It has been a challenge within the Christian community to come up with an answer to the question: "If the earth is only a few thousand years old, how do you explain the millions of years it takes for light from distant stars to reach earth?".
I want to talk about two cosmologies; a well known cosmology, the Big Bang, and the creationists cosmology that D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. has put forth.
There is a book called "Starlight and Time; Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe" by Humphreys himself. This talks both about the Big Bang and his cosmology.
The Big Bang, if I am correct, says that space AND matter are expanding. But also that matter goes out to infinity in any direction.
That in the beginning of the big bang, matter was more dense and hotter, but still goes out to infinity. Space itself was smaller in the beginning as well. It stretches and matter stretches with it. Like blowing into a balloon that has dots that represent galaxies on it expand as the balloon (space) expands. The dots are evenly spread out over the surface of the balloon. The balloon's surface is a 2-d representation of the 3-d universe to explain a 4-d universe in 3-d. the fourth dimension is not time. Humphrey uses the balloon to make it easier to understand.
Humphreys cosmology is similar to this, except there is a center and a edge to the universe. But space and matter also expand. Consider the same balloon except the dots are located at one spot on the balloon.
From what I understand is that the physics both cosmologies use, are IDENTICAL, like general relativity. The only difference is the starting assumptions.
The Big Bang uses the starting assumption that the universe has no edge, and therefore has no center. But Humphreys assumption is this, that the stars are numbered, that is the universe has an edge, and therefore has a center. And we are close to the middle of it. Since matter distorts space, the whole universe in the beginning can be closely related to a black hole. That is, there is a dip in the balloon where the center of the mass is. And earth was below the event horizon where it experiences no time. So the outside boundary of the universe, as God is spreading out the heavens, move outside this event horizon and experience time faster than earth. Time also is distorted by gravity. So as the light travels from these outside galaxies, earth 's time is still slowed down or still stopped. But as time goes on, maybe on the sixth Earth day as space and the universe is spreading earth finally is at a point where time is matching more closely to that of the outside universe. This is because as matter spreads out the 'dip' in the black hole gets 'shallower' and thus eventually space is distorted less at the center as the universe gets less dense. Then on the 6th day when God created man, the light already on its path for billions of years came in on the sixth earth day for Adam to see all that God has created, including far reaching galaxies.
Which starting assumption is correct? Or, if we do not know, why chose one over the other? Well, Humphreys has an explanation, he uses the Bible as a guide, and the Bible says that the stars are numbered. But also that earth, and us, human beings are central to God's creation.
What reason does the big bang have over choosing the no center/no edge? I believe Humphrey is correct in saying that secular scientists have no scientific evidence for choosing this one. For only the two assumptions proposed can explain why every direction we point our telescope, the universe is relatively homogeneous. Instead, secular scientists have tried avoiding a center/edge due to religious implications. If we are at the center, (Life itself is improbable to form on its own, let alone forming a place that is relatively close to the center of the universe), it would seem we are maybe part of a special creation.
We have already shown that life is overwhelmingly loaded with information; it should be clear that a rigorous application of the science of information is devastating to materialistic philosophy in the guise of evolution, and strongly supportive of Genesis creation.
Information, Science and Biology
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