Evidence for God from Science

Kristoffer wrote:lets just try to avoid the uncomfortable truth that we can detect the light of galaxies billions of light years away by saying that they travelled back in time.

How much do you want to believe that the world is 10,000 years old?

What if it were to be proven scientifically? Would you still snicker at the prospect?

I think the question is, "how much do we want to stick with a simplistic view of space and time?"
Relativity makes it quite clear that time is totally relative. Time progresses at different rates.
On the one hand, everyone seems enamoured with the possibility of time travel derived from relativity. Why not think about the possibility that matter has gone back in time?

To clarify things: I don't actually believe that stars necessarily went back in time. I chose that title to stimulate thought and discussion. However, I do believe that we need to let go of our simplistic view of time and think about the possibility of these things.

Ok if we are getting rid of our simplistic view of time, then instead of trying to deny history lets try to comprehend what deep time is like;

What can happen in billions of years? Lots of exciting stuff I am sure. It is hard to imagine time on scales beyond decades to us really isn't it? I can just about imagine what time felt like when i was a child, the days seemed endless, but now that I am older and busier they seem to fly by pretty quickly, of course if it were somehow possible for me to live for a thousand years then a day would probably begin to seem like a second. You would really start to see a bigger picture.

Of course God apparently limited our years on earth to about 120(this is what the bible says right?) but to be honest this just seems like a target to beat. The longer you live the shorter time seems anyway that's what I think and its all just perception anyway so maybe there are old people who experience days like I did as a child too.

Kristoffer-
What you are expressing is personal relativity. Our perception of time is relative to our life experience.
When I was 4, a year was a quarter of a lifetime, or half of a lifetime that I could remember.
When I was 10, a year was less because it was a 10th of a lifetime, etc.
That is why the Bible says that with God, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. Time means nothing to God because He is eternal. That does not mean that God can't tell time. He created time and defines it. When he says a day He means a day, and when He says 1000 years he means 1000 years.

Regarding the age of the earth: why be so totally close minded and refuse to consider that the earth might actually only be around 10,000 years old?

Truthman,

The Hebrew word natah is translated stretcheth. Natah is also used in reference to God stretching out his hand. Does that mean that God literally stretches his hand to be bigger or longer? The sense is unfolded or opened up.

The verb natah means to expand or extend. In Zep. 1:4; 2:13 God is stretching forth His hand in judgement. Zeph. 2:12 references God's sword. This has nothing to do with an enlarging hand. If you fell out of a boat, I would stretch forth my hand to save you. Look at the use of natah with arm in Deut. 5:15. It is used in parallel with mighty hand.

Likewise, Zech. 1:16 is about stretching out a measuring line. See Zech. 2:1-2.

Here is an article that you need to read.
http://www.reasons.org/cosmic-design/bi ... t-it-first

The heavens are likened to a tent/curtains in Psalm 104:2 and Isaiah 40:22. Tents are made of curtains, so it is the same thing (Ex. 26:7, 36:14;
2 Samuel 7:2; Song of Solomon 1:5). Natah is used for the setting up of a tent (Gen. 33:19, 35:21; 2 Samuel 16:22; Isaiah 54:2 and Jere. 10:20). In Is. 54:2 natah is used for the enlarging of a tent. This applies to the universe, because in the article you will see that God is still stretching the haeavens. This means that the universe is getting bigger.

Rather than ignore my reasoning regarding space and matter, please look at the reasoning and if I'm wrong, show me what is wrong with it.

All you have given me is your opinion about space being meaningless without matter. Back it up. An empty volume, would still be a volume. And how does this apply to the big bang? The big bang has space expanding faster than light for a fraction of a second, less than one second after the big bang. The idea that things, moving faster than light, would go backwards in time only applies to things moving through space-time.

Where is your evidence that matter moved through space at faster than the speed of light and so went back in time? There is no evidence for this in nature or the Bible, so why should I bother with this theory. Try talking to a local physicist and see what they say.

Truthman said:

When he says a day He means a day, and when He says 1000 years he means 1000 years.

We agree. We just don't agree how long a day may have been.

Regarding the age of the earth: why be so totally close minded and refuse to consider that the earth might actually only be around 10,000 years old?

There are more than a few people here that believe that the Earth is billions of years old because THEY ARE open minded. Some of us actually believed the Earth was 6,000-10,000 years old, until we opened our minds, examined the scientific evidence, and saw how a billions of years old Earth was backed by modern science and the Word of God.

RickD,

There are more than a few people here that believe that the Earth is billions of years old because THEY ARE open minded. Some of us actually believed the Earth was 6,000-10,000 years old, until we opened our minds, examined the scientific evidence, and saw how a billions of years old Earth was backed by modern science and the Word of God.

That describes me.

The basic answer, however, is quite simple. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light through space. This does not, however, limit the speed
at which space can expand. In the first 1E-35 seconds (that is 0.00..(34 zeroes)..01 seconds after the big bang the universe expanded to a diameter
of something like 1 meter carrying all matter with it. So it was expanding something like 3E26 (that is 3 followed by 26 zeroes) times faster than the
speed of light! And that includes the matter that was just sitting there at rest in space. Although it is not moving relative to space (whatever that
means), a piece of matter can be increasing its distance from another piece of matter at speeds much faster than the speed of light if the space is
expanding rapidly enough.
An analogy may help (though analogies are never completely accurate). You have undoubtedly heard of the two dimensional model for the expansion of
space where little bugs are sitting on the surface of a balloon as it is being blown up. The separation between the bugs can clearly increase even
though the bugs are sitting still.
Best, **** Plano, Professor of Physics emeritus, Rutgers University
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=ca

Using the best observationally-determined values for the universe's rate of expansion, acceleration and other parameters (which are the default inputs for the calculator), I found that if you use a value of around 1.4 for z (the redshift), you get the required distance of 4,200 megaparsecs. Therefore, any galaxy with a redshift greater than 1.4 is currently moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

Can we see these galaxies? Yes, we certainly can! Bright galaxies are regularly detected out to redshifts of a few; a redshift of 1.4 isn't really that much. For example, here are some pictures of quasars (galaxies with extremely active black holes in their centers) with redshifts around 5. We can even see light (although not individual objects) all the way back to a redshift of 1000 or so. (This light is referred to as the Cosmic Microwave Background and was emitted around 380,000 years after the Big Bang, right after the Universe had cooled down enough for light to get through all the intervening matter.) Meanwhile, the numbers spit out by the calculator tell us that for a galaxy with a redshift of 1.4, the light we are currently seeing from this galaxy was emitted around 4.6 billion years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was already quite well-developed. -September 2003, Dave Rothstein; http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/questi ... number=575

The idea of absolute space has proved particularly controversial from Newton's time to the present. For example, Leibniz was of the opinion that space made no sense except as the relative location of bodies, and time made no sense except as the relative movement of bodies

Leibniz agreed with me. There is no absolute space. Space must be defined relative to bodies. The same is true in Special Relativity: space is relative.

Space is expanding? It doesn't make sense to me. Things moving apart at the speed of light that aren't moving in space. How is their position in space defined? But, for the sake of peace I'll concede. If you honestly understand it, I'd love to hear it. It is easy to repeat what you read without questioning. I just never was very good at that.

Special relativity must still apply and the faster matter moves apart, the slower time must go. If matter moved apart faster than the speed of light because space expanded, then time must have gone backwards. Right?

Just had a thought.
If space is expanding (stretching), then the space the earth occupies must be expanding at a rate equal to the rest of space. The earth is growing in size at the same rate as the rest of the universe. Also, the sun and the space between the sun and the earth.

truthman wrote:Just had a thought.
If space is expanding (stretching), then the space the earth occupies must be expanding at a rate equal to the rest of space. The earth is growing in size at the same rate as the rest of the universe. Also, the sun and the space between the sun and the earth.

The earth isn't Growing in size... There is a continuous mass change because of atmospheric leakage(loss of mass) and micrometeorite/dust absorbtion(gain of mass) but no actual size changes and no the distance between the earth and the sun is not getting bigger.

Although I do commend you for giving me a laugh.

If matter moved apart faster than the speed of light because space expanded

Yes this also happens to be the speed limit, so that cannot really happen. It can move almost at the speed of light, but not quite.

Regarding the age of the earth: why be so totally close minded and refuse to consider that the earth might actually only be around 10,000 years old?

Because the mere suggestion is so preposterous that I can dismiss it with the snap of my fingers. Why is it 10,000 years old? This is because of unchanging dogma right? There is a point when open mindedness just becomes stupidity and you are letting all kinds of crazy horse manure go through your mental filters. I can entertain the notion that the world is that young, but I really find it impossible to consider seriously because the world looks so...Evolved. That is the only thing that fits how i see the natural world, that is unless god intentionally designed things to look evolved. Which means intentional design flaws.

Seriously, Kristoffer:
based on what others are saying
1. space is absolute.
2. absolute space is expanding all over the universe.
3. the earth occupies space.
therefore, the earth is expanding along with the space it occupies and at the same rate.

Because the mere suggestion is so preposterous that I can dismiss it with the snap of my fingers. Why is it 10,000 years old? This is because of unchanging dogma right? There is a point when open mindedness just becomes stupidity and you are letting all kinds of crazy horse manure go through your mental filters. I can entertain the notion that the world is that young, but I really find it impossible to consider seriously because the world looks so...Evolved. That is the only thing that fits how i see the natural world, that is unless god intentionally designed things to look evolved. Which means intentional design flaws.

Obviously, you have not studied the subject objectively. You should also check out material presented by YEC scientists, weigh the evidence, then make a decision.
That is what we are trying to do here, I believe. Look at both sides.
Check out this site: http://www.icr.org/

Apparantly TM's idea is not so far off base. Watched a show last night on Science network, and although they didn't specifically address this, the content hinted (early rapid expansion) at such ideas, and said that EVERYTHING we know about the cosmos could be radically altered.

Basically, the early universe, after a period of stability, had a period of rapid expansion. expanded. That current expansion is not consistent with what might have happened in the past. And quite possibly, that rapid expansion did exceed the speed of light. Thus the ages we operate under are wrong.

Yes this also happens to be the speed limit, so that cannot really happen.

That is a dogmatic statement.

truthman wrote:Seriously, Kristoffer:
based on what others are saying
1. space is absolute.
2. absolute space is expanding all over the universe.
3. the earth occupies space.
therefore, the earth is expanding along with the space it occupies and at the same rate.

Then this should be compeltely measurable. Any data to support this?