science is the conclusion one can ONLY reach based on the available, existing evidence. No faith needed.
So I wonder if you actually realize how much faith is used in current science.
Current science says the universe is approx 13 billion years old, I wonder if you know of the many many assumptions "science" makes to get to that figure.
Some of the assumptions are:
The problem of determining the age of the universe is closely tied to the problem of determining the values of the cosmological parameters. Today this is largely carried out in the context of the ΛCDM model, where the universe is assumed to contain normal (baryonic) matter, cold dark matter, radiation (including both photons and neutrinos), and a cosmological constant.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
Dark matter-this is something no one has ever observed, it is a theory that has not been proven, however it is absolutely crucial to current scientific theory regarding the age of the universe. So something that has never been observed, something we don't know really exists, something that is just assumed to exist, and that is something you will believe.
Cosmologists estimate the current value of the mass density ρo of the universe, the average amount of mass within a given volume of space. When determining ρo, cosmologists must take into account both matter and energy. This is because energy has mass, according to Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2. Within Big Bang cosmology, there is a special “critical” density of the universe, ρc. A flat universe would imply that ρo must equal today’s value of ρc.
Observations suggest that ρo is much less than this critical density ρc. Since cosmologists have already concluded that the universe is flat, they have also concluded that ρo must equal ρc, which implies that some undetected energy making up this apparent deficit must exist. Thus, “dark energy” is invoked, which is said to account for about 70 percent of the universe’s total energy.
This dark energy is thought to be the cause of an acceleration or speeding up of the universe’s apparent expansion rate, as determined by observations of distant supernovas., However, George Ellis, one of the world’s leading cosmological theorists (and co-author with Stephen Hawking of a classic relativity and cosmology text), has noted that effects caused by spatial inhomogeneities could be causing cosmologists to “see” an acceleration that doesn’t really exist.
where H_0 is the Hubble parameter and the function F depends only on the fractional contribution to the universe's energy content that comes from various components. The first observation that one can make from this formula is that it is the Hubble parameter that controls that age of the universe, with a correction arising from the matter and energy content. So a rough estimate of the age of the universe comes from the Hubble time, the inverse of the Hubble parameter. With a value for H_0 around 68 km/s/Mpc, the Hubble time evaluates to 1/H_0 = 14.4 billion years.[5]
To get a more accurate number, the correction factor F must be computed. In general this must be done numerically, and the results for a range of cosmological parameter values are shown in the figure. For the Planck values (Ωm, ΩΛ) = (0.3086, 0.6914), shown by the box in the upper left corner of the figure, this correction factor is about F = 0.956. For a flat universe without any cosmological constant, shown by the star in the lower right corner, F = 2⁄3 is much smaller and thus the universe is younger for a fixed value of the Hubble parameter. To make this figure, Ωr is held constant (roughly equivalent to holding the CMB temperature constant) and the curvature density parameter is fixed by the value of the other three.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
So here again we see more assumptions, more guessing that certain parameters have never changed over 13 billion years. They have no proof of that but they go ahead and assume it to be so.
Modern science, assumes Cosmic Microwave Background temperature to be constant.** Modern science also assumes that the universe is fla**t. A flat universe presents a problem for the Big Bang, since this requires ρo, today’s value of the average mass density ρ, to equal the current value of the critical density ρc. Within the Big Bang, if ρ = ρc today, these quantities must also have been equal shortly after the Big Bang, despite the fact that ρ would have decreased over time in an expanding universe. This is because even tiny deviations of ρ from ρc would have quickly been amplified. If the early universe’s ρ had been smaller than that epoch’s value of ρc, the universe would have expanded too quickly to have even a hope of galaxy formation, but if ρ had been larger than ρc, the universe would have quickly collapsed in a “Big Crunch.” Avoiding these extremes requires ridiculous fine-tuning immediately after the Big Bang, ρ and ρc had to agree to more than 50 decimal places.
This problem is accompanied by the “horizon” or “isotropy” problem: The CMB coming from one part of the sky is nearly the same as the CMB coming from another part of the sky. This implies that widely separated parts of the “primeval fireball” were at essentially the same temperature. However, because of the presumed random conditions in the early universe, widely separated regions of the fireball should have been at different temperatures. These widely separated regions could end up at the same temperature if electromagnetic radiation had travelled from warmer to cooler parts of the fireball (much in the same way that you can be warmed by the radiant energy from a fire). However, because all electromagnetic radiation travels at the speed of light, even 13.7 billion years is insufficient time for electromagnetic radiation to travel between such widely separated regions of the universe.
So if all of the assumptions without evidence above don't bother you and you still believe that the universe is 13 billion years old, then we should look radiometric dating.
Radiometric dating also has three HUGE assumptions, which are:
1.The radioisotope decay rates have been constant throughout the past.
We now know that the Sun can alter decay rates. We now know that decay rates in meteorites are not constant. We now know that what has been called cavitation can decay rates to accelerate by a factor of 10,000 times during a 90-minute experiment.
2.No parent or daughter material has been added to or taken from the specimen.
We know of many ways in which the materials can be made mobile, most particularly through ground water leaching. So if the entire Earth was flooded, as in Noah's flood, would that not cause quite a bit of contamination which would make the testing inaccurate.
3.No daughter material was present at the start
We know that only rocks and minerals which formerly were in a hot molten condition (say lava) can be dated. But what if the original melt already had some radiogenic lead? The resulting rock would inherit a deceivingly "old" date
Knowing that all of these things modern science calls fact use many many different assumptions, all made without any evidence and some made and still used even though evidence has proven them wrong, do you believe in what modern science calls fact. Can you honestly say that you believe the universe is 13 billion years old, knowing the lack of evidence.
So you can see with the examples I have cited, that modern science does use quite a bit of "faith" to arrive at the age of the universe.