OK, this question assumes that God did create the universe Ex Nihilo about six thousand years ago, and that in order to make it look complete (for whatever motive), God also created in transit the light of stars more than six thousand light-years distant.
Did God create just those rays of light that will reach us, or did God create light appearing to radiate in all directions from the distant stars (including, for example, light which is travelling from the stars in the opposite direction - away from us)?
I can only speak for myself, but if I were a God, I’d do a half-arsed job and only do the bits people could see so that I could get down the pub quicker.
If anyone “peeped round the back”, as it were, I could always add in the other bits later.
No Creationist I - but if I had been in charge, and created the Universe in such a way as to give the appearance of age, I wouldn’t mess up a detail like that. Besides, there may be other creatures on other worlds (unsure what Creationists think of that) and they would need fossil light on their worlds as well. Easier, as far as I can see, to create all the light in all directions, especially if I can do it merely by speaking the words.
This specific question is probably not a GD - it comes down to what people guess God would have done, assuming as true the idea that He created everything 6,000 years ago.
Thanks for that Bricker; maybe I’m wrong, but I think most creationists would tell us that Earth is the only place where God has created beings in his own image (of course if we ever do find evidence of sentient extraterrestrial life, they’ll be climbing over each other to tell us how that proves creationism is true :rolleyes: )
the purpose of the OP was to try to shoehorn a testable prediction out of the creation camp.
Well, if I was God, and I had decided to plant false evidence, of the Universe’s age, I wouldn’t just leave it at that.
What I’d do is create the Universe 9 billion years ago, let the stars shine and such, and just tell everybody I did it 6,000 years ago.
Because, let’s face it. Creating the Universe over 9 billion years, little by little just isn’t impressive. I’d want to get the big “OOooooooooh, nice universe! How’d you make it so quick?” reaction.
The added bonus is this way you can really confuse all the believers and add credence to your “No one understands the mind of God,” factor.
[wife’s Creationist body-stocking ON]
In the same way that you are wrong about the age of the 6 billion year old rocks, you are incorrect in your measurement of the distances to other stars. [Insert theory here] explains that those distant stars are, coincidentally, just 6,000 light years away!!
[Creationist body-stocking OFF]
“Hey, Fred! This is is Yahweh. He made the Universe 9 billion years ago.”
“Hey Yahweh, nice to meet you. So, what have you been doing since then?”
If you’ve just been sitting on your couch drinking beer this leads to an uncomfortable silence.
On the other hand, if you say you just finished it 6,000 years ago, then it’s still fresh. If you say you just made it to look really old, people are impressed with your level of detail and creativity.
You can pretend to be putting some finishing touches on, and the that way nobody says anything like they would if they knew you’d been unemployed and drinking beer for 9 billion years.
and the independently corroborated, reproducible evidence for [insert theory here] is exactly where?
(besides the fact that I think we’d be in big trouble if all of the known number of stars in the universe were crowded into such a small volume of space).
Might as well go the whole hog and say that they are just spots of silver paint on the dome of the sky.
Good luck Mangetout about finding a testable prediction in either Creation or Intellegent Design. I lurked on Pizza Parlour for 3 months before finally giving up – after starting a thread specifically about predictions, there weren’t any predictions that could be tested that I could find. ( except for of course the fabulous person who suggested that ID shows that “things will be like they always are”, and evolution shows exactly the opposite – so ID must be true. )
You mean they aren’t? Crap. There goes my plan of making a bunch of ants worship me as their creator.
Do you think that maybe a dome covered in black paper with a bunch of pin-holes in it would work? I could shine a flashlight on it and shake it around.
It seems to me that God would have to be constantly creating said light to give the illusion of stars of distance > 6000ly. For example, if a star is thought to be 10,000ly away, then the light technically shouldn’t be here yet (assuming a 6,000yo earth). Yet, we see the light from such stars (other galaxies, for example). As a result, we have (for example) 4,000 years-worth of light between now and when the real light would reach us. All of this “false” light would have to be created on a continual basis, which kind of throws a wrench into that whole “six days of creation” thing.
And, of course, if the stars don’t actually exist at all, then the light must still be perpetually created, again going counter to the literal six days of creation.
Silly heathens! Clearly, God’s creation could be nothing short of complete. That includes not only the mass of each star, but the total “volume” of its energy output. When God popped the universe into existence, it was already suffused with radiation, including light that can be traced back to its source star.
It’s the foolish pagans who assume that Hubble’s Law implies that there was a point in the finite past when all galaxies converged at a central location. It implies no such thing, as long as you remember that the universe could expand for no more than 6000 years. Simple, really.
As for why the universe has so many galaxies (especially when all but two of them are invisible to the unaided human eye), you might as well ask why there are so many different species of beetles! And that would be just plain nutty!
Sheesh, Darwin’s Finch, remind us never to give you unlimited power (for 6 days). You’d be too constrained to REALLY come up with something cool.
If I were God, and wanted to solve your little problem, I’d just make 4000 years of fake light with each year of light a light year more away. Throw in a little futzing so the light looks the right age, and bada bing, all done. No problem, if you can do ANYTHING.
Come on, what’s the point of hypothesizing an infinitely powerful diety if we can’t make up wild/crazy things for him to do?
