One has to wonder why "God" (assuming the existence of such an intervening entity in the first place) would bother creating a whole bunch of misleading scientific evidence to make His (or Her) created human beings believe they were living on a planet far older than it really is!

What would be the purpose of such sleight of hand? To make both atheists AND religious people happy?

AHA! That must be it! God wanted everyone to be happy and to get to be "right" (or at least feel that they were) even though they disagree with each other about really basic stuff.

Animals don't have to worry about any of that. God must like them even better than He (or She) (or It) likes us human beings...although we are (in the view of some)...animals...ummm...

Hmmm. Gets a bit confusing, doesn't it? Now where DID Adam's sons find those women they went off and married?

Christianity's only been around for about 2,000 years. That's a very small chunk of time in the overall tale of humanity on this planet. It's amazing that a cultural phenomenon that's only been around since, relatively speaking, last week can exert this much power over people's minds, but hey....look at the effect Justin Bieber is having! And he's only been around about as long as a fruit fly.

So anything's possible.