I have always been interested in astronomy and geology . These two hobbies combined mean that I ' ve always thought in terms of millions of years or distances of many lightyears . Which relates to the following my problem with strict young earth creationism is that it does not fit with what we are observing in the universe and on earth , which is a developed , aged creation . Once I had a teacher , on a very reformed school , who dared to suggest to a classroom full of young adults , that dinosaur bones were created , as fossils , by God , in order to test our faith in a literal 7 day young earth creation . No dinosaurs had actually existed , it was just their bones being put in the ground as a test of faith . That does sound rather desperate , doesn ' t it ? I don ' t think anyone accepted his suggestion as valid , but it shows the kind of problems you run into if you try to fit the observed data into the strict YEC model . Someone else already mentioned John Walton and I have to concur , that his writings shed an interesting light on the purpose and genre of the first chapters of Genesis .