If, according to the Bible, the universe is 6,000 or so years old, why can we see out 15 billion lightyears?

Question

And please don't just say something like, "God is the truth and the way and the life". I just REALLY want to know how Christains explain this in a rational manner. Even telling me it's some kind of trick is more rational than telling me God will guide me. That doesn't answer anything.

joshman: Yes, I know a light year is a measurement of distance but you stopped thinking there. A light year is the distance it takes light to travel a year. In otherwords, the only way we could see something from 15 billion light years away is if that light started at that point 15 billion years ago. Otherwise we would not be able to see it because it wouldn't have had enought time to reach the Earth.

avbunnys: I'm not against Christains. I want to know your opinion on things, that's all.

Answer 1

The problem is science. It keeps finding answers for things that used to be attributed to god. Maybe that's why fundamentalist Christians are so anti-science, they don't want anything messing with their beliefs.

Could be why Bush has promised to veto the stem cell research bill that Congress is about to pass.

Answer 2

First, I will note that not all Christians believe in the "young Earth" theory.

Second, if we can see an object that is 15 billion light years away, that simply means that it was in that spot long enough ago for it's light to reach the location that Earth is in now. It would not be an indicator that the Earth was here when it's light started traveling our direction.

Third, a light-year is not a precise measurement and there is controversy in scientific circles regarding how a light-year should be measured. Regardless, whether a light-year is an accurate measurement or not does not affect whether the Earth was here or not when the object in question began emanating light. By the time we see the object, it may no longer exist, just as the Earth may not have existed when it was around.

There are more accurate measurements for this purpose and you can find out more about the light-year at wikipedia.

Answer 3

Tell me where the Bible says the universe is 6,000 years old.

I'll even settle for 4,000 or something lower, since 2,000 years have passed since it was written.

The problem is, it doesn't, and this is a common mistake, made both by Christians and those who attack them.

The truth is, the six-day creation account is told from a universal perspective, from God's perspective. As Einstein told us, and as has since been proven in many experiments, time is relative, based on speed and gravity. Using the Cosmic Background Radiation, which is radiation "left over" from the Big Bang that we can still see today, it's possible to figure out how fast time flowed in the past. We can see that time has slowed down as the universe expanded. It turns out that when you account for the relativity of time, Genesis very closely matches the current scientific understanding of the Big Bang and what followed. Day One ("Let there be light") encompasses about 8 billion years, during which the Big Bang happened and matter and energy and the fundamental forces came to be more or less as they are today. Day Two (where God created the "firmament" or "expanse") lasts about 4 billion years, the time in which the Milky Way galaxy likely formed. Day Three (where life is first created) lasted about 2 billion years and saw the rise of life on Earth. Day Four (God creates the sun, moon and stars) lasts about 1 billion years, during which the respirating of early life releases a lot of oxygen into the air and the sky becomes transparent for the first time, and the sun, moon and stars are visible. Day Five (sea life) lasts about half a billion years, and corresponds to the development of complex animal life in the sea. Day Six (land creatures and humans) lasts a quarter of a billion years and corresponds to the invasion of land and the eventual development of humans. Add it all up and it's 15.75 billion years, very close to current estimates of the universe's age.

Answer 4

The Bible say NOTHING about 6000 years or 20,000 or 100,000 or five million or 20 billion. "Time and a half" simply denotes a long periods of time and a "day" to God during Creation is not comprehensible to us today, based on a single rotation of the Earth and there were "days" before there was an Earth.

And, finally, that 6000 Years stuff results from the estimate of a Catholic monk in the middle ages before science as such got into play. Only poorly educated and misled individuals actually believe that 6000 Year stuff as being Scriptural--because it isn't.

There is NOT conflict between religion and science. Each is an attempt to explain fundamentals and origins, except that they are different approaches. Additionally, one claims to possess universals and the only doesn't. Both, however, require "leaps of faith" to be accepted.

Good enough answer for you?

Answer 5

The only way to explain that and other inconsistancies like carbon dating etc.. is one of two things:

1) Assume that the science behind it is flawed. We discover scientific errors all the time, so it's possible that carbon doesn't decay evenly or that light doesn't really travel at a constant rate of speed.

2) Assume that When God created everything, he created it at a snapshot in time other than the first moment. That is, when God created everything, he created light that was traveling in a line away from the sun, out to X lightyears, or that he created the Earth with fossils pre-embeded, and with decayed carbon.

Either is POSSIBLE. I find the latter to be more probable, but I've met some Christians that refuse to believe it's a possibility.

Answer 6

Actually, the Bible does not give the age of the world or the universe anywhere. That is a common misconception. A reverend by the name of Usher just added up the "begats" and arrived at the date and declared that it was 6,000 years old.

Nowhere will you see any reference to the age of the world in the Bible. People who make this statement should look for themselves. Make them show you next time they make that statement.

Answer 7

Good point, that. They'll say your measurements are inaccurate or science is the work of the Devil. You want to know what's inaccurate? Age of the universe 6,000 years (margin of error 14.7 billion)

(edit)
I love this one:
"You see, light years is a measure of distance, not time."
only flaw with that is that's how long it took the light to travel to our eyes.

(edit)
here's another good one:
"Just because Bishop Ussher calculated the date of creation as 4004 BC doesn't make it so, nor does it mean everyone who believes the Bible believes "
the flaw there is he used information from the Bible to calculate it, so is the Bible wrong?

Answer 8

There is no Biblical statement that the earth is 6000 years old. That was one teacher's interpretation. Others have used his technique and gotten different answers. Many people base arguments on Usher's numbers, but they are not valid or proper exegesis and are therefore meaningless.

... Who knows... did God create the world "old" with fossils already buried in it and the universe old with light already seeming to have traveled millions of millennia? Both of these are POSSIBLE. The Bible wasn't written as a science or history text and such uses of it are inherently invalid.

Answer 9

Because God made the universe with apparent age.
The Bible says that God commanded the stars into being to mark seasons and days and years.
Is it such a stretch to believe that a loving creator would prepare the world with interesting features for the objects of his love (mam)? Wouldn't a pregnant mother prepare a place for her new child with care and relish? Would the Baby ever remember the colors? Those constellations and supernovas out there still lie far beyond our reach and ability to catalog and explore and I believe that they stand as a testimony of the love God has for his creation.

Answer 10

Not all Christians believe that the Old Testament of the Bible is meant to be taken literally.

Certainly Catholics do not. Which is what makes it easy to believe in both God and Science.

After all, if God didn't want us to reach out for the stars and use our intellects to try to divine the workings of the universe, why did he bother to make us intelligent.

So you're really just looking for Strict Creationist Christians. Most any fundamentalist will do.

Answer 11

Maybe I'm not as intelligent as you, but I'm pretty sure lightyears is distance not a measurement of time. Light comes from multiple sources so it could travel anywhere in 6000 years. A better question would have to do with radioactive dating techniques which actually have to do with time measurement.