The universe appears "old", but it is still less than 10,000 years old

[Statler Waldorf]

I think you know who.

Seems rather childish to me.

You have been arguing for a young universe (or Earth, whatever) based on your interpretation that the speed of light (one-way, whatever) is not a constant.

No, I argue for a young Earth based on what scripture tells us. I am merely pointing out that the fact that we can see stars cannot be used to argue against that timeline.

Here you are admitting that the velocity of light (be it two-way, or whatever - what we use in equations determining the standard candle) is a constant in a vacuum. This is an important admission since you cannot make this admission and then come to the conclusion that the universe is young. Hence my statement below:

Not the velocity the speed, the velocity changes in the two-way speed of light experiments. I am not sure what you are getting at. Standard candles are used to determine distance not age.

So you are saying that you admit that the universe cannot be young. Is this a breakthrough? Or what? Do you want to rephrase your earlier bullshite statements, or what?

Again, you seem to be conflating distance with age. Nothing you have mentioned would be unexpected in an young created Universe.

Such as?

Well if it really is dependent upon how long the clock is at the different position then your experiment would not detect a difference between the two systems. Not only this, but the dilation could be due to the changing of initial frames rather than velocity or position.

Yeah, I get that. But it doesn't change the fact that if the world is less then 2.6 million years old, then Lisle's model predicts we should still be able to witness these "peekaboo" galaxies (not to mention seasonal doppler shifts, etc..) that are the very reason that he rejects ESC in the first place. It appears to be a necessary consequence of his argument (whether he realises it or not) that the accuracy of the biblical depiction of creation is subject to convention and can be stipulated. That would amount to saying that Genesis 1 is absolutely accurate - as long as you interpret it correctly.

At the same time, if the Universe is 14 billion years old we should be seeing anything that is farther than 14.026 billion light years away pop in and out of view every six months if ESC is stipulated and we do not observe this to happen to the best of my knowledge. It really is the conventionality of simultaneity; we stipulate how we consider events to be simultaneous.

On the contrary, the over-riding factor is still the duration of the alternate reference frame. Unless you're saying the positional time dilation is also subject to the rate of change, but that sounds rather like a change in relative velocity

No I am saying that since the second clock is taking more time the duration that it undergoes positional dilation is greater than the first clock’s duration. I may try to write AIG and ask them this question because I am intrigued now.

True, but meteorologists aren't saying that the rising and setting of the sun is an objective fact. I've never heard anyone claim that the solar system must be geocentric because of the weather forecast. I'm unaware of anyone being declared apostate because they disagree with the weather forecast. The biblical account of creation is taken to be objective, inerrant fact.

I am not aware of anyone who argues for this. The Bible can be inherent and still use such language. Given the fact that absolute motion does not exist I think it is unfounded to suggest the Bible is somehow wrong by using such language.

Why not? It's the inerrant word of god! Are you suggesting that god's loyal followers would dismiss a biblical claim merely because they hadn't witnessed it themselves?

Sorry, I was referring to unbelievers, not believers. Nobody would be persuaded by it is what I meant.

Evidence such as? I've seen creationists attempt to discredit evidence of an old earth/universe, but what positive evidence is there for a young earth/universe?

I’ll give you an example. If you had argued in the late 1980s that it would be possible to find soft tissue and proteins in dinosaur fossils you would have been laughed out of the room. The fact that we had never found any such thing was considered strong evidence supporting the notion that dinosaur fossils were millions of years old. Based on the empirical evidence such tissue degraded far too quickly to ever be found in fossils older than a million years. Then in the mid-1990s surprise! Soft tissue and proteins were found in dinosaur fossils. Not only this, but now it seems that they are found whenever we actually look for them. Rather than arriving at the obvious conclusion (such fossils must be younger than a million years old) the old Earth community simply said, “Well I guess DNA can last for 65 million years.” They can always come up with an ad hoc means of saving their paradigm.

I was referring to the humans.

I think Genesis merely describes things from the perspective of where the Humans live.

Well that of course assumes that the biblical account is inerrant. If that's the case, then in addition all my previous objections, why do the flood stories from different cultures mention different survivors? Did god kill everyone (except noah & friends) or not? Why do some flood myths mention people retreating to mountains in order to survive? These other floods myths are often used as evidence of the noachian flood, but if other people survived it then the biblical account is wrong. If you don't think these other global floods actually happened then they can't be used to back up the biblical claim and you then have to show why those floods can be dismissed while the noachian flood is to be taken as fact.

These people are all descendants of the eight survivors of the Genesis flood. What you are seeing are corrupted accounts of the same event. Since these accounts were not divinely preserved unlike the account in Genesis we would expect differences because people change stories as they pass them down. I will give you an example. After the Titanic incident there were people who swore the boat broke into two pieces while in the process of sinking. There were other people who swore that the boat stayed intact all the way down (we know the ship broke we just do not know when). Now this is a huge discrepancy seen in people who experienced the event themselves. Now compare this with people 20 generations out from an event and you’d expect great differences in the stories. There are some very significant similarities in the flood accounts though. One of the Australian accounts is very similar to the Genesis account (Gajara was told to build a vessel for himself, his wife, his sons and their wives. The flood covered the highest mountain tops. He released birds to see when land was available. They made an offering to God after the flood. God placed a rainbow in the sky to prevent future flooding.); yet aborigines are supposed to have been isolated as a people group for a very long period of time.

If, on the other hand, these other myths are referring to different floods, then why does the bible not tell about these other global floods? If they occured but were not the noachian flood then the biblical account is wrong - unless of course god lied.

People are fallible and therefore stories change as they are passed down.

---

OM,

I submitted a letter to AIG asking about your proposed experiment. I have had very good luck in the past getting responses from them so let's hope!

-SW