and information.
Something "wound everything" up and now everything is "winding down", with nothing new being added. The 1st & 2nd laws of thermodynamics show this.
From the above we can see it's possible to say:
Thank you, God, for leaving so much evidence that shows it's impossible for everything to have come about by chance over time, that we can but conclude your existence, as described in the bible, and worship you for it.
Thank you God that we and renowned Scientists can say with confidence that…
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (loss of useable energy or order), implies that this universe cannot last forever and is winding down and becoming more chaotic, as Your Word says.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics (the conservation of energy and matter) when combined with the 2nd Law, show matter, energy and order, haven't always existed and that there had to have been a start, where they were "injected" from outside of nature (supernaturally).
Information, language and intent, as found in DNA, are distinct from matter and energy and can't come about by chance. Let alone the inbuilt error correction systems and catch 22 existence of components.
The Universe is so finely a balanced support system for the earth and life, that only miniscule deviations would mean nothing would exist at all.
There are the wrong amounts of stuff in the wrong places and motions (orbits) for a chance big bang to have done it.
The seven global energy cycles (all essential to advanced life on earth) need to have come about at the same time as they can't have ever existed independently of each other.
There are numerous examples of where nature and animals can't exist/live/reproduce without the services of the other so they had to have come about at the same time.
There are numerous examples of how living body parts need each other and couldn't have survived the process of evolving separately over time.
There are numerous examples of how living organisms couldn't have survived the process of evolving over time.
There are numerous examples of how cellular systems need each other and couldn't have survived the process of evolving over time, or even exist.
It's Mathematically impossible for it to all have happened by chance. Billions of years isn't enough.
It's Chemically impossible for the existent formations to have happened over time; there isn't enough stuff to randomise with, and bonds would break before others could be made.
Matter and life are so distinctly different and can't be transformed. Only reproduction can make life.
Order doesn't come from chaos as shown by the Laws of physics.
The sheer level of complexity and efficiency at the cellular level, require design.
The sheer level of complexity and efficiency within nature, require design.
There is so much more Diversity and Variety than "necessary".
There are Mathematics found in the designs of nature.
There are common traits within creation pointing to a common Designer.
There exists Human & Animal emotion and passion etc, separate to survivalism.
Biology and Fossil records show no kind or type of animals has or is changing they just appearing fully formed and that cell mutations are shown not to help or stick.
There is Geology based evidence for a circa 6,000 year old world and flood 4,500 years ago, consistent with the Bible.
There is Astronomy based evidence for a circa 6,000 year old universe.
There is Population based evidence for a circa 6,000 year old world, reset 4,5000 years ago.
There is Fossil based evidence for circa a 6,000 year old world, reset 4,5000 years ago.