Posted on 08/24/2009 9:23:30 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Yep. What they are saying, for the waves idea to be true, either we are at or near the center of a local wave in a much larger Universe, or we are actually at or near the center of the Universe.
I’m not quite sure where you are going with that.
An enlightened perspective—thank you. It’s a rare treat to read words of real faith on one of these threads.
Now, let’s see.
We’re near the center of expanding universe, using telescopes that can locate objects millions of light years away.
Yet, Earth is only 6000 years old
Hmmm! How does one reconcile the concept??
I believe that the Genesis account is literally true but I don't take it in a hyper-literal sense. When Jesus said he was the door, I don't take it to mean that he is made of wood and has a handle.
Please note that the young-earthers are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and the disagreements we have are trivial compared to our agreements.
One of the big problems is the young-earth creationist claim that the Hebrew word yom must mean a literal 24-hour day even though there are numerous instances in the Bible where it obviously does not mean a 24-hour day. Genesis 2:4 even uses the word yom to describe the entire creation week!
Worse, Hebrew does have not an indefinite article as English does. The indefinite article is implied when the definite article is absent. Literal translations interpret the days of creation something like this: "Evening, morning, day second." The Bible does not "the second day," as it is often translated.
Genesis 2:4 uses the definite article with yom [ha-yom], which is literally translated "the day," even though it refers to the entire creation "week."
These [are] births of the heavens and of the earth in their being prepared, in the day of Jehovah God's making earth and heavens...(Genesis 2:4, Young's Literal Translation)Thus, when young-earth creationists claim that the Genesis creation story must refer to 24-hour days, even a first-year Hebrew student (which is all I had) can point out that the creation story itself is not consistent with the notion of yom meaning a 24-hour day.
Finally, we have the problem of God's general revelation as shown to us through his creation. God does not lie through his specific revelation (the Bible), nor does he lie to us through his creation.
I am a scientist, and scientists can certainly be wrong or driven by an agenda. However, we have research by many thousands of scientists in many different fields over more than 100 years whose experiments show us that the earth and the universe are much, much older than 6,000 years. The measurements have gotten better as equipment and technology have improved. The current best measurements suggest that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the universe is about 14 billion years old.
To sum it up, there is nothing in God's Bible to suggest that the earth is 6,000 years old and there is nothing in God's creation to suggest that the earth is 6,000 years old. Unfortunately, scientists and theologians of dubious credentials have offered up proofs to suggest otherwise but their proofs never stand up to good scholarship.
And that “anywhere” includes planets throughout the cosmos, but, who knows, maybe all these searchers for ETs are really creationists.
I will admit, that problem vexed biblical creation cosmologists for some time. But then again, that same problem is still vexing Big Bang cosmologists as well, as they have their own light travel time problems with respect to the uniform CMB. Having said that, a creationist cosmologist by the name of Dr. Russell Humphreys solved the young earth/distant starlight light travel problem well over a decade ago. For an easy to understand layman’s version of how he (and now others) solved it, you might want to give the following a quick read:
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter5.pdf
Bravo - the cherry picking that goes into the creation safaris “articles” border the ridiculous. You have to wonder whether they even take themselves seriously.
I'm sure this is late-breaking news in whatever goat-herder tent you surf the web from, but the rest of us have known since the 16th century that the earth isn't the center of the universe.
This isn't some conspiracy Darwin cooked up hundreds of years before he was born.
I doubt they're creationists because not too many educated people of any stripe are creationists, but I'm really failing to see your point.
Suppose the NASA program managers are actually all creationists; they'd STILL be looking for life on Mars, because if God were going around the universe creating life, He would probably do so in habitable places. Mars is the closest place to us that could conceivably have been habitable to life at some point in the not-too-distant past.
We are, so it must.
When I say our position, I mean our galaxy, which by extenstion includes our place in it. And yes, Hawkings et al have admitted that they deliberately ignored the evidence pointing to our galaxy as being at or near to the center of the Universe for ideological reasons.
This is where the author was 6 years ago.
I'm sorry, GGG, but the Big Bang theory was developed by a Christian to explain observed facts. Many mainstream scientists rejected the Big Bang Theory precisely because it suggested a beginning of the universe, which was too close to the concept of the Bible.
In other words, the Big Bang supports the Bible.
Finally, the observations do not support that we are at or near the center of the universe. There is no center. At any point on the earth, it always appears that you are at the center of the horizon. Similarly, at any point in the universe, it appears that you are at the center of an approximately 14-billion light year diameter sphere.
Finally, say that you are standing in a big, flat desert and 15 cars start driving away from you in various direction. Not only do the cars appear to be receding from you, but from the viewpoint of one of those cars, every other car -- plus you -- appear to be receding from you.
See here for a good explanation of an expanding universe that does not go into too much scientific detail.
Well stated. Thank you. I do not find conflict in God’s Scientific and spectacular creation of all that we know.
Shifted enough to be Deep Purple?
Ah, I see. So when you say the earth is at the center of the universe, you really mean the earth, a small planet orbiting a minor star in a far flung area of a pretty-ordinary galaxy, is within 100,000 light years (586 quadrillion miles) of the center of the universe. Wow! What a margin for error!
So maybe the earth and our sun are special... or maybe it's one of the 100 billion other suns in the Milky Way.
And yes, Hawkings et al have admitted that they deliberately ignored the evidence pointing to our galaxy as being at or near to the center of the Universe for ideological reasons.
Uh... sure. I think your goats need milking -- the last thing you want to do is let the witches in the tent next door cast a hex on an unmilked goat.
I have to admit that if I wanted to make Christians look ignorant and hurt their ability to reach others, I would set up a site like Creation Safaris. It's like the guy at the Dingle townhall meeting who was photographed carrying an Obama sign with a Hitler mustache. The image of the sign went around the world but the fact that the sign carrier was later photographed passing out pro-Obamacare literature was mostly ignored by the mainstream media.
I don't think your characterization of his work as "designed to demote our position in the universe" is either fair or accurate GGG. It's simply one of the better fits to existing data. There really does seem to be a creation event as described by Genesis.
God's creation is certainly full of wonder.
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