The speed of light, stars, and YEC?

[Whateverist]

No I am sorry, "I use the laws of logic because I like the results." does nothing to account for their existence.

So you're asking me to account for why everything in the universe is the way it is?

Come on you guys. We can't just leave the universe to its own devices. If we fail to account for the poor universe, it and we may just go out of existence! Who knew that explaining could be so powerful?

[JudgeDracoAmunRa]

One thing I am curious to know though is if you have a star that is 5 million light years away and we are seeing the light from it now how in the world can people say the earth was made 6,000 - 15,000 years ago? I have heard that people believe God created the light inbetween so we could see them or the idea that 6,000 - 15,000 years ago the speed of light wasn't the constant that it is now.

Oh not this old chestnut again. Let me ask you something very simple. How does science know for a fact that the light we're seeing now was actually emitted from the star you claim it was emitted from?

Science doesn't know that as a fact yet. Science assumes that the light we're seeing now was emitted by these very distant stars.

---

Is this seriously the best arguments that YEC has to offer?

If Genesis isn't literal, there was no literal fall from grace. No fall from grace means no need for Jesus to redeem us on the cross. No Jesus on the cross means no Christianity. Game. Set. Match.

That's all very well, but your argument is based on an if.

"What if" Genesis is literal. Game, set, match to the Christians I reckon.

That kind of "what if" argument not only works both ways, but it also fails both ways.

[The Grand Nudger]

Genesis didn't happen, and while it may be meant to be taken literally or metaphorically, this has nothing to do with it's factual accuracy. You can attach as many "what if"-s as you like, won't change a thing.

[Minimalist]

"What if" Genesis is literal. Game, set, match to the Christians I reckon.

Well....the Jews.


You gotta admit nothing would piss the jesus freaks off more than that!

[Jackalope]

One thing I am curious to know though is if you have a star that is 5 million light years away and we are seeing the light from it now how in the world can people say the earth was made 6,000 - 15,000 years ago? I have heard that people believe God created the light inbetween so we could see them or the idea that 6,000 - 15,000 years ago the speed of light wasn't the constant that it is now.

Oh not this old chestnut again. Let me ask you something very simple. How does science know for a fact that the light we're seeing now was actually emitted from the star you claim it was emitted from?

Science doesn't know that as a fact yet. Science assumes that the light we're seeing now was emitted by these very distant stars.

We know this by virtue of the fact that we can see them.

Do you have an alternate explanation?

[Zen Badger]

I see Statler hs run off again.

Probably still waiting for god to tell him how to smite all those evil atheists.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then we can expect a brilliant post from him in what..about 40 years? That's SOP for this sort of thing right?

[Darwinning]

The idea that every trait _must_ have some sort of survival advantage is patently false. As long as the trait does not pose (too great) a disadvantage to the survival rate of the species it can arise and persist.

Sorry, I think you are the one who is misguided on this one. This may be the case for very small and insignificant traits, but if the trait is anything significant the organism would have to devote time and energy into developing and preserving it which would be a huge disadvantage. So the religious belief in God had to provide an evolutionary advantage or else it would have not been selected for.

First you say I am misguided and then you repeat my point. Awesome.

You are assuming both that "developing and preserving" religious tendencies provides a huge disadvantage to an organism and that the trait from which these tendencies result does not off-set those disadvantages. I do not think that this is necessarily the case and therefore do not agree with your conclusion.

In this view, theists are simply suffering from the some of the side-effects of the evolution of our species. How ironic.

In my view atheists are less developed according to the very theory they champion, which is also ironic.

You believe God did not create humans believing in Him, so they had to evolve this trait?

I think I agree with that. Nothing wrong with pretending light particles move a different speeds for different observers; even if it seems a bit silly to me.

No more silly than pretending it moves at different speeds dependent on the observer's velocity like Einstein proposed. A lot of this stuff is not intuitive.

I may be an idiot about this stuff, but I'm pretty sure that is not what Einstein proposed.

This may be the case for the ASC convention, but certainly not for the ASC model. Occam's razor should apply to the model and its predictions.

It's not a model though, it's a convention. The trick is figuring out which convention of time measurement Genesis uses.

Did you miss this part?

The anisotropic synchrony convention is just that—a convention. It is not a scientific model; it does not make testable predictions. It is a convention of measurement and cannot be falsified any more than the metric system can be falsified. However, I have made an argument in this paper that the Bible uses the ASC system. This claim is in principle falsifiable, though of course I have argued that it is true. Furthermore, given the information in Genesis and the inference that the Bible does use ASC, we can construct a cosmology that does make testable predictions. I will refer to this as the "ASC model".

I frankly couldn't care less about what system of measurement your book uses. Perhaps you also want to argue that where it says "God" they actually meant it as an abbreviation of "Godzilla"?

But this "testable predictions" bit sounds interesting.

Spontaneous star formation vs. spontaneous supreme being formation (a being which subsequently creates the universe). I think Occam's razor serves us well here; the former requires far fewer assumptions than the latter.

I think the latter actually requires fewer assumptions.

I think "God exists" is a Pretty Big Assumption. To explain the unexplained, you call into being something all-powerful and all-knowing that is likewise unexplained.

Like solving your debt problems by maxing out your creditcards to pay off debt. It doesn't work.

So, if I assume God exists and no model for the formation of blue stars is ever found, I will have "a strong confirmation of the ASC model". Not the kind of evidence I was looking for, really. Lack of evidence or theory for the formation of blue stars does not equate to proof of creation. That's just silly. Again, Occam is our friend.

Did you mist the whole part where he was pointing out that the numbers and locations of blue stars we do observe are consistent with ASC?

No, I did not. I'll quote a bit more of that piece to help you.

If blue stars do not form, then their presence in any region of space suggests that that region was created in the recent past. Blue stars are ubiquitous in our galaxy, and are apparently in the most distant spiral galaxies as well. This is a strong confirmation of the ASC model. The fact that numerous blue stars exist at all distances is consistent with a universe that is thousands of years old at all distances as we now see it.

If [unexplained event cannot be explained] then [God].

[Darwinning]

Evolution is a process which can be (and has been) proven to occur. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_evolution#Specific_examples]

No, that's micro-evolutoin through natural selection which is accepted and was even first developed by creationists (Blythe). If you are going to believe all life on Earth originates from a single common ancestor (the portion of evolution creationists object to) you are going to have to provide more than this.

(Can't believe I missed this in my initial response.)

I'm glad you accept the fact of evolution. Disappointed to see you use the term micro-evolution completely out of context. Read this.

Please don't confuse evolution with the theory of universal common descent. They are not the same thing, although there is ample evidence for both.

I have presented a mechanism (evolution, which you apparently accept) through which species can change and adapt and pose that this same mechanism (given enough time) could result in the diversity of life we see. Evidence from comparative physiology, biochemistry and anatomy, paleontology, geographical distribution, observed natural selection, observed speciation, artificial selection and computation and mathematical iteration seems to support this.

I would say that if you are going to argue against these things, it is you who will have to provide more proof than you have.

I'll just leave this here also. Interesting.

[Minimalist]

Waldork has been driven off...or carted off by the men in the white coats...for the time being.





He needs a couple of thousand watts to fix his brain.