Is there a way to manually custom-edit the "Date created" and "Date modified" attributes of files in Mac OS 10.6?

Question

In "List View" in a Finder window, among the many column options are "Date created" and "Date modified." In "View Options" (command-J) for any folder, one can add these columns, along with the standard ones "Size," "Kind," "Label," etc.
A user can alter a file's name, and a file's "label" (i.e. its color). On the other hand, a user can NOT arbitrarily edit/alter a file's official "size" -- other than by physically altering the contents of the file itself, obviously.
But what about a file's "Date created" and "Date modified"? Can either of those be manually edited/changed, just as a file's name can be changed -- or is a file's creation-date an immutable attribute beyond the editorial reach of the user, just as a file's "size" is?
And yes, a person can "alter" a file's "Date modified" by simply modifying the file, which would change its "Date modified" to be the moment it was last altered (i.e. right now). But (and here's the key question) can a user somehow get inside a file's defining attributes and arbitrarily change a file's modification date to be at any desired point in the past that's AFTER its creation date and BEFORE the present moment? Or will so doing cause the operating system to blow a gasket?
If it is possible to arbitrarily manually alter a file's creation date or modification date, how would it be done (in 10.6)? And if it is NOT possible, then why not?

Answer 1

sanjempet --
Whew, that's a relief!
But as for your workaround solution: All it will achieve is altering the created and modified dates to RIGHT NOW. What I'm looking to do is to alter the modification/creation dates to some point in the past.
I'm not doing this for any nefarious reason. I just like to organize my work files chronologically according to when each project was initiated, but sometimes I forget to gather the disparate documents all into one folder right at the beginning, and as a result, sometimes after I finish a job, I will create a new folder to permanently house all the files in an old project, and when that folder is places in a bigger "completed projects" folder and then is organized by "Date created" or "Date modified" in list view, it is out-of-order chronologically because the creation and modification dates of that particular project folder reflect when the folder was created (i.e. today), and not when the files inside the folder were created (i.e. weeks or months ago).
The simplest solution would simply to be able to back-date the folder's creation or modification date to match the date that the project actually started!