A question about the stars for Young Earth creationists?

Question

How can you reconcile with the fact that some stars are hundreds of thousands of light years away, and galaxies are millions of light years away? If we can see them, then the light must have travelled that far, which means that they have been around much longer than 10000 years (Young Earth estimate of age of Earth).


Because I know you'll try to use this:
Star distances can be approximated by parallax, which is irrefutable, even with a very rough measurement of the distance to the sun. Measurement of distances to galaxies are tricker, but not even requirement for my argument. Read about parallax!

I hate to burst your bubble, but thought is a lot slower than the speed of light. See, the axons, which are the filaments in your brain that carry chemical information, only transmit information at about 250 mph.

Answer 1

The answers are far too lengthy to type here but can be found at answersingenesis.com

There are explanations

Answer 2

stellar parallaxes are only good for (coincidentally) about 10,000 light years. this fact may give comfort to creationists unless they realise that only the closest stars in the galaxy have been measured by parallax and the galaxy is clearly way bigger than that. but there are other ways of measuring distance that can be calibrated against parallax (cepheid variable, type ia supernova, redshift...)

there's a nice example though of a similar geometrical technique used on supernova 1987a, in the large magellanic cloud about 160,000 light years away. it was apparently surrounded by a ring of matter at the time of the explosion, and one year later the ring lit up, so the diameter of the ring is known. measuring the angular size of the ring on the sky then gives the distance above.

"They theorize that the UNIVERSE is only about 40 billion years old. Yet they see things 80 billion light years away...."

because the universe is expanding, it is bigger than you would expect from the light travel time:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#DN

Answer 3

The universe is full of stars of vastly random sizes. Most stars are tiny red dwarf pebbles, but our Sun doesn't even come close to the biggest stars.

If you're lonely, feeling small, watch this video and you'll REALLY feel small:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WEL117xXpw



Such huge tripe by the YECcers [Young Earth Creationists]. Light can't be formed on the fly in space. Light has to come from a SOURCE. Otherwise you don't have the mutually reinforcing electric and magnetic wave that sustains a light photon at the speed of light and only that speed. There are no electromagnetic waves which don't come from matter.

Beliefs in a 6,000-year universe are unsustainable. That's why people go to UNIVERSITY, study SCIENCE, gain some more SENSE. Nobody outside Oral Roberts University wants to keep their minds in a Medieval state...

Answer 4

Can I be a "Creationist" for a moment, just to answer this question?

Because we don't fully understand the forces that guide the universe, it is presumptuous to assume that such large distances can be accurately judged. It would be just as well to say that our emotions carry us a certain distance, and that without our bodies, these emotions may actually be forces in and of themselves, just without any provable data, since they are unseen.

However, they are subjective things, and in that way, we hear about the phenomena. The only thing faster than light, is thought. If we go the speed of thought, time is not relative.

In this way, you can disprove the math. If eternity is a unmeasurable factor, then using the relative aspect of time, billions of years may be encapsuled in one second.

Answer 5

Distant starlight is the greatest difficulty for young earthers but they do offer explanations. Apparently you are unfamiliar with Russell Humphreys' white hole cosmology. The math and science involved in it are far beyond my understanding but this is the preferred explanation of young earth proponents at this time. Using presuppositions from this cosmology Humphreys successfully predicted the magnetic field strengths of Uranus and Neptune. Voyager confirmed the accuracy of Humphreys predictions, which were radically different than those of old earth proponents. You might want to read his book "Starlight and Time" which is published by Master Books. I can not explain his theory in a brief answer. Humphreys does not question the measurement of the distance of stars (I know of no one who does).

--edit--

For my Christian brothers who advocate the "starlight in place" explanation -- This does not adequately account for movement we see in the stars. I know it is kind of a mind bender but if you think about it the movement we see would be of non-existent actions given a young universe. The parts of Humphreys white hole cosmology that I do understand make sense to me even though I can't begin to decipher the math involved (he has a whole chapter of just formulas I don't understand). This seems to me an intelligent option.

Answer 6

Smoking Weed results in the speed of light in a vacum changing.

Answer 7

I am old earth. But I have heard some use the logic that the stars were placed there at that distance, and that they were created with the light from them in place. This doesn't make sense either, but I have heard it.

Answer 8

Lol, that's nothing. They theorize that the UNIVERSE is only about 40 billion years old. Yet they see things 80 billion light years away.....

Answer 9

I suppose if God can create the world and all that is in it out of nothing, He certainly has the where-with-all and power to create the stars and galaxies with the light already shining for all the world to see it.


blessings :)

Answer 10

Lots of stars have probably gone nova or burned out by now, and we can't tell.

Answer 11

The devil is bending light to make it seem that way. He is also taking my twinkies. He's evil that way.