And such a belief (i.e. the ‘appearance of age’) is about as useful as ‘Last Thursdayism’ the belief that everything was created with an appearance of age and false memories last Thursday.
If one supposes that God used natural laws to create the universe - then one can develop a useful and predictive model. Thinking that the universe obeys predictable and ordered laws is indispensable to science. But if one supposes that miracles were used to create the universe - there is absolutely no useful applications that would lead to accurate predictions or further discovery.
It is not in least bit foolish to consider there was a superseding set of laws in operation when the earth was formed and God created life. We all know the law of gravity right? We can reproduce it at will. Yet airplanes fly because of principles of aerodynamics..."breaking" the law of gravity.
The problem with creation is: it's just not happening any more - no truly new species observable, no amazing spontaneous life happening today.
Evolution "science", falsely so called, simply cannot reproduce the beginning. Since creation cannot be observed, the deceitful explanations cannot be easily shown for what they are: lies. It takes effort to falsify the nonsense of this so called "science". And every time one falsehood is finally exposed, another plausible theory is hastily devised because the blind faith of anti-God won't seriously even consider any contradicting evidence. It's remotely like today's mainstream media, in a way, but I almost feel that one has a better chance of truth with today's political hacks than with the evolution "science" hacks.
2 Peter 3:1 ¶ This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 3 ¶ Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
Let evolution "science", falsely so called, devise an observable, repeatable, testable method to create a simple, single living Maple leaf from raw chemicals and I'll convert.