Age of Stars

If the stars were only made (according to the bible) around about the same time as the earth, then how can we see them when they are 4+ million odd light years away, if the earth is only about 6000 years old in the view of creationists?

The bible says that after the 6th day, the creation of the universe seized, then why are stars still being observed to being born recently?

That's a bit of a silly argument, Buka, it's like saying 'if god created all the animals on the fifth(?) day, why are they still being born?' Oh, and I assume you mean 'ceased' not 'seized'. Your first question is a good one though, yet to see a decent creationist answer for that one.

The standard answer I've heard, though I wouldn't consider it a good one, is that God created the star light on route to us. This is basically no different from saying God created minerals with a deficit of unstable isotopes and additional daughter isotopes - hence appearing as though they had undergone an extended period of time in which radioactive decay occured. The big problem I have with this is that it means God created a universe a few thousand years ago that appears to be something like 15 billion years old - and then you must question the trustworthiness of a God capable of such deception.The other answer I've come across postulates some very major changes in physical parameters, in which the speed of light has significantly changed thus allowing light to have travelled far further than it could have if limited to 3x10^8 m/s. This is no better an answer IMO, as it would require an almost complete rejection of physics - there is quite simply no evidence of the major changes in physical parameters that are required for this.Perhaps a Creationist could supply another option.Alan

It is not a deception on God's part, it is doing the job properly. If God created Adam, wouldn't he give Adam a navel? If God created a tree, wouldn't it have tree rings?
Just kidding. Mike.

That creationist solution was proposed for the Earth itself by a certain Philip Henry Gosse, and explained in gory detail in his 1857 tome Omphalos. He had been a YEC fundamentalist, but he had also been aware of the abundance of evidence that the Earth is older than 6000 years. So he developed the hypothesis that the Earth had been created in the middle of its cycles of activity, with the result that it looks much older than it is. His book's title, the Greek word for "navel", was inspired by the conundrum of whether or not Adam and Eve had had navels, since neither had been born in the usual way.However, that theory has widely been dismissed as implying divine fraudulence.

a little off topic, but: how do astronomers know how far away stars are? do they use triangulation (i figure the degree change would have to be incredibly small). does it have something about the brightness of a star (stars come in different brightness right?). or the color... maybe this could provide some information as to how bright a star should be. anyway... for a brand new car... what's the answer?

There are multiple methods for determining star distance.For nearer stars direct triangulation is possible using the width of the earth's orbit as a base line.At larger distances there is a class of variable stars, cepheid variables whose intrinsic brightness is correlated with their period of variation. Once intrinsic brightness is known then the apparent brightness can be used to determine distance. I don't know how the relationship between period and brightness is acertained. A google should find that.At still greater distances the apparent brightness of a specific class of supernova can be used since they have an upper limit on intrinsic brightness.After this the red shift (already set by the other methods) can be used to determine distances across the entire visible universe.There are probably other methods I am unaware of

lets say then that God didnt create the light from these stars in transit. Would there even be a point then for it to be mentioned in the bible that God created the stars, because we would not see any at first, and even by now we would not see very many. Genesis 1:14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night." He wouldn't have made light on route to earth in a billion years, he would have had there for the light to actually have an effect on earth.I think it shows the awsome power of God by reveiling a huge part of the universe from the begining.

Awesome power of God? To carefully, with a great deal of attention to all the details, make it appear to all possible methods of observation that the universe is actually almost 14 Gyr old when it is not?Is that the game God plays with his awesome powers? Very impressive indeed that is.

IANAP, and a bit off topic but anyway... there recently was an article on physicsweb saying that maybe the universe is smaller than currently predicted-maybe about 30 billion light years across (lol... not really small though). It discusses the idea that if space is finite, light may travel "straight" in one direction and after a while (a long while!) may return to its start.Well, anyway... back on topic...
There have been a few (more than a few!) ideas to explain this. There has been Arp's "tired light theory", saying that as light travels through space it gets redshifted, hence giving the illusion of distance (remember Hubble's law?!)A more speculative explanation might be white holes. If all creation came out of a white hole, with earth at the centre of the universe (!) then relativity would allow only a short period of time to have travelled on earth but billions of years for the rest of the universe. Remember the concentric spheres aka quantised redshifts thread a while ago (more than a while ago! but anyway...)If you google around, I'm sure you'll find lots of information. Many of these ideas rely on the idea of redshifts as a measurement of distance as not ideal.Of course, as for any theory there are problems. A technical paper showing problems with the tired light theory may be found hereOf course, how much of these are actual science is of lots of debate.[This message has been edited by blitz77, 10-12-2003]

It so happens that there's a proposed Talk Origins FAQ on just that subject; still a work in progress but nearing completion. Determining distances to astronomical objects.At some time in the fairly near future that link will probably stop working, when the page goes to the Talk Origins Archive.