Issues of light

For God to experience 6 days while twenty billion years passed in our frame of reference God would have to be moving at VERY close to the speed of light relative to the Earth - or near the event horizon of a Black Hole. What is more, God would have to be decelerating relative to the Earth (or moving slowly away from the Black Hole) if you want to reduce the ratio - which you would need if you want to try to match up the six days of Genesis to the scientific reconstruction of the distant past.Perhaps this makes sense to you, but most monotheists don't assign a spatial location to God (Mormons are an exception - but I don't think that Schreoder's view fits with theirs) - their God is either outside of space or occupying all of it. But without being able to give God a spatial location neither Special nor General Relativity are of any help.Neither the North Pole, nor the surface of the sun would be anywhere near that different from time on Earth.

Here is an essay, citicising Schroeders books.Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics

I notice that you haven't dealt with some of the points already raised.Firstly can you explain what frame of reference would give the result of matching up the six days of Genesis to actual time (that is the events of all six days, not just a period of six days) ? And can you explain why such a frame of reference would be used rather than the more obvious frame used by physicists ?

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I'm not interested in theological discussion here, but in taking Schroeder's ideas as a thought experiment (never published with such an intent, as disclaimed by the author). What scientific theories, principles, or laws are violated by considering that an observer outside of time & space (for both are inextricably linked, according to Einstein & Hawking) could view 144 hours as we view 15 Billion years?

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As I stated earlier, if the observer is "outside of space and time" neither General nor Special relativity would apply and Schroeder's arguments are moot. SO we have the question of why this observer would choose a frame of reference other than the Earth's to describe the timespan of events taking place on Earth. Especially as the relationship between this arbitrary frame of reference and the Earth has to change to match Schroeder's assertions.
Note also that the original audience for the text in question had no knowledge of Relativity and therefore could not interpret it as Schroeder does, nor could anyone for more then 2500 years after it was written (more than 3000 if you insist on Mosaic authorship as Schroeder probably would).

I would say that the essential problem is that Schroeder uses an ad hoc and implausible hypothesis. While such a frame of refernece could exist it makes absolutley no sense to use it without a clear indication that one is doing so, The "days" represent variabel amounts of time in our frame of reference AND the only way to work out what time they do represent is to try to match the events in Genesis 1 with the actual events so far as we can scientiifcally determine them (which itself requires ad hoc and questioanable interpretations).So, Schroeder's interpretation is not scientiifc, nor is it good hermeneutics. It is simply a rather desperate attempt to validate the text by distorting it's meaning.

Well, I am afraid that what you write doesn't really clarify anything.One of the important questions is how Schroeder manages to vary the time on Earth associated with each day, and this doesn't answer it at allAnother is why use another frame of reference when all of the events appear to involve the Earth and when the audience for well over 2000 years had no concept of time dilation.And unless my understanding of Relativity is flawed we cannot find an inertial frame of reference from which the Big Bang "originated" - there is and can be no such thing.(And another bit of Genesis 1, I bet Schroeder does not explain is how day and night are created in the first day.)

I notice that the Stenger article points out the varying "day" lengths and adds that they are not justified by the actual science. So it appears that Schroeders ideas are not compatible with the physics, he is supposedly using to justify them. Stenger also gets in a couple of digs at points where Schreoder's timescale makes no sense (such as putting fruit trees in day 3 which - according to Schroeder - ended 1.75 billion years ago). I note that there's a link to a fuller version of the review at :Vic Stenger Schrev » Internet Infidels