"Why would a creator create a young planet that looked very, very old?" That's not quite the right question. God didn't create a universe in a disguise that l

"Why would a creator create a young planet that looked very, very old?" That's not quite the right question. God didn't create a universe in a disguise that looks old. God simply created a universe of a certain age. This is perfectly consistent with the bible's creation story. God created humans of a certain age, in adult form. The bible doesn't say God created embryos that then grew up into Adam and Eve. Likewise the Garden was created with what we presume were fully grown trees, complete with tree rings providing evidence of prior years of existence. Trees with a past, which came into existence just now. Young-earth creationists like to pick and choose which features of the universe are allowed to have been created in place, and which must have been formed by mysterious interim events. For some reason, a lot of them refuse to allow geological features to have been created in place, which forces them to invent absurd explanations that usually involve Noah's flood and a lot of hand waving. But it's all unnecessary. There's no reason we can't entertain the notion that the universe was created complete and in motion, exactly as it is, at any point in time. And in fact there would be no way to prove it one way or another, just as there would be no way for Adam to prove that the trees in his garden were a hundred days or a hundred years old.