If the universe is 6000 years old, why can we see light from billions of light years away?

Question

Young Earth creationists (Christians) who maintain that the total age of the universe is only 6,000–12,000 years. If this age is correct, it should not be possible to see light coming from stars and galaxies that are millions or even billions of light-years distant!

For all those who say that it is from the creation of Adam... Wrong!
The creation of human's was on the 6th day.
And before the creation of the earth there was nothing, he created it ex nilho (out of nothing)

Answer 1

People whom believe that the earth, or the universe to be between 6000-12000 years are seriously lacking something personally. There is no way that a person with a rational mind can seriously believe that the earth is this young. Creationists seem to believe that evolution is wrong and that the earth and humanity should only be counted in days constituting the descendants of Adam and Eve which is said to be around 12,000 years if you add all the peoples ages up in Genesis.
This theory of course goes against the fact that the Earth has changed over billions of years and that human beings have evolved overtime from Great Apes to Homo Sapiens etc, not to mention the discovery of dinosaurs and other archaeological artifacts that suggest pre-history groupings.
Human Ideology and even Theology notwithstanding, it is irrational to believe any other course of reason, that simply the earth must be more than 12, 000 years old.

Answer 2

A couple of things. First, the first day happens an indeterminable amount of time after "the beginning." Second is there anything to stop an all powerful God from created the universe 6,000 years ago and then creating 40 billion years of history? When Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding, the guests commented that it was good wine, better than had been served before. Wine gets better with age so Jesus created old wine. Can God therefore not create an old universe? There are also some possible explanations in theoretical physics where a white hole might speed time up in the same way that a black hole slows it down, but most dismiss the existence of white holes, partially because their existence would defy the second law of thermodynamics. Basically, you could find several possible reasons if you really looked.

Answer 3

This teaching is not from the Bible. The Bible states in Gen 1:1, "In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Thus the Bible does not limit the age of the Universe, the Earth, and our solar system. Christians are free to accept or reject the figures science gives us. Lately, that figure grew older, if memory serves me right.

The Bible also specifies that a day for God is not a 24 hour day. In fact, the creative days mentioned in Genesis are much longer than a 1000 years each. Though we do not know how long each is, we do read that the seventh day began counting right after Eve's creation, and it still hasn't concluded!

So, some information is not provided by the Bible's inspired word--intentionally so, I believe.

Answer 4

Let's first clarify that one not need be a YEC to be a Christian.

I'll bet you 10 points (j/k, Yahoo!) that someone will post an answer containing the name Russell Humphreys and referring to his wild theory that the earth resides at the center of a white hole, causing such severe time dilation as to allow light to travel across the universe for billions of years to reach us after only 6000 or so years had passed here on earth. And then we will all giggle.

I'll bet you another 10 points (j/k again, Yahoo!) that someone else will claim God created everything with the "appearance of age," and refer to examples like Adam and Eve created as full-grown adults, and Jesus instantly changing water to ostensibly "aged" wine. Well, I do believe in God, and I am a creationist (old-earth), but I have a problem believing in a God who would create the entire universe as an enormous and painstakingly detailed illusion, just to deceive us and/or test our faith. I'll give YECs the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren't aware of just how detailed the illusion would have to be.

::EDIT:: To MIKEY: I'm also a Christian, and it doesn't bother me that you don't give a rip about the age of the universe. What does bother me is that many public figures in the YEC camp attack and impugn the character of those who seek to reach the scientific community with the gospel, but don't happen to share their YEC views. They make young-earth belief a litmus test for "true" faith. It's complete rubbish, and worse, it's counterproductive to the cause of Christ. And /that/ I hope you /do/ care about.

Answer 5

This is a very good question but do not look for a good answer. i believe the Lord God created the universe and all that is within. I don't see any reason why He couldn't have done it countless billions of years ago. Indeed time is irrelevant to Him, eternity exists outside of time. I love astronomy and marvel at all the deep space photos. With all I see and learn about the vastness of the universe, the more my faith and awe in God grows.

Answer 6

True Christians live a wholly Blinkered existence; they beleive ONLY what they are told to beleive...

They cannot accept that the Earth goes around the Sun, they Cannot accept that the sun is on the edge of a spiral arm in the MilkyWay. The reason why they cannot beleive the TRUTH, is because their teachings were written by men, several thousand years ago.

Remember: the goal of their religion is make them into Lambs and Fish (2 of Natures Greatest Thinkers).

And, another thing - their God is only the Son of My God

Answer 7

Silly boy, don't you know that science is EVIL and people who come up with insane ideas like E=MC² / Relativity and other Jew magic like that of Einstein are trying to lead you down a dark path of hell?

Speed of Light? BLAH! God said let there be light and there was light... THEN he created the stars to ummmm generate the light that he already created.

Time and age are uh uh... well you know, DIFFERENT when it comes to the bible... see, god created every thing in 6 days, Moses and his people lived to 800-900 years and Noah kept dinosaurs on the ark... so all these crazy wacky time lines that these heretic blasphemous scientists have come up with don't make a lick of sense when it comes to the magical fairytale land that god created with leviathans and mass floods, hellfire and brimstone... angels who come down and sex up our women which give birth to giants.

Take your science and facts else where ;]

Answer 8

.simple.

The 6,000 years in the bible is only speaking of the blood line from Adam to Jesus. It is speaking of human history not the creation of the earth, sun and stars.

Answer 9

If the earth is 6000 years old ,then where the **** were the Pharoahs and Chinese living,and how did Pharaohs build the pyramids and star their civilisation 7000 years ago

Answer 10

mixing religion and science.. Baaaad idea.... it was done once, those were called the dark ages for a reason...

If you believe in that (that the universe is 6000 years old) then you don't need a "scientific" answer cause science will not fulfil your thirst for "knowledge"; as you've got it all in the Bible.

If you are questioning the validity of the point, then start questioning why the 6000-12000 years old... pop in any natural history museum and have a look...