Darwin's theory of evolution (and its variations) has been able to gain so much influence primarily because of work done in the scientific community which claims an ever lengthening age of the earth, at least as some reckon age for our planet.

Darwin's closing chapter in "Origin of Species" includes these words, "Thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, the production of higher animals, directly follows."  The notion that death is a mechanism for advancement now pervades our society, diminishing the value of life.

We see this in abortion statistics, euthanasia, suicide rates, school violence and so on.  The belief in an old earth has aided the underlying philosophy that gives these deadly ideas legs.  Survival of the fittest was Hitler's basis for Arian supremacy and Marx's justification for the dialectic that was communism.

Exalting death to be more than the ruthless, relentless process that it is, consigns virtues normally associated with religion to a corner of insignificance, if tolerated at all.  God is ushered out as an old idea for less enlightened times.  Society must then pay the price, in murdered babies, "mercy killings", and teens dead by their own hands as well as at the hands of their peers.

The age of the earth is no side bar subject for philosophers, scientists and those who claim belief in God.  The old earth belief has opened a Pandora's box of societal poison called social Darwinism and we all have suffered for it.