@Matthew Well, yes, various ways of determining the age of the universe give us slightly different results. The classical Big Bang Theory would, if we apply modern measurements to it, give us the age of the universe to be around 27 billion years (that's known as the Hubble Time).

@Matthew Most scientists today consider some modified version of the Big Bang Theory, which posits the universe to be around half of that age, to be less problematic. I don't really understand why. But that doesn't mean it is possible the universe is mere thousands of years old.

@Matthew There are stars that are further away than a few thousands of light years whose distance can be measured using mere parallaxes. For the universe to be mere thousands of years old, there would need to be magical curvings of light or magical time dilations, probably both.

@FlatAssembler Sure. But the point is a) the Big Bang model also has points where there isn't enough time for energy to propagate as much as the observable evidence suggests that it has, and b) materialist models lack an all-powerful deity that is easily capable of performing "magical curving of light or magical time dilation" or other such manipulations.

In other words, we have no model that satisfactorily explains all of the energy we see and where we see it. Since that's the case, it follows, firstly, that we're most likely missing something fundamental with respect to energy (light) propagation in the universe, and secondly, given the first implication, it isn't reasonable to selectively discard models that have that problem.

Put differently, if it's "insane" to believe in YEC due to the starlight problem, then it is equally insane to believe in the Big Bang model, for the same reason.

...and since that's the case, it's perfectly reasonable (and hardly "insane") to consider the many other evidences that Creation isn't billions of years old.

(Meanwhile, while I haven't gotten to writing an answer yet, I happen to agree with what seems to be the premise of your question, that belief in both millions of years and in Free Will being responsible for suffering represents a contradiction.)

(p.s. I do agree with you on one point; I find it quite challenging to reconcile denying that Earth is a globe with anything resembling rationality. 🙂)