First postulate; The distance from earth to the stars we can see is much greater then the distance that light can travel in 6000 years.

Second postulate: If the speed of light is constant, then the world cannot be as young as it says in the bible.

First refutation: God must have put the light from those stars already in place.
Conclusion: Invalid reasoning by the laws of the bible; God states that he cannot deceive. To put light in place is deceptive.

Second refutation: The speed of light must be slowing down exponentially over time.
Conclusion: Invalid for following reasons:
We need to look at two equations:
-Einstein’s E=MC^2
-The inverse square law of Newton

First of all Einstein’s equation reads
Energy is equal to the speed of light squared.
Energy is in joules
Mass is in kilograms

The speed of light is in meters per second and must be a CONSTANT
(note: if you don’t believe the above, go to a professor of physics at a regular university)

Einstein’s proven theory of relativity says that time is relative and light is constant.
The relationship between mass and energy is also proven: One gram releases 90 quadrillion joules.
1=1 x (3x10^8)^2
=9x10^16 which is 90 quadrillion joules.

If C is not constant, then the actual ENERGY CONTENT OF MATTER MUST CHANGE EVERY DAY!

However, this runs into a snag from the inverse square law: which states that the relative strength of gravity is M x m/d^2 or
“The gravitational attraction between two objects is equal to the mass of the first object times the mass of the second object divided by the distance between them”
So if the mass of two objects increase each by a factor of 2, the gravitational strength between them increases by 4 if 3 than 9 etc. Same with distance (if the space between both is divided by half, the attraction is decreased by 4, 3 by 9, 4 by 16 etc.)
If the speed of light was 10 times faster at one point, then the relative mass must have been 100 times as great.
If the mass of both is increased by 100 times, then the gravitational pull is increased by TEN THOUSAND TIMES.
So if the speed of light was ten times the speed it is now, then the gravitational pull must have been 10,000 times greater.
To give a comparison, a human would be crushed on Jupiter, which would exert a pull of just around 40 times. Life would have been crushed.
Oh, and if it was infinite at the beginning, everything would have been a black hole!
Thus, the earth is almost certainly NOT young.
It means that either
A. The bible is completely untrue
OR
B. The bible was speaking in metaphor by creation.
If this was to be falsified:

-You would need to find proof that God completely revamped the laws of physics in the past 4000 years;
There is no mention in the bible of this happening.

-You would have to prove that the relationship between matter and energy was completely wrong.

-You would have to observe light moving slower in the next 50 years
For instance, some atom smashers have accelerated atoms to 99.749% of the speed of light, so their mass was increased by a factor of about 40,000.
If the speed of light was slowing, then new atom smashers would not be able to make particles go faster, but they do! If light slowed, scientists would find that this speed would not be achievable now.
Thank you for your time.

Since you are interpreting the actions of God as written in the Bible. "Let there be light." Since God can create, light can be created as desired.

The first man, Adam, possessed an intellect and was not a baby, i.e. born. He was created by God. The environment God placed him in was fully formed for him.




God bless,
Al

Creationists are working on theories to explain this from a scientific point of view. Dr. Russle Humphrey's book "Starlight and Time" outlines the basis for a "White Hole" cosmology that allows for the universe to appear old, while being very young.



There is scientific evidence that the speed of light may not be constant. Barry Setterfield has made proposals using measured ata, that demonstrates its been decaying since the creation of the universe.



The is as about as silly as it gets. As an unbeliever, you are not in a position to say what the God that created you is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do. It may be deceptive if he told you to make invalid assumptions, make some measurements, and then claim you know the age of the universe, but he did not do that. Someone else did that, and your gullible enough to believe them, so don't fuss about God deceiving you.

The Bible states "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth". That's really all he needs to say for you to realize that you are deceiving yourself.

There are other scientific data points that indicate the earth is young, e.g. the earth's magnetic field, and the helium found in zircons, so while you have done a good job of deceiving yourself, please don't be offended if we don't join you your delusion.

In the future keep it would be helpful if you would keep your posts a little more brief.

Terry

You mind citing sources, please. First of all, as a scientist/engineer in training with a fairly good background in physics, I have heard no reason to doubt that the speed of light is constant.

If it weren't, then how do atom smashers consistently accelerate the atoms to even FASTER speeds now, if the speed of light was slowing down, they wouldn't be able to do that.



It isn't what God created, but what the bible says God created. Big difference.



So you're saying we cannot we not trust the world?
If God really did create it, then he wouldn't need to fool with radiometric dating, potassium-argon, uranium-thorium, zircons, etc.

Reality says that the earth is old, and certainly not that it cannot be young. If God changed the very nature of the laws of physics, then wouldn't the bible say something about it?

At the tender age of 23, I have my doubts that your really a trained "scientist/engineer". I'm pushing 44, have a B.S.E.E, M.S. Mathematics, and and M.S. E.E., and I would not claim that its not possible for the speed of light to change.

If your interested, Barry Satterfield has a web page that you can peruse with your trained mind...

Barry Setterfield's Web Page



The Bible is God's word, and he says he created it. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus created it for himself. You being part of creation were also created for him, and he has commanded you to repent and believe in him.




You don't know what reality is. You have just put your faith in Pseudo-Science so you can ignore Jesus. Its Ok, one day you are going to admit you are wrong, and that's fine with me.

The reality is that people have convinced themselves that the earth is old, just as they have convinced themselves that T-Rex bones that are 65 millions of years old can still have soft tissue in them... What a fool believes....

Terry

I believe I said "in training"
Not yet, but soon.



No offence intended, but thats circular logic.
-The bible is true because it is the word of God
-God exists because the bible says so

Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy. You have to look outside to know for sure.



Reality is what I can observe and test. Unless you have a better explanation.



Pot, meet kettle. I consider the real world and the study of which to be real science, and from my POV (and the point of view of 99.9% of all scientists) creationism is pseudo-science



I'll gladly admit that I'm wrong when I am given sufficient proof.



The same thing could be said of you, seeing as you convince yourself that the earth is young, despite the evidence that it cannot be.


Nice ad hominem there, you know that such attacks make you look childish...


In conclusion, I have yet to recieve any scientific opposition to my claims, the best that was done was to post a link to a site that didn't challenge nor answer my assertations.

I am a bit disappointed, because it seems that the only thing everyone does is brush aside the facts with the assertion that "I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG"

I really had hoped for a "good, honest and fun" debate, but since those words came from a site that calls evolution a fairy tale, I'm glad I didn't get my hopes up too much.

If you are a true agnostic, then you will be able to ponder what I am about to show you.

Now you sound like someone who has probably debated enough to know you way around the bible and the subject of creation. So I'd like you to ponder this:

What is time without death?

You see until Adam and Eve sinned there was no death. So if it took 5 million years for Adam and Eve to sin. How old would they be? Time with no death is eternity, correct?

So by what action does death occur in non-eternity time? It occurs through the action of aging. So we can conclude that in eternity that death does not happen because the aging process does not exist. With me so far?

But this also posing a problem for the time-line as we understand it. We understand that things have to have a begining (birth), a time-line (aging), and death (an end). But how do you get any of these things if aging and death are not a part of the time-line? In other words, time passes but you never age. Now for the reason creation had to happen.

During the creation time-line (Genesis 1 until the first sin). Time was eternal. So if something were born into that time-line, where aging does not happen. When would it ever grow up? It never would. So if God created Adam and Eve as babies, they would never grow up (eternity equals no aging). And neither would any of the animals created. This is why both the animals and man were created with age. Because the law of eternity is: The age you are created at, is the age you will stay at. So nothing in eternity can be birth for that very reason. "All things" have to be created, and created with the age to survive.

So now we will apply this to the rest of creation.

Sun:

So if aging is not a process of creation in eternity time (before the first sin). When would the sun cool down enough to allow life to exist on this planet? It would not. Aging for the sun equals 2 thing.

1) It becomes cool enough so that life can exist upon this planet.
2) It becomes stable enough so that life can exist upon this planet.

So what would be the proper age to create the sun to sustain life on this planet, in a time where aging is not a current process? 4.5 billion years old. This is how you get a 4.5 billion year old aged sun in 6 thousand years. Because creation equals everything being created with age to either survive, or perform the task in which it was created for.

Earth:

Same thing. When would the earth cool down enough to support life if it were birthed into a time where aging was not part of it? It would never cool down. So what age would be perfect for life to exist upon this planet? 4.5 billion years aged sound about right?

The trinities:

God works in numbers. And what number represents life? The number three. So what in creation applies to this?

1) The only planet to sustain life is what planet from the sun? Third planet.
2) Water which is essential to life comes in how many forms? Liquid, solid, and gas.
3) Time comes in three section: past, present, and future.

Etc...

Creation-firmaments:

There are 4 sections (4 firmaments) in which creation was broken up into. The first 3 where centered around sustaining life upon this planet.

1) Was the canopy.
2) Was our atmosphere.
3) Was out solar system.
4) Space beyond our solar system.

The first three were created with age according to what would sustain life upon this planet.

The forth (outer space) was not. So upon the creation of stars beyond our solar system. The things that determined their age was how far their light had to travel to reach the earth. And is why such stars can be dated this way

Genesis 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

"Let there be lights", tells us that the things placed in space were already producing light.

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

The first part of this verse tells why they were created (to give light upon the earth). the second part shows that it had to be made so for it to happen. So light started out in space around the object that produced it. And when it's light was made to shine upon the earth. The object aged according to how many light years it's light had to travel in one day to reach the earth.

So a star 400 million light years away became 400 million years aged upon it's light being made to shine upon earth in one day.

You can read more about this here: http://www.yecheadquarters.org/Creation9.0.1.html

Death is a concept that applies to life, and life alone. A rock can age, but it cannot "die"


They would still be 5 mil years old...even if they didn't die.
Plus, that is assuming Adam and Eve actually existed.



Again, death is a biological term.




Scientifically, that only holds true for EM radiation, seeing as time has stopped for things moving at the speed of light.
All other things age.



The temperature of the sun was probably relatively constant for the past 4.55 billion years. It is not cooling down, just using it's hydrogen.



This is where the biggest problem with your model comes in: who says that the sun needed to be 4.5 billion years old to sustain life? It burns by the fusion of hydrogen, and that is what makes it shine. It loses this hydrogen at a relatively constant rate, and we don't feel the sun getting colder every day.



Some bacteria can survive in boiling water/acid.




This can be done with many different numbers, like two; day and night, light and darkness, heat and cold etc. or four; four seasons, four states of matter, four directions, etc.
If God exists and he uses numbers, his favorite number is probably phi




They aren't dated by the age of the light, because light doesn't age. Scientists study the shifts in the light, the intensity, and how far it had to travel.


This implies that he created the ability for light, like photons. This is described by the big bang as well.


"Let there be lights", tells us that the things placed in space were already producing light.

How does that make light travel faster?
If they were put into the universe making light four billion light-years away, it would still take four billion years to reach us.


The first part of this verse tells why they were created (to give light upon the earth). the second part shows that it had to be made so for it to happen. So light started out in space around the object that produced it. And when it's light was made to shine upon the earth. The object aged according to how many light years it's light had to travel in one day to reach the earth.

This "aging" that you speak of would still require the light to move faster then normal, meaning c is not constant, and that gravity would be so great that it would crush every living thing.


I see what you're getting at, but this is still based on the concept of light traveling faster then normal so the very light that we see at night is proof of an old earth or a deceptive God, because if it was created, then it was done through natural processes. It's not just light, it's the very structure of atoms, the very nature of the universe.

But thumbs up for giving me an interesting view that I hadn't heard before.


Edit: By ikester. Note: Forum program can only do 10 quotes per post. It's not an option that can be changed by us, so we are limited to this as well. I put your two quotes over 10 in bold so the rest would work.

Argumentum ad populum.

Neither would I for certain, but what I would claim is that the speed of light could not change without making *extreme* changes to the Universe - not least of which would be that early life would have had to deal with even sunlight being deadly.

Certainly one could hand-wave that invoking godly intervention but it won't be science.

Skeptic 21, how can you be Agnostic when your mind is already made up?

This may be too involved a question for this thread, but I'd have to ask whether you think science exists at *all* and if so what counts?

The Big Bang model is classic science in that it explains what we see and makes predictions. But then you link Setterfield, who clearly takes the Creation as his basis and then finds a model to fit it - which is seemingly the definition of pseudo-science.

An agnostic is one who has not seen enough proof for a divine being. My mind is made up in the sense that I need to see real proof for such a thing. Once I do, I will change that.

And I do not even see a remote chance that you are even looking for that proof. All I see is a thread O.P. that sounds just like every other atheist post.

Also, does it make me agnostic if I also claim the same about evolution?

It makes you agnostic about evolution. In common usage of the word agnostic on its own though it is presumed to refer to God.

That's a good question.... Of course I believe science exists, but we must be careful about what we call "Science".

Science is the study of cause-and-effect relationships in real-time.

Origins Science is the application of scientific knowledge to determine the origin of life, the age of the universe, etc.... The scientifc method requires repeated experimentation, and we cannot do that with the past that is out of human observation. Hence Origins Science can be scientific, but its not genuin science.



The big bang model is also trying to fit a certain bias.

1) That there is a 100% materialistic explanation to the universe.
2) That we are not at the center of the universe.
3) That the universe is unbounded.

The Big-Bang is pseudo-science. No one is making big-bangs and creating their own universe and trying to explain how it happens through repeated experimenation.

The big bang postulates that the universe is made up of ~75% "Dark Matter" which is not detectable, that hardly sounds scientific......

There are scientists who recognize the dogma that the "Big-Bang" has become and are challenging.

Scientists opposed to the Big Bang

Terry

If we found evidence that the speed of light decayed in the past, and none of what you claim happened, then it would be scientific evidence of divine intervention, or evidence that we as humans do not understand things as well as we claim, or both.

Terry

This certainly throws a spanner in the forensic science thread! It's an interesting definition. Are you saying that even if we watch species 'evolve' over the next billion years and they become completely different things, we wouldn't be warranted in extrapolating backwards? Or perhaps watching geology over a similar time period and assuming it happened markedly differently previously? I'm not sure I understand why.


That's not so much the bias of science so much as it is all science can deal with. We'll be into metaphysics before we know it otherwise.



Strictly not true. We ARE at the centre of the Universe but at the same time there IS no centre. I heard it well explained the other day when someone said it's like that old video game 'Asteroids' where you'd disappear off one side of the screen and reappear on the opposite side.



That's not a bias of the theory that I know off. What exactly do you mean by 'unbounded'?



Well that throws up a problem with what you were saying earlier. We can actually (indeed only) watch events far away, as they happened a long time ago. If we watch a far distant star go supernova today (e.g.) are we watching a present event or a past one?



One might say that protons, neutrons, electrons, or indeed gravity, don't exist for the same reason.



I would generally claim the latter.

Not only that, it's flat not true.

Fred

What Skeptic21 either doesn’t realize or is failing to mention is that distant star light is also serious problem for evolutionists! We’ve discovered that the universe is isotropic throughout, that is, it’s the same temperature everywhere. However, if the universe is 20 billion years old, there isn’t near enough time for light to reach every corner to produce this isotropic state. In fact only a fraction should be isotropic.

Scientists call it the “horizon” problem and have created a flimsy hypothesis called “inflation” to try to explain it. Ironically, one creation scientist I know told me that if you slightly tweak the “inflation” data, it also solves the star light problem for creationists!

For those who doubt my claim that the inflation theory is really a just-so story to explain the evolutionist’s starlight problem, check out the many prominent astronomers and physicists who agree with me:

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Fred

The trouble with discussing the Big Bang as a layperson is that whilst I've read quite a lot about it, I can't pretend to understand the subject in enough depth to argue with the scientists involved (particularly on the mathematical level).



...But inflation is no longer a "flimsy hypothesis". It predicted that the Universe would not be *entirely* flat or homogenous and to what tune that would be. These predictions have been borne out, as close to exactly as makes no differenece, in the last few years by ever more accurate astronomical instruments. It may smack a bit of a "cosmological constant", but it does work...



Whilst Halton Arp may well be described as a "prominent astronomer", he has long touted his own theory (mainly regarding quasars) which stands contra to the Big Bang and is very contraversial in cosmology. As it is his life's work I'm not surprised that he is sticking to his guns despite the fact that our instruments - so much better than in the 1960's when he came up with his theory - have pretty much explained away the anomalies he based them on.

I'm wary of making the following statement, being as it may well be construed as some king of argument to authority, but I think the list of names would be more indicative if it didn't include engineers, doctors and other non-cosmological professionals and especially "independent researchers" - after all, I might include myself in *that* list! I'd ask how, given that even many cosmologists struggle to understand the theory, do people who don't work in the field itself expect to know enough to object to it? If that is the case it leaves us with a bit of a problem. If Big Bang theory proves to be useful technologically, do we just leave the scientists to it and default to our own beliefs?

Do you have any references for your claim that Arp's observations '...have [been] pretty much explained away...'? I've read Arp's books and I would be really interested in seeing how the establishment has come to terms with his observations.

In any case, I think it is particularly revealing of the 'state of the establishment' how Arp's observations were dealt with in the past. His telescope time was revoked, he was ostracized and eventually had to move to Germany to breathe the air of academic freedom.

IF (and I regard that as a BIG if) the establishment has 'explained away' his observations, it still leaves the issue of professional decorum and standards of conduct. Running someone out of town on a rail because he dares publish observations that run contrary to the currently prevailing theory is an extraordinarily poor way to coduct the scientific enterprise. And there is no sign that the establishment has corrected this mentality.

Scott

Big Bang theory is chockfull of bias. Edwin Hubble himself paraded his bias for all to see:







These passages are loaded with emotionally charged words and bias; declaring that ‘…the horror of a unique position’ is ‘intolerable’, ‘unwelcome’ and ‘must be avoided at all costs’. Of course, the horror he felt was due to the metaphysical/theological implications of universe being Earth-centric.

Interesting that despite his book’s title, Observational Approach to Cosmology, he was clearly willing to disregard his observations in favor of his theory.

This is parallel to the ID/Evolution controversy today - though evolutionists will not admit it. Evolutionists are horrified by ID for precisely the same reasons that Hubble was horrified at an Earth-centric universe.

That said, there is nothing wrong with such bias – in fact it is unavoidable. Scientific theories require axioms (i.e. foundational assumptions) to even get off the ground. Such axioms are by definition, unprovable. I don’t see a problem as long as a scientist is upfront about his biases and starting assumptions, as Hubble was. The problem is that most in the establishment do everything in their power to hide their starting assumptions from the public to foster the illusion of objectivity.

Incidentally, this also highlights the inadequacy of science. In many cases, science itself is completely unable to judge which set of axioms/starting assumptions has more relative validity. This is where history, philosophy, metaphysics & theology enter the picture. Science offers, at best, an incomplete picture of reality and must be complimented by other disciplines in order to construct a fully-orbed picture of reality.

Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis clearly layed out the issue where he stated that:


This is an area where I think that Creationists, in general, far outshine their evolutionary counterparts. Creationists are very upfront about their philosophical/metaphysical biases and how they impact their scientific models and theories. Evolutionists, as mentioned above, usually stridently deny their philosophical/metaphysical biases in an attempt to make their theories and models ‘objective’.

In reference to Ellis’ point above, Humphreys, Hartnett, Gentry and others have proposed just such Earth-centric cosmologies. The work of Humphreys and Hartnett in particular are completely consistent with relativity and other relevant science and squarely address the light-travel time issue.



The term ‘unbounded’ refers to the supposed lack of boundaries for the universe. In other words, there are no ‘edges’ and thus, no center. If the universe has:

-Zero curvature; the universe could be envisioned as a infinite, flat plane.

-Positive curvature: the universe could be envisioned as a infinite plane warped back onto itself as a ‘hyper-sphere’. In this picture, the 3D space of the universe would be analogous to the 2D surface of an inflated balloon. This option makes it possible to have a finite universe that is nevertheless 'unbounded'.

-Negative curvature: the universe could be envisioned as a infinite plane warped into a saddle-shape.

Nobody ran him out of town. Arp lost his telescope time because his theory just doesn't work as well as the Big Bang. Telescope time is precious and they don't just dish it out if there isn't a very good reason. A steady, stable, infinite universe just doesn't fit what is seen. The problems he once thought existed with quasars being intrinsic objects have, under scrutiny from the telescopes developed over the last 50 years, have turned out to be non-existent.



"Of course"? Why of course? I read it as meaning that an Earth-centric model throws up too many scientific problems, not ethical/metaphysical ones.

As for the rest...the Big Bang is based on maths and the readily accepted laws of physics. It's the simplest model that works. That's why I accept it as the most likely model for now.

But as I said, it's not my field, so I remain well aware of my limitations in understanding.

Here’s the bottom line response to the OP. I've ignored some of the strawman claims such as having to see light slowing over the last 50 years.

Summary

The long agers have the SAME problem, called the “horizon” problem. Their solution, the inflation theory, if true would be the SAME solution for the YEC view. Long agers can’t have it both ways.

In addition, there are several competing secular theories out there to explain the horizon problem that require the speed of light to have been very fast at the beginning. Again, this also would solve the YEC problem. You can’t have it both ways!

See the penultimate paragraph of this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light

Fred

As I understand the history, Arp was treated poorly for persistetly proclaiming his observations: primarily the fact that Quasars of immense redshift are physically connected, and observably so, to other stellar objects of low redshift. This calls the standard interpretation of redshift (as a distance indicator) into serious question. In turn, this casts substantial doubt on the Big Bang, as the standard intrepretation of redshifts are absolutely foundational to Big Bang cosmology.

Arp's adherence to Steady State Theory is separable from his observations. Steady State theory provides an interpretation of his observations. Arp's observations hold regardless of how one interprets them.

Again, can you provide references where the scientific community has successfully accounted for Arp's observations with the Big Bang model? Where have his observations been proven to be 'non-existant'?


Read Hubble's quotes again. He refers to the observations that indicate a 'favored position'. He objects to that because it conflicted with his theory, which postulates homogeneity.
He later states, 'This hypothesis [of a favored position] cannot be disproved, but it is unwelcome and would only be accepted as a last resort in order to save the phenomena.
Tell me where you see mention of the scientific problems. My reading of Hubble is confirmed by the Ellis quote; where Ellis explicitly states that there are no observations in conflict with an Earth-centric universe but that, '[y]ou can only exclude it on philosophical grounds.



I refer you, as others already have, to http://cosmologystatement.org. The model has scads of problems that are virutally ignored by the establishment.

Most of the observations that lend strength to the big bang theory blow the YEC theory straight out of the water. You cannot reconsile the big bang theory against scripture unless you are will to interpret Genesis very differently from the way Baptist Christians will interpret it.

I think you have only been reading the evolutionist's POV in this thread. Which observations for the Big Bang 1) support the big bang, 2) blow YEC out of the water?

Fred

I would have thought that the evidence that the universe is expanding and therefore must have been smaller in the past would have been enough. None of this is mentioned in Genesis.

If God would have explained everything, how huge would the bible be. And could anyone read it within their life-time? Plus, who back then could have understood it if it were to have all that scientific information?

Books not understood would have been discarded. Books that big would have been to much trouble to preserve. Or rewrite. Or translate into other languages.

As far as expansion goes. The creation started with earth and moved outward.

Heaven (universe) just big enough to contain the earth. Then the sun and moon. Then the stars. That is a flow chart of an expanding universe. Start in one spot, then move outward.

Not "directly" in Genesis, but if you consider:

GEN 1:6 ¶ Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
GEN 1:7 And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
GEN 1:8 And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

with,

ISA 42:5 ¶ Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk in it,

ISA 45:12 "It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands, And I ordained all their host.

ISA 51:13 That you have forgotten the Lord your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens, And laid the foundations of the earth; That you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, As he makes ready to destroy? But where is the fury of the oppressor?

JER 10:12 ¶ It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.

JER 51:15 ¶ It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom, And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.

then its pretty obvious that the Bible claims that the universe has expanded in the past.

Terry

I'm wary of accepting history that basically amounts to Arp claiming that he was denied telescope time whilst the rest of the faculty claimed that cherry-picking bits of the sky that agreed with your hypothesis, isn't good use of the reources.



How can it be seperate when it is a consequence of his claim that red-shift isn't a sign that the Universe is expanding?



I'll keep looking for a paper, but I'm not sure anyone's bothered. The various sky surveys since 1977 have pretty much backed the standard interpretation of red-shift.



Hubble's early work shows us he didn't want an expanding Universe. Einstein didn't want one either. In fact a lot of the scientific community wasn't too keen because it smacked too much of a "Creation moment". Lamaitre was a staunch Christian and was only too pleased by the Big Bang model for that reason. So I'm rather puzzled as to why any creationist would back a model that has anything to do with Steady State!



I'd have to say, "so what"? I don't think there are "scads of problems", though there are some. There are far fewer than there are for the other models. Throw Big Bang out and you have to throw General Relativity out with it.

But the current state of the universe doesn't reflect that. From what we observe of the cosmos there is no way things could have occured they way you say they have.

Also, 92g. The passages you have cited talk about the sky, not the void.

Arp has catalouged a huge number of such anomalous observations and published them in his Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations. This isn't just a handful of 'cherry-picked' observations.


His claim is NOT that the universe isn't expanding. In fact, the Steady State theory has incorporated expansion into its model from the beginning. In the early days of Steady State theory, Hoyle et. al postulated that fresh matter was continually being created. They had to propose this since; 1) they acknowledged that the universe was expanding, and 2) if the universe was expanding, Steady State theory demanded that the density remain constant (i.e. steady)

The 'quasars ejecting fresh matter' theory (based on his observations) has simply provided Arp with a device for how the density of the universe stays constant.

(disclaimer: I do not believe in the Steady State theory).

Arp's main claim in this regard is that red-shifts are not necessarily distance-indicators. This is a completely different issue, but equally fatal to the Big Bang. As William Kaufmann once wrote:




Then how can you claim that:

???

Arp's observations are very solid. That's not to say they cannot be disproven, but 'if no one's bothered', you can't really claim they have been dealt with.

(I'm assuming your point about 'quasars being intrinsic objects' refers to Arp's contention that the redshift of quasars are intrinsic. Correct me if I'm wrong)


Again, Arp's observations are separable from his adherence to Steady State theory. In fact, creationary cosmologist John Hartnett has incorporated Arp's observations into his own cosmological model - which is anything but Steady State. Here is one of his papers:

The Heavens Declare a Different Story!
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1657

He has published many papers since (not yet publicly available) that extend this work.

Further, Lamaitre being staunch Christian doesn't make him necessarily correct on his cosmology.

That's a load of crap greyhound. First, as you pointed out Einstein didn't want an expanding universe and yet saw no conflict between a static universe and his GR. Second, both Humphreys and Hartnett (to name two) have constructed creationary cosmologies (which are substanially different for the Big Bang) based solidly on GR. GR is not at all dependant upon The Big Bang for its validity.

Indeed they are a handful compared to the number out there. The 2002 survey pretty much destroyed Arp's findings anyway. It didn't find the associations he needed.



All of which backs my point about BB being a much more elegant answer to the problem.



I'm not sure quite what your objection is at this point.



They're not solid. The 2dF survey pretty much destroyed redshift quantization.



I'm not sure if you're wrong or right. I'll presume you're right. In that case Tang and Zhang (2005) used the 2dF and another survey from 2000 - present day and came to the conclusion that there was no evidence for intrinsic redshift models. The fact remians that Arp could be right but the evidence is against him as it stands.



That wasn't the point. The point was that he wasn't using atheistic prejudice to come up with his theory.



Einstein was so concerned about the fact that GR demanded a BB model that he introduced the cosmological constant - he later described that as the biggest mistake of his life...

Details please. Are there any papers applying the results of the 2002 survey to Arp's observations?


Your statement that '...quasars being intrinsic objects...' didn't make sense. Arp's point here is that quasars have intrinsic redshifts. Thus my question.


I'll see if I can track down Tang and Zhang (2005). Do you know if they apply their findings to Arp's observations? Assuming your point (no evidence for intrinsic redshift models) that still leaves at least one problem unresolved. Arp has also documented that high redshift quasars are physically linked to low redshift objects (such as galaxies). It is here that the redshift-distance relationship is called into question. This problem is independant of whether or not the redshifts are quantized.


Einstein inserted the constant because he assumed (and preferred) a static universe and he needed the constant to acheive that. As I understand it GR, absent such a constant, implies an expanding or contracting universe. However, an expanding/contracting universe does not equal the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is much more than expansion. There is also the fact it is assumed that there are no edges and thus no center to the universe (the famous 'Cosmological Principal'). See quotes from Hubble & Ellis above.

In fact, two secular scientists, mathematicians Joel Smoller and Blake Temple, in a 2003 PNAS paper proposed a 'Whitehole cosmology' similar in many respects to that of Russell Humpreys' creationary cosmology (published in 1994). In Smoller & Temple's cosmology, as in Humphreys', the 'Cosmological Constant' (which is foundational to the Big Bang) is explicitly rejected. All this despite the fact that both Humphreys and Smoller & Temple employ GR in their models.

ICR article: http://www.icr.org/article/2997/

Smolin & Temple's paper:

PNAS page link: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/2...ourcetype=HWCIT

PNAS pdf link: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/20/112...ourcetype=HWCIT

Please provide some substantiation that GR is dependent upon the Big Bang for it's validity.

Terry & Ikester hit this on the head, but what you seem to be missing is that your own explanation (inflation) for your own problem (the horizon problem), equally would explain the YEC problem and fits with the scripture verses that touch on it (streching out the heavens).

Why could God not have "Streched out the heavens" such that it gives the same observations (redshifts, expanding universe) attributed to your very own inflation theory used to explain your own speed of light problem ?

I hope it is clear your claim that "YEC is thown out of the water by an expanding universe that was smaller in the past" itself has been thrown out of the water.

Fred

A few more points:

- it was the CMB that killed the Steady State theory, not cosmomlogical expansion.

- speaking of quantized redshifts in general (as opposed to those associated with quasars), there is more than just Arp to contend with. Tifft & Cocke (1984) observed that all redshifts tend to be quantized. I don't think that his paper was controversial (I could be wrong). Here is a link to Humphreys' paper on this:

Our galaxy is the centre of the universe, ‘quantized’ redshifts show
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1570/

His paper discusses and cites several of Tifft's papers.

- Quantized redshifts, in and of themselves, do not call into question the redshift/distance relationship. Such redshifts would be interpreted with the Big Bang paradigm as indicating that stars/galaxies 'clump' at the indicated distances.

Wrong. Here's Genesis 1:14-15:

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

Needless to say, it makes more sense to say the stars and such are in interstellar space, not the sky.

In his book Starlight & Time, Humphreys makes a very persuasive case that the expanse is interstellar space.

I doubt it. Nobody else got the results Arp did. He's such a marginal figure that it'd be a waste of time writing a paper essentially just saying 'the survey shows no evidence of quantized redshift, it just looks like the initial interpretation of the data was right'. No-one's going to win a Nobel prize for that.



You're quite right. Sloppy writing on my part. I was talking about steady state vs expanding Universe.



Not sure I understand you. 'Cosmological Constant' foundational to BB? Are you talking about quantum field theory, cosmic acceleration or somesuch?

Again, assuming your point here, this doesn't completely dispense with Arp. Equally important, if not more so (at least in my opion), is his observations that high redshift quasars are physically connected to low redshift galaxies. This calls the reliability of the redshift/distance relationship into question, which has direct bearing on the validity of the Big Bang (regardless of how one makes sense of the observations).



My mistake. I meant the 'Cosmological Principal', not the constant. Sorry about that.

This isn't the claim that the quasars and galaxies are linked by gaseous bridges is it? That's been rather soundly thrown out.

May I ask where this is going? Are we moving towards a Universe with us at the centre? Or a Universe that isn't as old? Or both? As per relativity, wouldn't any standpoint look like the centre of the Universe?

The fact that Humphreys, Smoller and Temple use GR in their hypotheses doesn't seem relevant. Einstein used it in a steady state model and it is now used in the BB model. They can't both be true. The trouble with white holes is...where's the evidence? Humphreys quite obviously takes a 6000 year old Universe as a starting point and shoehorns his physics into it.

That is what I am talking about. Do you have any references for your assertion that it has been '...rather soundly thrown out'? Here is a 2005 article by John Hartnett that details such a case: http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2679


As to 'where this is going': I jumped in earlier to support the point made by a previous poster that there is bias inherent in the Big Bang and it went from there.
Humphreys. Hartnett and Gentry have all proposed 'Milky Way galcto-centric' relativistic cosmologies, with Earth near the center of the universe. There are observations that support this hypothesis:

New evidence for a rotating cosmos :
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3845

More on the ‘Rotating Cosmos’!
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3846

Addtionally, the cosmologies of both Humphreys and Hartnett result in Gravitational Time Dilation (a well tested relativistic effect, distinct from Velocity Time Dilation). The upshot of this point is that the universe is young as measured in 'Earth Time', while it is billions of years old in 'Cosmological Time'. But that's all beside my original point.


This is where I think you have a misunderstanding. Relativity does not imply or demand that '...any standpoint look like the centre of the Universe'. This is the 'Cosmological Principal' that I mentioned earlier; it is also the 'homogeneity' postulated by Hubble in the quote above.

Hubble wrote:


Hubble understood that his observations implied that Earth was at the center of the universe - and that 'horrified' him. Therefore he retreated to the 'Cosmological Principal' in order to 'restore homogeneity' - in other words, to make sure everything is everywhere the same. That way, it looks like you're in the center no matter where you are.


It is relevant to my point that GR does not demand a boundless universe (one without a unique center and edges). I cite the above to point out that if GR does imply such, there are scientists (and their peer-reviewers), both secular and otherwise, who are unaware of it.


The Big Bang postulates that the universe began as a black hole which exploded (for some unknown reason via some unknow mechanism). Where is the evidence that a black hole can just suddenly explode. What are the mechanisms?


Wrong. Humphreys demostrates very clearly in his book that his Whitehole Cosmology (or something like it) is an inevitable consequence of his assumption of a bounded universe (one with a center and edges) and the equations of GR. Likewise, he points out that the Big Bang is an inevitable consequence of the assumption of an unbounded universe and the equations of GR. The difference is all made on the front end with the initial (and necessary) assumptions.

The question is: which set of assumptions is more valid? As Ellis (see above quote) states, such a question is philosophical as opposed to scientific.

Among the things that the 2002 survey supposedly proved was that the famous 'luminous bride' in NGC 4319/Mrk 205 is non-existent. Both Arp and colleague Dr. Jack Sulentic responded at the time.

- Arp's response here: http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/rebuttals;

- Sulentic's response here: http://uanews.ua.edu/oct02/astro100802.htm.

Here are 3 pics of these objects; the 2nd one is an Isophotal image and the 3rd is a false color image.



Arp:


Not so impressive. (Arp's response includes pics).



I couldn't access Tang and Zhang (2005) (need subscription), but here's the link to the page with their abstract:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/r...5037283169Guest

Abstract:


I was able to find and access a paper by Bell and McDiarmid (2006). Here's the link: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603169.

It is largely responding to Tang and Zhang (2005) and they do a very thorough job of making their case. Some excerpts:



I'm not saying that this is the final word, I'm sure it's not. It is to say that the issue is not settled; Arp and his observations are far from obsolete.

Anyone interested in Arp can go to his site: http://www.haltonarp.com/

Here's a link to an online gallery of 'Arp's Objects': http://338arps.com/

To how we understand time, you would be right on that issue. But time during creation, without the curse of death is eternal time.

Eternal time = time with no death, and aging (aging is the path to death). Eternal time also has no birth. Nothing is born into eternal time because birth is the begining of a time-line that requires aging, then death. This is why all things in eternal time have to be created. Because when there is no birth (nothing is born), how else are things going to come to be unless they are created?

Birth vs creation:

Now since it is understood that nothing can be birthed into eternal time. Now to understand the creation even further. Things being created and not birthed also affect the time-line of age as we know it. This is why everything during the first 6 days of creation is out of the time-line of 6,000 years.

What was created in the 6 days that does not fit in the 6,000 year time-line?

1) Earth.
2) The solar system.
3) The universe.
4) The first life of everything created.

Time with no aging process requires a creation to where age is already added. Why? Want to be born an infant and never grow up? This is why God's word refers to things that sound funny because they do not go along with the current time-line, as we would understand. Eternal time for the first 6 days is what makes this sound this way.

Example:
Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Here we have "generations" being spoke of when how many days have actually past? About 6 or 7 days, correct? So where does generations come from, when that many days have not passed to make them?

Notice the verse does not say: Generations of man, or any other living thing. It says: Generations of the heavens (universe) and of the earth (our planet), when they were created. So generations of age were a part of the creation when they were created. But the verse even repeats itself in another way for better understanding. Not only does it say when they were created, but: in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

What this means is that because things cannot be birthed into eternal time. On the first day of creation, the earth was created with generations of time already added. Why? When could life ever exist on a earth birthed in eternal time that would never age, and never cool down?

ps 102:25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

How can you lay a foundation of old the same time you lay it, inless age is already added to this foundation?

ps 82:5 They know not, neither will they und