The billions of years “believer”?
Science isn’t a master
But if all the other physical attributes changed, then there should still be evidence. Astronomers are a very clever bunch, and have been measuring physical constants in Galaxies that are millions of light years away from us. For your hypothesis to be correct, we should be able to detect a change in at least some of those constants. Yet, aside from a possible tiny change in the fine structure constant billions of years ago, there is no evidence that any of the physical constants have changed since the Universe was more than a few seconds old.
You know, I know some priests who also happen to be scientists who are going to be very suprised that they worship science. Further, my curosity about the Universe is hardly Godless. The wonders of our Universe always make me ponder God and the glories he has given us.
Free will is not about what is and is not obvious. The reality of God was perfectly obvious to Satan and the other fallen angels, and indeed they all believe in God, but they did not trust in God nor in his mercy and love. Free will is not about belief, it is about the choices you make when you know the truth. Its about the rich man who knew the reality of Lazerus’s suffering yet did not feed him.It is not about deceiving. It’s about free will. If it were obvious that God created the universe then there wouldn’t be any room for free will regarding the question of Believing into God or not, everyone then would have a proof for believing.
Results in science are never absolute, they are always tentative. However, science tells us alot about the past. I can look up in the sky and if it is dark enough, without a telescope, I can see light from stars more than 2 million light years away. In a very real sense I am looking into the far past.
Why did the Universe have to be created looking old? The Universe actually looks relatively young comapred to its estimated life span. Its roughly 15 billions years old and stars are expected to burn for 100 billion more years. Further the proofs of a young Earth, at least the ones I have seen, are decidedly less than compelling.But even approximating today’s physical attributes to the past, one can get many proofs of young earth universe, as the young earth creationists show, but of course these question are the ones which godless scientist would like to avoid and ignore.
In order to be self sustainable the universe of course had to be created “looking old”, so also first man Adam had to be created as an adult, rather then a helpless infant.
Sources?
One needs to be careful about citing such sources for a couple of reasons. The first is that the general media love to sensationalize science. The second is that the published results of a single experiment are not enough to prove anything. That experiement has to be repeatable by others and in this case, all other explinations would have to also be ruled out. Like the fine structure constant, the results are interesting, but at this time hardly compelling enough to overturn current ideas about cosmology. Finally of course, when they talk about the speed of light being faster in the past, they are talking about in the far remote past, not thousands or millions of years in the past, but likely more than 10 billion years in the past.
Yes God could do it that way if he wants, but the question is why? Why create a universe that looks billions of years old if it is only 10,000 years old? What God can do, and what God does are two entirely different things. I have yet to see anyone offer a compelling reason why God would create a Universe that looks far older than it actually is.
Actually, I think you are reading way too much into the possibility that the speed of light was faster in the past. While the concept does allow us a big bang cosmology that allows the creation of the Universe to occur without the icky inflationary period (A period where the Universe was literally expanding faster than the speed of light) it also doesn’t answer all the questions that inflation does. Nor does it allow enough time for the Universe to evolve from being remarkably flat to the clumpy nature that it has today.
It’s not a God issue, it’s a we issue. We perceive it to be old through our limited scientific observations. We look back in time linearly, when in fact it may be exponential in fact. Our science is currently based on light speed being a constant so it comes as no surprise to me that our theories all are bounded by it.
Actually our science, and our belief that the Universe is old is based on a wide variety of different things. It would require more than one of those ideas being overturned.
I would say that it is time to let the cosmologists go to work. Keep in mind, that Davies’ research does not suggest a young age to the Universe, rather is suggests that in the very early Universe, the Universe as it was billions of years ago, that the speed of light might have been faster than it is now. It would have no appreciable impact on the concept that the Earth is 4.5 billions of years old.
These clever guys actually do find all the time observations which don’t fit into their theories, or big-bang theories. Every new discovery they make rises new questions, while old questions are accumulating. These clever bunch of guys may be smart, but only few of them are trying to figure out the big picture, while most of them are occupied with specific tasks for which it is a non-issue how old the universe actually is. And the ones who are trying to put the puzzles together of course have lots of troubles. What is actually the main argument for billon of years universe? Speed of light?
These guys are smart but at the same time so blind.
It is of course granted that only some Astronomers are working on issues that are directly relevant to this topic, as that is true of any broad based subject. It is ultimately an irrelevant objection. Yes, new observations lead to new questions; this is the nature of scientific inquirey. It is also true that the current theories are a little rough, but theories a little rough. They get refined over time and if necessary are overturned by observation.These clever guys actually do find all the time observations which don’t fit into their theories, or big-bang theories. Every new discovery they make rises new questions, while old questions are accumulating. These clever bunch of guys may be smart, but only few of them are trying to figure out the big picture, while most of them are occupied with specific tasks for which it is a non-issue how old the universe actually is. And the ones who are trying to put the puzzles together of course have lots of troubles. What is actually the main argument for billon of years universe? Speed of light?
I hope you do realize that these questions are not nearly as vexing as you seem to indicate. There were more greenhouse gasses free in the atmosphere on the early earth than there is now, thus resolving that pardox. Modern studies sugget that the Moon was formed when a large Mars size planetismal collided with the early proto-earth… In any case, the lack of the answer to some questions does not necessarily invalidate the whole theory.
Big Bang Cosmology is still around almost 80 years after it was first proposed by Rev Georges Lemaître (A Roman Catholic Priest!) because it answers alot more questions about the Early Universe than any other theory… except for those specific theories that are developments from it (specifically inflationary theory).A short citation from www.answersingenesis.org:
“Big bang cosmology is probably as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in the history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and in some cases untestable, assumptions. Indeed, big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.”
Unfortunately the Kolbe Center includes the same old arguments against evolution that have been refuted by scientists again and again. In addition it contains some blatently inaccurate statements about what science says about origins.
Well, obviously I’m in no position to say the Catholic view but I think there are serious theological problems to believing in evolution. When did the soul enter the human (whenever that officially appeared) body? What is the point in baptism to removed original sin if original sin never happened? Why did God create humanity is such a cruel way?
There are no theological problems with evolution if you understand that science doesn’t deal with the supernatural. None of those questions can be dealt with in science.
Sure, anyone can interpret the evidence anyway they choose. However, if the interpretation isn’t backed by solid science, it isn’t accepted by the scientific community. I can believe that fossils really are just animals that crawled into the rock and died within the last 10 years, but if I don’t have solid scientific reasons for believing that, my interpretation won’t be given any credence, and rightfully so.
So is all of science. God isn’t part of any scientific theory and the bible isn’t a science book. Does that make all of science non-sensical?
Not at all. In fact, that statement is only true if one doesn’t understand science. There isn’t ANY scientific evidence that can be better explained by the Genesis version of creation than by science.
