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1. It doesn't really take a a lot of physics to understand that if the earth were under 100,000 years old, we wouldn't be able to see objects in space that are millions(+) light years away from us. The light wouldn't have made it here yet. Hell, that's simply basic astronomy, that's not even considering other scientific disciplines like geology and archaeology, among others.
2. Humanism is a personal philosophy... as far as a being a materialist, I tend to lean towards all observable things being based on particles directly (like matter), or fields (like gravity, as the existence of gravitons {a proposed particle responsible for gravity} still has yet to graduate into a full on scientific theory). Also, if we're talking about *everything* in the cosmos, the issue of dark matter and dark energy (which really needs a new label) come into play... we can observe the effects of both. I tend to lean towards dark matter being particle based, and dark energy being similar, though the particles may not have mass, but to that, it's strictly conjecture.
I wouldn't classify my understanding as "materialist" so much as I would better identify as a naturalist.
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Fair enough, but you missed my points on General Relativity and time dilation. There are two ways that the travel of starlight can be explained according to Genesis. One is that they are simply age dating factors, that is, put in place with the appearance of age (much like how Adam and Eve were created as grown humans, trees were created as fully matured rather than seeds, etc.).
Nevertheless, I don't think creationists are necessarily locked into this box at all. According to General Relativity and in further accordance with the attending time dilation, before day 3 in Genesis 1, the heavens were being 'stretched out' by God, and, just as we see different gravitational pulls in the Universe today, these pulls would have a direct effect on how time was being meaded out in the earliest stages of the universe.
In short, 100,000 years or less passed here on earth during the Genesis creation week, but the time out in the early Universe as it was being stretched out and formed was (and still is) relative to the local gravitational pulls of the cosmos and came forth in much longer stretches of time based on Relativity.
There is obviously a lot more to explain here (and I can spell out my further understanding of the model, if you are interested).
But, what is problematic is the Big Bang model of origins (especially outside of the context of Genesis as a guide). The two problems that come to mind are the impossibility of a valid naturalistic explanation for a cosmic singularity that would bring all time, matter, and space into existence out of nothing. And how, since there is much inhomogeneous clumping of galaxies together this counters the uniformity of distribution that would be present if the Big Bang were true. That is, if the Big Bang model were correct, the galaxies would not be in clumps but would rather have homogenous distribution throughout the universe. This Galaxy clustering (and many other factors) are evidence against the purported uniformed 'cosmological principle' that the Big Bang model relies on. If these cannot be answered, then folks are simply assuming the Big Bang model to be true without supporting its claims.
I am open to hear any explanations you may have for these (and other problems) with Big Bang cosmology. And, conversely, I am hoping that you would be willing to look further into the Relativity/Time-dilation Genesis model put forth by noted particle physicists, D. Russel Humphries:
Here is the briefest summarization of this cosmology that i am aware of:
The bottom line (in my understanding)m is that the Bible is true as far as origins are concerned, and Humphries' model not only coincides with Einstein's' theories of Relativity, but also coincides and affirms the Bible that says:
"He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea." Job 9:8
(PS: Thank you for cracking the door open further on this aspect of discussion, I would love to continue as time permits. Have a good weekend, BTW)
Billionths of a second after the "big bang," the universe as it was at the time was pretty homogenous. Galaxies and most elements came millions of years later, as stars started from the beginning of the periodic table and eventually gave rise to more elemental/chemically complex nuclear reactors. With that, we saw the development of various localized gravitational fields that account for everything from solar systems to galaxy clusters (completely consistent with thermodynamics).
To think that the universe poofed into existence with the various types of stars fully formed (close to Earth), then stretched out, pulling stars away from the Earth, just doesn't make any sense (as Humphreys goes into). While there is cosmic expansion, what you and he are actually proposing is that everything was stretched way from this planet at a speed faster than light, and we're essentially looking at things in space the way we predict we'd see things on a black hole's event horizon (the holographic principle). It doesn't make sense that everything would be pulled away from everything else so quickly from this planet, then slowed down into the current rate of cosmic expansion (an expansion that does go faster than the speed of light outside of the observable universe, coinciding with relativity). If the supernatural "stretching" had occurred (using time dilation), our daytime and nighttime sky would be blindingly flooded with light.
His "timeless zone" hypothesis is frankly insane. He's twisting logic like a pretzel... he's saying that the stars moved away at the speed of light (which would have taken billions of years), but also claiming that there was no time, ignoring the fact that space and time are intertwined. I'd also add that his idea that the universe being geocentric is utter rubbish. Space expands at every point, not just away from our planet. If we were at any other location in space, we'd see the same relative expansion, and we'd see it expand exponentially until that space (beyond the visible universe) reached a relative speed faster than light.
The problem with pseudo-academic creationists is that hypotheses have to be force-fit into a presupposition, up to the point that the respective hypothesis becomes so convoluted and absurd that it invalidates itself. If you ignore the scientific method, it's not science at all.
What we are discussing there is Cosmogony, which is different (although certainly related to) Cosmology.
Cosmogony is the study of the universe as we currently observe it, and Cosmology is forensic; a historical science that estimates how the universe began, based on what evidence we do have currently extant (also based on philosophy, etc.). Therefore, some of that you are claiming that evolutionists saw or see is more along the lines of what evolutionists think might have happened based on the evidence that we now see in nature since no human was there at the very beginning of things.
Extemporaneously, what you are positing about the early universe and the gradualistic development of stars, even if somehow shown to have happened in the face of entropy, is simply not probable. That is, even if the universe is a trillion years old and was homogenous early on as you say, the chance that all of the (physical, scientific, natural) complexity that is observable in the universe arose from simple forms and came about by chance through unguided processes goes beyond any and all statistical probability of ever happening.
Nevertheless, in brief defense of what I had proposed to you: D. Russell Humphries Ph.D is basically saying that that the Bible affirmed that the universe was not eternal, and did so before the science of the modern day caught up to the prediction (i.e., secular scientists held to a steady state/eternal universe for years before the Big Bang theory came on the scene).
Psalm 147:4-5 argues against the previously popular steady state universe in that Bible affirms that the stars are numerable (i.e., not infinite in number and thus not eternal) and that, in contrast, God is infinite and able to count them.
He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. (Ps. 147:4-5)
Russ is also pointing out that the Bible predicted/affirmed the expansion of the universe as well.
Isaiah 40:21-22 is used to support this: Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle [sphere] of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
(In my understanding, these accuracies from thousands of years ago put the Bible ahead of finite evolutionary science presuppositions).
After pointing out that the Bible is therefore useful as a guide to cosmology, Humphries then hypothesizes that since logic tells us, based on the expansion of the universe, that the cosmos was obviously much smaller in its early history that the time frames of the developmental aspects of the features of the universe (most specifically stars, and their subsequent starlight travel patterns as God was creating them in one 24 hr. earth-clock day) were quite different than what we observe today.
Pointed summarization of the Starlight and Time cosmology.
- The universe has a boundary and a center. The earth is the center of the cosmos as evidenced in that we can see distant galaxies positioned in all different directions from earth; supported further by the red shift in all directions from the perspective of our planet and the galaxy cluster patterns that coincide with the red shifts, etc.
- In accordance with General Relativity, gravitational energy affects time. That is, gravitational potential energy has affect on time duration in geographical proximity throughout the cosmos. (I think this is actually the main point that you missed)
- When the universe was in its early stages of development (day 4 of creation) it was much smaller in size (which Big Bang theorists also hold to by default) and therefore the gravitational energy was large and its affect on the matter of the cosmos much greater.
- This time dilation by way of gravitational energy is not just theoretical but is observable here on earth when atomic clocks are placed at different elevations (ranging from below sea level to high mountaintops) as they have differentiation in time keeping due to the differences in gravitational energy affect on them.
- When the universe was smaller (at the beginning of day 4 of creation), the gravitational potential energy was much greater. Thus producing a slow time duration on earth, and subsequently a much more rapid advancement of time at the edge of the universe. So, from the earth?s perspective, the stars where formed in a 24 hr. day, and from the perspective of the outer limits of the universe, it took billions of years. If you were to be standing on the earth then and if you could see the stars being formed in the outer regions, star formation (theoretically) would look much like videotape does when it is played in fast forward mode.
Important things to note: This is a biblical creation model in accordance with General Relativity. There are certainly differences of opinion (i.e., not all creationists hold to the Starlight and Time model) but there are also other creationists doing cosmologies in accordance with Einstein's theory (Dr. Danny Faulkner comes to mind). And, theories like Humphries? here posit aspects of cosmological physics that are not only consistent with Relativity, but also express fundamental aspects of it.
In general argument against your challenges: The beliefs held by credentialed evolutionary cosmologists are quite different than the understanding propagated to the populace -- that a small dot of matter exploded billions of years ago and is continually expanding throughout pre-existent space. Rather, the evolutionary Big Bang model held by scholars (Hawking, Ellis, et. el.) assumes that everything (i.e., time, matter, and space) is expanding into a 4th dimension of hyperspace. The point being that the scholarly view of expansion into a 4th dimension is held without any substantial proof of naturalistic evidence for a dimension beyond time, matter, and space.
I will also speak towards your specific challenges of the cosmic light blinding of earth etc.; Humphries has had his model challenged (even by fellow creationists) over the years and is making adjustments. For what its worth, he has progressed the postulate that time stood still for everything inside of the event horizon on day 4 of creation and generally posits much variation in expansion. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that you are simply overly committed to the naturalistic explanation of the expansion of space and thus do not understand where Humphries is coming from.
[Also, Humphries does offer some general technical physics support for his theory here if you are interested
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j22_3/j22_3_84-92.pdf ]
What is more, the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe is not utter rubbish and was even held by one of the greatest thinkers in all of history, Aristotle. Nevertheless, the exact location of the center of the universe is debated amongst Bible believing scientists (example, creationist physicist Danny Faulkner believes that the earth is not the center, while he still posits both a center and boundary of the universe based on his research). The point here being that evolutionists typically pre-suppose that there is no center and boundary of the universe, and they do so based entirely on their ideology (i.e., unsupported beliefs).
At this point I will concede that Humphries has basically come up with a plausible explanation for the appearance of age in the cosmos, and I personally prefer his model over the day age theory and/or the progressive creationist's theories that the days of Genesis are long stretches of time rather than 24 hr periods, etc. And, his model is in accordance with General Relativity and takes into account other substantial findings in the fields of physics, astronomy, and the like. It just so happens to fit his biblical worldview and subsequently challenge Big bang cosmology.
Nevertheless, if you are claiming that D. Russell Humphries is not an academic, you are simply wrong. He worked at the prestigious Sandia laboratories for years, has been published, without controversy, in scholarly physics journals, and has an extensive list of achievements in the filed of science (awards, patents, etc.). See here: https: //creation.com/d-russell-humphreys-cv
What is more, if your implications are that all creationists are pseudo scientists, well, you would have to stay consistent there and lump all other historical creationists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Keplar, Lord Kelvin, etc. into your group of non-scientists which, would be obviously absurd and completely out of step with the historical development of science.
Then, you would have to step off from the shoulders of these giants (Newton, Keplar, Kelvin, etc.), the very men that were integral in developing scientific methodology, a methodology you are wanting to explicitly reference when arguing against Creationism.
Basically, what one does by trying to categorize Creationists (while still in the gate) as not being scientific is stacking the deck against Creationism without first supporting the claim that it is non-scientific; such tactics are considered to be fallacious argumentation.
That being said, the burden of proof is really on you to successfully show evidence against supernaturalism and also show that ?methodological naturalism? is the only way to do science and/or has the only valid explanations for aspects of nature. (This is what is usually meant when an evolutionist references the scientific method, they mean that the presupposition of naturalism is the only allowable approach to science, which again, is a presupposition that needs to first be supported by evidence).
With do respect, in sum, your counter assertions are committed to an evolutionary worldview and what you are presenting is simply taken out of the ongoing evolutionary story book . . . a story that is based on the unsupportable presupposition of anti-supernaturalism. The science of the day changes over time, while the truths of God are immutable. I simply prefer to base my worldview on bedrock rather than shifting sand.
Topic: Evidence for God (Read 51417 times)