The Age of the Earth

I have been reading textbooks all day in an attempt to catch up in my classes (and yes I know that there's only been two weeks of classes and it's sad that I'm already behind).  During these reading (mostly about archaeology and the ancient world) I have noticed that all my books like to mock the bible.  Not only do they like to mock creationism in general they seem to think that it's hilarious that people believe that the earth is only about 6,500 years old according to the bible.  Now after reading through the bible and looking at the archaeological evidence I have come up with my own opinion on the matter.

Firstly, no matter how stupid you think an idea is you should never mock it.  I don't agree with most things that go on in the world but I still respect people for having their own beliefs and so I think that my textbooks are written in bad taste and are highly offensive.  However, that's not my main point.  My main point is that although I don't think that the earth is as old as scientists say, I believe it to be more than 6,500 years old.  The only reason I say this is because of the fact that there had to be time for all the different civilizations that we dig up to be formed.  The worlds languages were quickly formed after the tower of Bable incident, but that doesn't mean that they would develop completely different living styles at the same time.  I know that there are some Christians who would read this and want to bite my head off, but I do have a reason for thinking that a longer time frame does fit in the bible.  There's a simple explanation as to how we could not know how old the earth is: we have no idea how long a year in the old testament was.

There are all kinds of ways to count how long a year is.  There's the lunar year, the solar year and all sorts of years that are based on the movements of stars.  Even the system we use now isn't a perfect mix of solar and lunar which is why we have leap years to equal them out.  It's possible that Adam and his sons had 300 days in a year or 800 days.  The fact is we have no idea, and so saying that the Bible tells us exactly how old the earth is is just arrogant.  Besides, the Bible isn't a full account of everything that ever happened in the world.  It's just a collection of the things that God wanted us to know, and apparently He's not too concerned about us knowing the exact age of the earth.  Or at least He's not concerned about us knowing it while we're on earth, I'm sure He'll be able to show us everything once we get to heaven, and I'm planning on adding the age of the earth to my list of questions to ask (it'll be right up there with the truth about Atlantis, dragons, and sea monsters).