Your post reminded me of this rather interesting fact:

Since 1976 there has been either a Bush or Dole on the Republican ticket. See:

76: Ford/Dole
80: Reagan/Bush
84: Reagan/Bush
88: Bush/Quayle
92: Bush/Quayle
96: Dole/Kemp
00: Bush/Cheney
04: Bush/Cheney

That really smacks of legacy to me. I'm wondering if Jeb Bush will be the dark horse choice for VP. The thing is that with Hillary Clinton being the presumptive Democrat, we could possibly see:

Bush/Clinton/Clinton/Bush/Bush/Clinton

Which would make me even more ill.

Think about it. What if 88% of the population supported something and
the 41 Senators from the smallest populations states vote against it,
or rather refuse to call an end to debate on a bill, thus killing
it.......How is that representative in any way?

There is a reason that they created the Senate AND the House in Congress.  The House is intended to be the guardian of the people's rights and the Senate is the guardian of the state's rights.  The senate was created the way it was precisely to prevent mob rule over the minority.  It worked for the Democrats so don't complain that it is working for us.

The are plenty of religious and spiritual beliefs that do not directly contradict scientific facts.

This is true.

Creationism is not one of them.

This is not true as the argument above demonstrates.

Anything and everything can have been created at any point in the past and we would never be able to tell the difference, ergo if the universe were created only 5 minutes ago but the initial state and the laws of physics predicted it was 6 billion years old the two are not in conflict. We would not be able to tell the difference. From our perspective, the universe is 6 billion years old whether it truly is or not. If you want to believe in Creationism and the claim that the universe was created 6,000 years ago, go ahead because it doesn't change anything.

Challenge to illustrate the point:

1. Can you prove scientifically that God does not exist?
2. Can you prove scientifically that the world was not created 5 minutes ago but with an intial state such that, based on the known laws of the universe, we would predict that it was 6 billion years old and that dinosaurs roamed the Earth?

I think that you know the answer already. So if you can't prove these things scientifically, how can you say with certainty that they do not exist or that they did not happen?

By the criteria you put forth nothing can be shown to be demonstrably false. If you wish to be able to invoke the will of God to dispel one piece of scientific evidence, then you cannot object to it being used to dispel any piece of scientific evidence.

This is true, but it is focused on the wrong side of the argument, I think.

My point is more along the line that you can't use physical evidence and science based on the physical laws of the universe to prove or disprove anything about the existence or actions of an omnipotent meta-physical being. For example, you can't use carbon dating or cosmology to prove that a meta-physical being didn't create the universe 6,000 years ago or even 5 minutes ago, can you?

I think that is the other side of the same coin from your statement.  The one implies the other.

This point should be obvious given the definition of science and the scientific method. But the fact that science rejects the notion of meta-physical occurances doesn't mean that they don't exist. Science is rejecting them, not because they have been proven to be non-existent, but rather because there is no way for science to say anything about them. So in the end science moves on as if they didn't exist, even though they might.

That's why its called faith.

I am just saying, that as long as you allow for the existence of an omnipotent meta-physical being, which is a required part of a creationist's belief system, that you can't say that the Earth is definitely more than 6,000 years old.  Period.  End of statement.  That's all I am saying.

How you determined that it was probable or not is interesting because you have absolutely no way to judge whether such a being even exists, much less what their intentions or motivations for creating the known universe is. Logic and reason demand no less.

Out of all of the "apparent" historical states of the universe, which is most probably the initial state?  We, of course, have absolutely no way to tell or to even reduce the likelyhood of one over the other.  So, they are effectively all equally likely, correct?

To illustrate my point I will use an example my father once told me (in a completely different context).  Let us consider all of the previous historical states of the universe to be analogous to the individual prints in a limited edition series of prints (i.e. where an artist prints a limited number of a given picture, for example).

In these circumstances my father always marvelled at how people liked to focus on the low numbered prints like they were more valuable or something.  So some guy might say "I've got print number 15 of 5000!"  My dad would then reply, "Gee, that's great, I've got print number 4985!  It's just as rare."

The point being that the probability of the initial state being number 15 or number 4985 is the same either way, and you have no means of differentiating between the two.

The moral of this debate?  Live you life like there isn't a meta-physical being out there if that is what you want, but don't deny others their faith.  We might as well act like the physical laws of the universe are the only game in town, but that doesn't mean that there isn't another game in town.