It is impossible to date, with absolute accuracy, the age of the Earth but in that it is no different from any other science-based theory. Homo sapiens has only been resident for some 50,000 years so we were, unfortunately, unable to witness the birth of our planet.
Young Earth creationists, as always attempting to disprove any theory that disputes their belief that life on Earth has evolved rather than be divinely created, dispute evolution on the basis that there should be evidence of transitional species. A transitional fossil is one that lies, in evolutionary terms, between two species and exhibits some features of one, some of the other and possibly some features that are at a stage of development some way between the two.
Disingenuous as ever, young earth creationists claim that both evolution and creationism are religions and seem to end up confused as to how they would prefer their own personal worldview to be regarded. One moment they claim it is science in order to rank it on a level equal to that of evolution and the next they are denying it is a science and insisting evolution is a religion! Evolutionists, on the other hand, consistently regard creationism as religion and evolution as science.
Fundamentalists will often use the argument attempt to claim that the bible and science are compatible in that Genesis can be interpreted as predictive of modern-day scientific knowledge. The implications of such a claim, were it to be demonstrated as true would be immense ... whilst it would not automatically demonstrate the bible as being correct from cover to cover it would certainly lend it a great deal of credence.
Spontaneous generation is not a specifically evolutionary concept; the Theory of Evolution is biogenetic (life from life) in nature and the specific area of study, abiogenesis (the advent of life from non-life), is studied by those wishing to understand how life may have arisen. Indeed, the concept of spontaneous generation, the notion that inanimate matter could suddenly become alive, goes back as far as Aristotle.
In their battles against the godless heathens of the scientific community, creationists will often make scientific-sounding definitions and use these in attempts to destroy the basis of their enemy’s arguments and as such it is useful to have a fixed set of definitions for the more common scientific & religious concepts.
I genuinely had no intention of going to see Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". Several people had opined on how bad (gory, violent, bloody) the film was and I did not want to contribute to the coffers of Mr Gibson whose then behaviour I had been viewing with some alarm. The offer of free tickets by some local churches apparently aware and happy that many of those applying for them were atheist or agnostic changed that and both I and a friend set off to see it.
Young Earth creationists, attempting to disprove any theory that disputes their belief that the Earth & universe were divinely created, often use arguments that attempt to demonstrate theories opposing theirs as immoral. Darwin's theory of Evolution (or Neo-Darwinism as it known today) is claimed to be the cause of violence, racism and other forms of immoral behaviour.
Science is an ongoing attempt to explain the universe and in this respect, is attempting to explain all that is observable. Science is not absolute and the rational minded would not claim so or that it has the absolute answer to anything. So, what is truth? Truth is something which is absolutely correct, without doubt, and the polar opposite of something which is not true.
I have always had a fairly tolerant attitude towards pretty much everything, part of being a liberal at heart, so I have generally felt that religion needed to be tolerated just as long as it didn't actually do anything inherently divisive. The example I always used was that of the Church of England. Anglicanism in the UK has always been the village-fête faith. The tombola faith. The bingo faith.