AiG On Distant Starlight

Time is not an issue, time is flexible…unless you dare to apply that argument to the days of Genesis 1. Then they get really mad!

I’ll respond to some choice quotes:

So we have good reason to believe that space really is very big. In fact, the amazing size of the universe brings glory to God

Even though the vast, vast majority of it is empty; even though so far as we know only one speck of dust out of billions upon billions of lightyears (at least 30 billion lightyears in diameter) has life on it; even though the only purpose of this vastness seems to be to light our skies (Genesis 1:14), which after all only a very tiny portion of it actually does?

However, the speed of light is not an “arbitrary” parameter. In other words, changing the speed of light would cause other things to change as well, such as the ratio of energy to mass in any system.3 Some people have argued that the speed of light can never have been much different than it is today because it is so connected to other constants of nature. In other words, life may not be possible if the speed of light were any different. This is a legitimate concern.

I should hope it would concern them, after how much creationists have stressed the ‘fine-tuning’ of universal constants, and how even slight changes to them would have made life impossible. If the speed of light were so much higher in the past, Earth would have been bombarded with so much light that the surface would have been burned to a crisp (incidentally, Earth would have been made similarly inhospitable if rates of radioactive decay were once high enough to bring about the amount of decay we now observe in only a few millennia).

Suppose that our solar system is located near the center of a finite distribution of galaxies. Although this cannot be proven for certain at present, it is fully consistent with the evidence; so it is a reasonable possibility.

Simply being in the center of a finite universe wouldn’t cause a significant difference in the gravitational effect on us. AIG is not suggesting the galaxies are any closer to us than astronomers believe, therefore we wouldn’t experience any stronger time dilation than if the universe was infinite and thus had no center. No, a very strong and relatively local gravitational source is required, such as Humphreys’ white hole, which has special problems of its own.

Now, this idea may or may not be the reason that distant starlight is able to reach earth within the biblical timescale, but so far no one has been able to prove that the Bible does not use cosmic local time. So, it is an intriguing possibility.

Except that it requires, much as with the idea of light already on its way, a rather sly and disingenuous God.

It is perfectly acceptable for us to ask, “Did God use natural processes to get the starlight to earth in the biblical timescale? And if so, what is the mechanism?” But if no natural mechanism is apparent, this cannot be used as evidence against supernatural creation. So, the unbeliever is engaged in a subtle form of circular reasoning when he uses the assumption of naturalism to argue that distant starlight disproves the biblical timescale.

Hahahaha! Try getting that one into science classes.

But the inflation model amounts to nothing more than storytelling with no supporting evidence at all.

WMAP? I rest my case.

How can anyone take seriously a self-described Christian apologetics ministry that uses “No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record” as its starting point?

Until AiG declares “No apparent or perceived claim Scripture, can be valid if it contradicts the evidence”, all I can do is roll my eyes and thank people like George for having more patience than me.