Creation Science - Is God deceptive?
I have often heard people declare their puzzlement at a God who is seemingly deceptive. They'll ask questions like, "Why would God give the Universe an appearance of old age?" in explaining why they do not believe in a six-day creation or a 6-something thousand year old Earth. Another recent comment along those lines has inspired this post. So it goes...
A secular view of light years/the speed of light/the age of the Universe
We measure distances between heavenly bodies in light years, that is, the number of years it takes for the light to travel from, for instance, a star to our planet will represent the distance. Light is figured to be traveling at a bit faster than 186,000 miles per second, so a light year is a vast distance. The Sombrero Galaxy is 50 million light years away! We can see it! Therefore either the Universe is older than 50 million years old, or God created the Universe with an appearance of age!
An answer to the quandry
This is a cart-before-the-horse situation! When God made Adam, He didn't make him as an embroyo in a womb, but rather a fully grown male. Was this deceptive, or was it just practical? In the case of all the stars in the Universe, the fact is that in the Book of Genesis, God clearly creates light before he creates the stars. In other words, instead of firing up a star and having the light travel to us, he created the light and then made sure it traced back to a heavenly body thereafter.
Genesis 1:3 - And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
God created light on the first day of creation. But he doesn't create stars until day four! The sum of day four is devoted to God putting the sun and the moon and the stars in place. Yet the light has been there since day one.
Genesis 1:18 & 19 - God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
So, there was no attempt to deceive. The light was created first, and then later He created sources to continue shining said light. Sure, God could have made an outer globe with floodlights the size of Cleveland a few thousand miles above our heads and a massive sunlamp in place of the sun. He could have made us with rhino horns and polka-dots if He wanted!
But God wanted to present to us a massive, incredible, awesome Universe as a way of trying to illustrate how awesome and magnificent the Creator of said Universe really is. So stars are actually raging nuclear reactions rather than sparkling little points of light, but to the naked eye they are lights for the night sky. There was no intent to deceive, but really, if God was going to make this massive Universe as it is, how else would he deal with the light question? Hmmm?
A secular viewpoint of the Big Bang
The stars and other objects in the heavens are all moving away, apparently, from some kind of starting point and the evidence appears to be that there was a massive explosion that began the Universe. One second there was nothing and by the end of the next second an entire Universe of matter was being flung out into space. The objects currently in space give the appearance of having traveled for billions of years out from this initial event. If God created 6,000 years ago or so by simply speaking, why do we see this evidence with our eyes and instruments?
Answer
I cannot know the Mind of my amazing Creator God, but I can take a shot at this. First, remember that the physical laws of the Universe all have to hang together. The beginning of the Universe was either a masterful job of design and planning (my belief) or a impossibly lucky chance event (which many in the world believe). It just so happens that every creature and every process we see in nature have the appearance of being designed and are far more complex than discernible to the naked eye.
All that is to say that there is certainly a good reason for the objects in space to have the appearance of moving away from a common starting point.
1) They must move in some direction
2) Moving in random patterns would bring about chaos and collisions
3) Moving towards a central point would bring about a fiery end to the Universe
4) Moving away from a central point avoids collisions and allows for predictable operations
If God just placed immovable objects in the heavens, gravity would begin to work upon them and eventually the stars would begin heading towards the nearest neighbor. The relationships in placement would be changed (so much for constellations and navigation by the stars!) and, soon, there would be collisions as the closer bodies found each other. The eventual result would be utter chaos.
Again, that God would align the planets in this way makes perfect sense and probably has nothing to do with making scientists of the 20th century believe that the Universe began with a Bang. Furthermore, that He took an entire day to create and align all the stars of the heavens implies that He put much effort into the final result. We are not able to go back in time to observe how He did it. But He said it was done in one day and the result is certainly logical.
Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We know that God, according to the Book of Genesis, took six days to create the Universe, with light being created on day one, the source of the lights being created on day four and Man himself being saved for day six. In those six days, He developed all the laws of the Universe, created all matter, furnished all energy, designed and started all life. What a creation!
We know that secular scientists promote the idea of a Universe that happened by chance some 15 billion years ago or so. All laws and relationships and creatures and functions and operations that all work together in concert so beautifully well all just happened to happen by pure random chance. Now that would be a miracle way beyond raising someone from the dead, in my opinion!
We now have observed that the speed of light is not a constant and that the average rate of the speed of light may well be decaying. Light can seem to move faster than it should in certain situations and other times, slower. The study of Quantum physics has thrown the Newtonian view of the Universe into the corner, there are fuzzy areas between particles and waves and odd relationships between operations and the observation of those operations. The nature of the Universe is a continual surprise to those who study it.
There are people on both sides of the evolution versus creation aisle looking at the other side with absolute awe at the other side's colossal ignorance. This guy, on the God side, has just presented some logical and simple explanations for problems secularists will present as they attempt to move God out of the realm of science. There are smart folks on both sides but often philosophical requirements can blind them to the nature of the actual evidence.
~~~~~~~~
BTW - after being challenged on the issue of ice cores, and making a post about that very thing, the challengers have been mum. I suspect that is the normal response to having a rug pulled out from under one's self. My post didn't prove that ice cores show a short age for the earth but they certainly show how a short age for the earth is supported by the evidence of the ice cores. Tree rings will be discussed in short order as well.
Be blessed!
A secular view of light years/the speed of light/the age of the Universe
We measure distances between heavenly bodies in light years, that is, the number of years it takes for the light to travel from, for instance, a star to our planet will represent the distance. Light is figured to be traveling at a bit faster than 186,000 miles per second, so a light year is a vast distance. The Sombrero Galaxy is 50 million light years away! We can see it! Therefore either the Universe is older than 50 million years old, or God created the Universe with an appearance of age!
An answer to the quandry
This is a cart-before-the-horse situation! When God made Adam, He didn't make him as an embroyo in a womb, but rather a fully grown male. Was this deceptive, or was it just practical? In the case of all the stars in the Universe, the fact is that in the Book of Genesis, God clearly creates light before he creates the stars. In other words, instead of firing up a star and having the light travel to us, he created the light and then made sure it traced back to a heavenly body thereafter.
Genesis 1:3 - And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
God created light on the first day of creation. But he doesn't create stars until day four! The sum of day four is devoted to God putting the sun and the moon and the stars in place. Yet the light has been there since day one.
Genesis 1:18 & 19 - God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
So, there was no attempt to deceive. The light was created first, and then later He created sources to continue shining said light. Sure, God could have made an outer globe with floodlights the size of Cleveland a few thousand miles above our heads and a massive sunlamp in place of the sun. He could have made us with rhino horns and polka-dots if He wanted!
But God wanted to present to us a massive, incredible, awesome Universe as a way of trying to illustrate how awesome and magnificent the Creator of said Universe really is. So stars are actually raging nuclear reactions rather than sparkling little points of light, but to the naked eye they are lights for the night sky. There was no intent to deceive, but really, if God was going to make this massive Universe as it is, how else would he deal with the light question? Hmmm?
A secular viewpoint of the Big Bang
The stars and other objects in the heavens are all moving away, apparently, from some kind of starting point and the evidence appears to be that there was a massive explosion that began the Universe. One second there was nothing and by the end of the next second an entire Universe of matter was being flung out into space. The objects currently in space give the appearance of having traveled for billions of years out from this initial event. If God created 6,000 years ago or so by simply speaking, why do we see this evidence with our eyes and instruments?
Answer
I cannot know the Mind of my amazing Creator God, but I can take a shot at this. First, remember that the physical laws of the Universe all have to hang together. The beginning of the Universe was either a masterful job of design and planning (my belief) or a impossibly lucky chance event (which many in the world believe). It just so happens that every creature and every process we see in nature have the appearance of being designed and are far more complex than discernible to the naked eye.
All that is to say that there is certainly a good reason for the objects in space to have the appearance of moving away from a common starting point.
1) They must move in some direction
2) Moving in random patterns would bring about chaos and collisions
3) Moving towards a central point would bring about a fiery end to the Universe
4) Moving away from a central point avoids collisions and allows for predictable operations
If God just placed immovable objects in the heavens, gravity would begin to work upon them and eventually the stars would begin heading towards the nearest neighbor. The relationships in placement would be changed (so much for constellations and navigation by the stars!) and, soon, there would be collisions as the closer bodies found each other. The eventual result would be utter chaos.
Again, that God would align the planets in this way makes perfect sense and probably has nothing to do with making scientists of the 20th century believe that the Universe began with a Bang. Furthermore, that He took an entire day to create and align all the stars of the heavens implies that He put much effort into the final result. We are not able to go back in time to observe how He did it. But He said it was done in one day and the result is certainly logical.
Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We know that God, according to the Book of Genesis, took six days to create the Universe, with light being created on day one, the source of the lights being created on day four and Man himself being saved for day six. In those six days, He developed all the laws of the Universe, created all matter, furnished all energy, designed and started all life. What a creation!
We know that secular scientists promote the idea of a Universe that happened by chance some 15 billion years ago or so. All laws and relationships and creatures and functions and operations that all work together in concert so beautifully well all just happened to happen by pure random chance. Now that would be a miracle way beyond raising someone from the dead, in my opinion!
We now have observed that the speed of light is not a constant and that the average rate of the speed of light may well be decaying. Light can seem to move faster than it should in certain situations and other times, slower. The study of Quantum physics has thrown the Newtonian view of the Universe into the corner, there are fuzzy areas between particles and waves and odd relationships between operations and the observation of those operations. The nature of the Universe is a continual surprise to those who study it.
There are people on both sides of the evolution versus creation aisle looking at the other side with absolute awe at the other side's colossal ignorance. This guy, on the God side, has just presented some logical and simple explanations for problems secularists will present as they attempt to move God out of the realm of science. There are smart folks on both sides but often philosophical requirements can blind them to the nature of the actual evidence.
~~~~~~~~
BTW - after being challenged on the issue of ice cores, and making a post about that very thing, the challengers have been mum. I suspect that is the normal response to having a rug pulled out from under one's self. My post didn't prove that ice cores show a short age for the earth but they certainly show how a short age for the earth is supported by the evidence of the ice cores. Tree rings will be discussed in short order as well.
Be blessed!