Best postive scientific evidence for an old universe/ earth

[steve7150]

I think the physical evidence that the universe & earth are billions of years old is compelling using the laws of physics & nature we have available to us now. The length of time is takes oil or soil and many other things to be created in the natural order of things. The length of time it would take starlight to reach us on earth can be measured a half a dozen different ways.
However it is possible that God created all these things in a finished state , with the starlight already reaching earth or oil & soil in a finished state and either choice is plausable , so this issue should'nt be a mountain to die on.

[Paidion]

In Starlight and Time, Humphreys relates a scenario that makes the creation with an appearance of age, unlikely.

To be consistent , at the end of the 160,000 light-year path, God would also during creation week have made an actual super nova remnant (a "dead" neutron star), seemingly 160,000 years old, with a large debris shell around it. But according to the "in transit" theory, in spite of the images and particles astronomers observed, no actual super nova explosion would ever have happened!

Starlight and Time pp 44,45

[steve7150]

But according to the "in transit" theory, in spite of the images and particles astronomers observed, no actual super nova explosion would ever have happened!





Right and so what is his point? Is he saying God would be deceptive in creating a dead neutron star that never had ever exploded? God does a lot of things we don't understand like allowing Satan to exist, evil to continue etc but though we may not understand many things God can do anything that suits his purposes.

[Paidion]

Yes, I think that is exactly what he is saying! Why would God create the "appearance" of an exploding super nova, if it never existed? The starlight --- maybe. But the super nova thing sure appears to be deception, and if so, what purpose would it serve?

[steve7150]

Yes, I think that is exactly what he is saying! Why would God create the "appearance" of an exploding super nova, if it never existed? The starlight --- maybe. But the super nova thing sure appears to be deception, and if so, what purpose would it serve?




OK here is a possibility based on nothing but speculation, perhaps God created everything in 6 , 24 hour days but actually by speeding the natural process by a factor in the billions or trillions & so it appears to have taken 15 billion years but through the acceleration process was done in 6 24hr days. In this case it could'nt be called deceptive, correct?

[darinhouston]

Yes, I think that is exactly what he is saying! Why would God create the "appearance" of an exploding super nova, if it never existed? The starlight --- maybe. But the super nova thing sure appears to be deception, and if so, what purpose would it serve?




OK here is a possibility based on nothing but speculation, perhaps God created everything in 6 , 24 hour days but actually by speeding the natural process by a factor in the billions or trillions & so it appears to have taken 15 billion years but through the acceleration process was done in 6 24hr days. In this case it could'nt be called deceptive, correct?

Seems like an artificial and unnecessary theory. You don't have to stretch that far to merely recognize that the term translated 'day' simply has as one of its meanings long periods of time.

[steve7150]

Seems like an artificial and unnecessary theory. You don't have to stretch that far to merely recognize that the term translated 'day' simply has as one of its meanings long periods of time.
darinhouston





I do believe the physical evidence indicates an old universe but if i were a YEC , how could i reconcile an old appearing universe to six 24hr days of creation and i think the speeding up of the creation process is something God could have done.
I don't think it's a matter of necessary or not, it's just a possibility though not a probability.

[Jess]

Hi there. In response to mkprr's comment about the trees in Clear Lake, they are not actually petrified. The water is cold enough (usually about 38 degrees f) that they just don't decay.

[Haole]

A thought on the "star never existed so God is deceptive" theory.

ABC's Home Improvement show, where the family leaves for a week, and Ty Pennington and his crew come in and completely rennovate their house.

When the work crew of hundreds comes over and does all that work in a few days or a week or whatever...doo you think they are thinking, "...heh heh heh, we willmake them think we did it in 6 months, but really we're doing it in a few days"?

If it usually takes 6 months from ground-breaking to move-in for a house (based on what we know to be normal because of what we see right now, today) does that mean it can't be finished in a quicker manner if the person or person's doig iot are faster andmore efficient?

Couldn't God have done it in however long he wanted to? And couldn't the way the whole thing is be EXACTLY the way it had to be? No one knows why or why not a planet's distance from the sun had to be exactly what it is or why one spins one way and another the other way. Or why planet's axis tilt at different angles. Maybe the "light from a dead star...deceptive" theory has an exlpanation that only God can understand. Why speculate? In my opinion, if one only read the Bible and communed with God and others that only read the Bible, they wouldn't come to millions, billions, or trillions, or whatever it is today. Again, in my opinion, evolutionists dreamed up the billions and expanded it more and more to allow for evolution and have been backing it up with evidence that they need to prove evolution. Christians may veer that direction in order to not seem "illogical and unscientific and rube-ish". For whatever reason the idea of trillions came into a plausible argument, I do find it odd that the "...light from a dead star that never really existed..." theory is being used by non-Christians to disprove the existence of God by picking away at his awsomeness by calling him deceptive.
It doesn't matter to me either way, I just feel like "trillions" may be gaining ground for other reasons than scientifc.

[MMathis]

I didn't go to college until I was 50 years old. I studied astronomy to meet my science requirements.
I studied under a professor that helped develop the "contact lenses" on the Hubble Space Telescope.
It had vision problems at first.

The case for the Big Bang theory may yet prove Creationism to be valid scientifically. Basically it says that everything was in a space smaller than the head of a pin
and in 1/3000 of a second "poof" the universe came into being. What the science community can't tell you is what caused the Big Bang. (they have many theories)
I asked if it could it have been Someone saying "Let there be...." The prof said that is as good as any explaination they have.

Many unexplainable things go with the Big bang. Not the least of which is how matter traveled at a speed greater than the speed of light to get to the edge of the universe.
The fastest we can go is less than 30,000 mph. Light travels about 670 million miles an hour.

With all the flaws of dating objects, the Hubble, to me, is the most acurate data we have. We can see back about 10 billion years in time with the Hubble and most scientists agree that our sun has about a 10-15 billion life span. Think of that. If we can make the next generation of Hubble see 15 billions light years, we may be able to actually observe the beginning of time. Science says that the sun will expand out to roughly Mars before it goes out. That would make the Earth end in fire. I know I've heard that somewhere before.

Some people say the Universe is about 6,000 years old. That is based on the rate the sun is burning and that it would be burned out if it were older. The sun is in a steady state right now, so the 6,000 year argument does jibe.

Almost everything to do with the Big Bang follows with Biblical info except for the 7 days.

I would think it is much more likely that we just don't fully understand what seven days to God is.