Re: Young Earth Creationist Arguments. Do they realize how they look?

"On Thu, 14 May 2009 00:52:30 -0500, in article
<LdOOl.18399$D32.17586@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Suzanne stated..."


"TomS" <TomS_member@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:252127120.000028df.082.0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"On Tue, 12 May 2009 17:26:22 +1000, in article
<1izm5e4.1cp9i8g1ghnqmwN%john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John S. Wilkins
stated..."
[...snip...]
Since the early years of the church, it has been understood that
God's
creation need not happen all in a single instant. Actually there's
this
old book that suggests this is the case. Gene-something?


I needn't remind John that there are many moderns who think that
their particular interpretation of the Bible, conditioned as it
is by many cultural movements over recent centuries, somehow is
the one that has been held to from ancient times, as well as being
the only correct one. It has long struck me as being amazing that
someone belonging to a relatively small (say, less than 1% of
contemporary Christians) group of recent origins (less than 25% of
the Christian era) can think that their interpretation is normative
for all of Christianity.

For example, the idea that the Bible tells us of the creation, not
of *things* (such as animals and plants), but of categories of
things (such as populations, species, or even kinds) is a quite
modern innovation which takes a lot of imagination to find in the
Bible. Maybe it's right, but I think that I'd be looking for some
evidence for it being right.

There is nothing wrong with you having an
inquiring mind. Nothing at all. But what
happens when some of us take things on faith,
is that we have become aware of the presence
of the Lord actually being there. You know,
I can only tell someone about this, but the way
you are convinced is when you, yourself, feel
his presence and his nudging you to trust him.

One doesn't have to read very extensively in the early Christians
to find a range of opinions of how long creation takes. Even such
an early work as the Epistle of Barnabas (somewhere late 1st or
early 2nd century) has the "day"="thousand years" interpretation.

I hope that I have not confused you by mentioning
this phrase of a day with the Lord as being as a
thousand years, but what I was meaning to say is
that what we see through science as being billions
of years may not be really what it is. But I'm going
to tell you the best argument for your side. It's that
light takes so long to reach us and what the Hubble
Telescope sees when probing it's eye into deep
space is the light that was so far away that it is just
now reaching us. That is what is the most outstanding
evidence for an older universe. However, is what
we think we are seeing really taking so long to reach
us because of billions of years, or is the medium
through which it is traveling slowing it down in
some way? With our finite brains we conclude
of course it took millions of years. Einstein believed
at one point that space wrapped around itself like a
spiral. We only think of light as traveling to us in a
straight path. But maybe it's a curved path and we
don't know it. Can light travel to us on a curve?

I have a question. If the world is 40 billion years
old, can we point a telescope into deep space and
see the earth with the light of it just now reaching
us, and still see it's image as it was when it was
new?

Suzanne


One needn't get into the complexities of the General Theory of
Relativity.

One needn't even use a telescope.

People in the Northern Hemisphere who have access to dark skies
(away from city lights) can see the Andromeda Galaxy, which is
something like 2 million light years away. That is, one can see
with ordinary vision 2 million years into the past.

I also suggest reading about the supernova SN1987A (try Wikipedia,
among many sources on the web) in the Large Magellanic Cloud
(the LMC is visible in the Southern Hemisphere) which has been
shown to be about 168,000 light years away. I'd count this as
more convincing for those adamantly opposed to more than 10,000
years of the universe, because:

1. The distance measurement is more directly one of triangulation.
(As well as being backed up by lots of other ways of measuring
stellar distances). Anybody can understand how the distance is
measured - high school geometry is enough.

2. Some YECs contend that the light could be created en route from
the stars. In the case of SN1987A, however, we are talking about
something that happened 168,000 years ago. If the light had been
created en route, then that would mean that there was the creation
of the evidence for an event which never happened, which would
thereby by no less than a deliberate deceit, giving us the appearance
of something which is unreal.


--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings

.

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