Two different worlds

Over at the Language Log Arnold Zwicky is

struck by a report on scholarship that makes [him] marvel about the world. Last week (1/9/07) it was a NYT Science Times article about restoring an ancient Egyptian mud fortress. Two things. First, a casual reference to the enormous time depth of Egyptian civilization:

It was in the 26th century B.C., a few generations later, that even more powerful kings erected the majestic pyramids at Giza, the last surviving of the so-called seven wonders of the ancient world.

26th century B.C... To think that a substantial number of people in this country cannot marvel at that, because for them, 26 centuries before Christ is an impossibility - or, rather, that anything survives from before the flood (around 2250 BC going by the date of the building of the Temple). For them, the marvel here, if there is one, is that God so made the world that he lied about that history - or that for some obscure reason, generations (long before Darwin, may I point out) of Egyptologists have lied about it, in an intricate world-wide conspiracy that involves everyone...

I don't know about you, but I know which marvel I prefer.