Surely we all know that the bible tells us that God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. It is very clear about that. But all of science suggests that the world was created over an incredibly vast amount of time. So are these two points completely against each other, or is there some understanding that might combine the two?
Does the bible mean a literal 24 hour period by each of the days, or does it mean another, unspecified period of time?
There are countless passages of scripture that can be taken either literally or figuratively, and I ask what is your understanding of each of these? And can you explain why you understand it the way you do?

maybe 6 days to god is like millions or billions of years to us after all he does live out of time

Well I can say that the bible means literal 24 hour days as the Hebrew word for day "Yom" is not much different from our own word.

There is nothing wrong with being exposed to the story of creation at an early age. But ignoring parts of scripture for what is preferred isn't a good way of reading scripture.

I agree with Hoochman. It is important for a child to learn about creation as early as possible. The thing about this is that the child will then take it to heart and will be much more likely to stay in his or her faith. I would continue with this, but this is for a different topic entirely.

As far what is to be taken literally or metaphorically, it is too subjective for me to give a straightforward answer. Instead what is needed is open discussion on each individual account. I do believe that the universe was created in 6 days, each being a 24-hour period. In Genesis 1:3-5 God creates light, separates it from darkness, and name them "day" and "night" respectively. At the end of verse 5 it says, "And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." (NIV) I believe this is a literal day as we know it even though day and night are not physically known on the Earth until the forth day --read verses 14 though 19.

Look at it hermeneutically, check the contexts of the surrounding verses, the book as a whole, the culture, the original language to make that decision. It is a debatable subject on whether God took days or millenias to create the world, but all Christians agree on the doctrine of Creation.

I have a few comments to make myself.

1) I think God used the 7 days to illustrate the idea of the sabbath and not to be taken literally as the actual amount of time it took to create the Earth and the known universe. The sabbath has been an integral part of Jewish/Christian belief for the last 4000 years. Probably even longer than that since we have a creation story that emphasizes the sabbath day of rest in a 7 day week.

2) With every issue you always need to ask the question: Does my position on this issue change my relationship with God? Does it matter if I believe if the earth is old or young? I personally don't think it matters. Don't stress too much about how the earth was created. You'll learn all about it after you die I expect.

3) However, if you really want an answer to this question for yourself then find all the information you can about the subject and prayerfully research the subject and follow the inspiration you receive.

There is nothing wrong with looking at the bible figuratively, in fact I encourage it.

It is  possible that the creation story and other parts of Genesis were entirely made up to try and explain things that us mere mortals could not possibly answer at the time.

Whether you look at the Bible figuratively or literally depends on the passage and the context in which it's read: both are used in the Bible, and it has to be interpreted depending on the circumstances. You can't take all of Jesus' illustrations literally, because I am certainly not an actual branch. Whereas in the case of the days of creation, the Hebrew word used as well as the presence of "and there was evening, and there was morning" after every day point to literal 24-hour days.

The Bible is the most misunderstood/misinterpreted book in the world... it was not meant to be this way...

unknown0s : can you elaborate? We have no idea who are you speaking towards and what idea are you trying to present.