At this point, I remain unconvinced that you have considered anything I've written.
Why the fixation with young earth?
The relativity of time makes the idea of "young earth" also to be relative.
I've more than considered what you've said. In fact I've spent a few years studying all sides. There have been some people here that have claimed old-earthism isn't historic or that it is the result of evolution, when I easily showed it wasn't.
The "fixation" is that young-earthism is a prime example of many beliefs in Christianity not based on sound scholarship. I've no problem with those that believe it, but here are the problems:
1. Many believe it not because they can prove it, but someone else told them it was true.
2. Many leaders of young-earth groups regularlly label any Christians who disagree with them as apostates, heretics, etc. How is that sound scholarship?
As far as time goes, it is only relative to motion or acclerated motion (gravity). These "relative" things only occur in limited circumstances in the universe, not with the passage of general time under normal physics.
There comes a time when you just have to throw up your hands and walk away. I think we've reached that point.
Your point is quite well taken, xzins. We all seem to be in agreement about what the scripture says. It says that the creation was a six day event. Normally you take the plain meaning of a text to determine what it means. In this case the scriptures clearly say that the creation was a six day event and the flood was a worldwide event. If, for some reason, you decide that you don't want to believe that, then you can start looking for some hidden meanings within the text.
Augustine felt that the literal six day period was not consistent with the Glory of a God who could clearly create the whole universe by simply speaking it into existence. Thus he thought that it took away from the Glory of God to suggest that God actually had to work at creation. So he took an allegorical approach to the plain meaning of the scriptures in order to fit the scriptures to his pre-concieved (or deduced, if you will) concepts about God.
But any honest scholar will agree with Barr, that the plain meaning of Genesis Chapter 1 conveys the idea that the whole creation gook place over a period of 144 hours.
As I stated on another thread, Jesus turned water into wine in the span of about a nanosecond. The wine that he created was wine which by all appearances was 10 years in the making (from seed to vine to grapes to wine). So if the earth has the "appearance" of being 4.5 billion years old, is it too much to wonder that God, in his infinite power, created the earth in eternity in a period of time equal to six days? No. In fact Augustine thought it ridiculous to think that it should take God that long to do it.
If we believe that Jesus could turn water into wine in a nanosecond, is it too much to believe that by the same process of miracle (outside the laws of nature and outside the constraints of the time dimension) could do all the work of creation over a period of 144 hours?