Not a debate just a question.
I’m somewhat aware of creationist agruements about fossils, evolution etc. How do they deal with the following.
We see things that are futher that ~6000K light years away. Now we know what the speed of light is. So how do people that 100% believe is Creationismdeal with the fact that we should only be stars etc that are <6000 miles away as the light from futher objects has not reached up yet?
Not a debate just a question.
I’m somewhat aware of creationist agreements about fossils, evolution etc. How do they deal with the following?
We see things that are further that ~6000K light years away. Now we know what the speed of light is. So how do people that 100% believe is Creationism deal with the fact that we should only be stars etc that are <6000 light years away as the light from further objects has not reached up yet?
Distant objects were created in their present positions, and the light was created en route. It’s a “solution” that conveniently kills two annoying but otherwise unrelated birds (evolution and the big bang) with one stone, but it does make The Creator out to be something of a trickster.
IANAC.
Ah, created on the way. Clever and tricky guy that God must be some project manager 
There are also those that claim that the speed of light was once very much faster (amusingly sometimes citing the ~6000yr age of the universe as the evidence for this, certainly not citing any respectable other evidence that I’ve heard of) and yet others that claim that measurement of distance to stars more than a few light years away is impossible to do accurately.
In short, it’s all the same old story:
<fingers in ears> LA LA LA, CAN’T HEAR YOU, LA LA LA
There is not one single creationist answer to this delimma. I found this:
I’ll give him this much credit: He does seem to understand that the Big Bang was not a localized event, but rather happened everywhere.
You will also find some who claim that the speed of light was faster in the past.
I feel very odd quoting from ICR.
This cite from the book Scientists Confront Creationism [Chap 4 by Stephen R. Brush] contains a quotation from the book The Remarkable Planet Earth by Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research(ICR). The cite is illustrative of one way that creationists deal with this.
"How do the creationists answer this(distance to stars)* argument? Their explanation is worth quoting at length and should be read by anyone who still thinks it is possible to defend a “scientific creation model” without falling back on theology:**
'If the stars were made on the fourth day, and if the days of creation were literal days, then the stars must be only several thousand years old. How, then, can many of the stars be millions or billions of light-years distant since it would take correspondingly millions or billions of years for their light to reach the earth?
This problem seems formidable at first, but is easily resolved when the implications of God’s creative acts arc understood. The very purpose of creation centered in man. Even the angels themselves were created to be ‘ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall he heirs of salvation’ (Hebrews 1:14). Man was not some kind of afterthought on God’s part at all, but was absolutely central in all His plans.
The sun, moon, and stars were formed specifically to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years,’ and ‘to give light upon the earth’ (Genesis 1: 14, 1 5). In order to accomplish these purposes, they would obviously have to be visible on earth. But this requirement is a very little thing to a Creator! Why is it less difficult to create a star than to create the emanations from that star? In fact, had not God created light’ on Day One prior to His construction of ‘lights’ on Day Four’ It is even possible that the ‘light’ bathing the earth on the first three days was created in space as en route from the innumerable ‘light bearers’ which were yet to be constituted on the fourth day.
The reason such concepts appear at first strange and unbelievable is that our minds are so conditioned to think in uniformitarian terms that we cannot easily grasp the meaning of creation. Actually, real creation necessarily involves creation of ‘apparent age.’ Whatever is truly created, that is called instantly into existence out of nothing, must certainly look as though it had been there prior to its creation. Thus it has an appearance of age.
This factor of created maturity obviously applies in the case of Adam and Eve, as well as of the individual plants and animals. There is nothing at all unreasonable in assuming that it likewise applies to the entire created universe In fact, in view of God’s power and purposes it is by far the most reasonable, most efficient, and most gracious way He could have done it.’ "* [Morris The Remarkable Birth of The Planet Earth, p. 61—62]
Approximately the same explanation is contained in the ICR book Scientific Creationism.
the [Light created in transit] concept is just the [fossils created to make the earth look old] concept in different clothes; why would God deliberately deceive his creation?
While the conflicts of Creationism with Biology, and specifically evolution, are often the ones that are highlighted, in fact Creationism is contradicted by Astronomy, Physics, Geology, Archaeology, and just about every other scientific discipline as well.
To carry that argument to the extreme, that means that Adam should have died of starvation. After all, a fully grown tree with fruit is proof of it’s having been around and implies some age, no? If you say that God should have created the world “brand new” then none of the trees should have had fruit. Should God have created the world with Adam & Eve and nothing for them to eat? (For that matter, A&E would likewise have been created as infants, no?)
Zev Steinhardt
Well sure, except that starlight and fossils are not necessary for survival. In any case it all starts to get a bit iffy when you take it all a literal.
Also it says:
dunno how you read this (and what the original text says), but that sounds to me like the trees had to grow a bit before Adam could go there…
When automobiles are created they are “fully grown” yet brand new. They are not given “appearance of age” with worn springs and rusty undersides. Unlike organisms which “grow from seed”, objects–including the Earth–are fully formed yet pristine when new, and then proceed to wear and collect detrius. There is no analogy.
Mangetout:
He didn’t deceive his creation, he gave us the bible to tell us exactly when he created the world.
If you buy a souveneir copy of the Declaration of Independence at Independence Hall (which is made to appear to be on crinkly-from-age paper) and the wrapper says “made in 2001”, is that deception?
Now perhaps a better way of phrasing your question would be, why would he create the world with this illusion of apparent age? While of course (from the religious perspective) I cannot possibly fathom the depths of G-d’s intentions, I can guess that he wanted human beings to live their lives in a predictable, natural world ruled by the physics we currently experience. Because he wants us to be able to understand and apply science as necessary for our daily lives, things had to be created consistent with those laws.
Why, then, not create the world 15 billion years earlier and actually do that? Such speculation (at least from the Orthodox Jewish perspective) necessarily involves analyses of certain religious/mystical concepts that are mentioned in Midrash and Kabalah - seven spiritual “spheres”, three different phases (two thousand years each) of human existence - that are somewhat beyond my level of fully understanding. Nonetheless, accepting that numerology does have a valid basis in the Jewish religion, it is clear that the world’s creation at a specific point of development does have certain implications which could have led G-d to make the creation in such a “tricky” way.
This is not a debate…it is a general question…hasn’t the GQ been answered?
It does? Where?
But dinosaur fossils? Actually burying bones of creatures that never existed? Complete with a history that clearly points to an evolutionary explanation of our existence? He’s clearly trying to trick us.
Yep. This is turning into a debate. If any of you want to continue debating, feel free to open a thread in Great Debates.
This is closed.
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator