Young Earth/Old Earth

[SavedOnebyGrace]

22 minutes ago, johnc5055 said:

This really isn't that hard! Radioactive decay is what is being measured in radiometric dating. The rate at which an unstable atom loses energy through radiation is naturally going to be a function of the speed of radiation. Light is one form of radiation; all radiation moves at the same speed. The loss of energy through radiation would be faster if radiation moved faster.

The speed of light has been measured over the last 200 years using a variety of instrumentation and techniques.  Within the limits of instrumentation and experimental design, the speed of light is constant.

Source: https://briankoberlein.com/2015/02/14/burden-proof/

 

Burden of Proof

In Pseudoscience by Brian Koberlein14 February 2015

The unchanging speed of light in a vacuum is a foundational fact of relativity. This constant speed has been tested to unprecedented accuracy, but there are some that argue that isn’t enough. In special relativity, it is assumed that the speed of light doesn’t depend upon what direction the light is traveling in, or where it is in space. Physical processes might affect the speed of light, but mere location and direction doesn’t. This is actually part of a broader metaphysical idea that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic. Basically, it’s the assumption that the laws of physics (whatever they might be) are the same everywhere in the universe. This is in contrast to ideas such as geocentrism, which assumes that Earth holds a special place in the cosmos. It’s been an assumption as far back as Newton, though it has been tested in several ways, and has held up so far. But what if the assumption about light is wrong? What if the speed of light is actually anisotropic?

The initial verification of an invariant speed of light comes from the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, which showed that the speed of light didn’t depend upon the motion of the Earth. This implied there wasn’t an absolute reference frame, or a luminiferous aether through which light propagated. Over the years the speed of light has been measured with ever greater precision, and it’s always appeared to be a physical constant. But most of these experiments rely upon light to make a round trip in two directions, so technically it’s a measure of the “two-way” speed of light. What hasn’t been done is a direct “one way” speed of light measurement. You might think that’s easy enough to do, simply measure the start and finish time of a photon, for example. But to do that you’d need to synchronize your clocks, which means you’d have to set them at the same time when they are side by side, then move one clock to the finish line. Of course, when you do that, the motion of the clock would affect its measure of time, and you can’t be sure they they are still in sync without assuming some model like special relativity.

Suppose then that the speed of depended upon its direction of motion? Suppose it travelled almost instantly when heading toward us, but at half the “speed of light” when traveling away from us. The round trip time would be the same as relativity predicts with a constant speed of light. Most physicists don’t worry about this kind of thing since relativity keeps passing all the tests, but philosophers love to explore these kinds of metaphysical weaknesses. So the “one-way light problem” appears every now and then in the literature.

So what if the speed of light isn’t the same when moving toward or away from us? Are there any observable consequences? Not to the limits of observation so far. We know, for example, that any one-way speed of light is independent of the motion of the light source to 2 parts in a billion. We know it has no effect on the color of the light emitted to a few parts in 10²⁰. Aspects such as polarization and interference are also indistinguishable from standard relativity. But that’s not surprising, because you don’t need to assume isotropy for relativity to work. In the 1970s, John Winnie and others showed that all the results of relativity could be modeled with anisotropic light so long as the two-way speed was a constant. The “extra” assumption that the speed of light is a uniform constant doesn’t change the physics, but it does make the mathematics much simpler. Since Einstein’s relativity is the simpler of two equivalent models, it’s the model we use. You could argue that it’s the right one citing Occam’s razor, or you could take Newton’s position that anything untestable isn’t worth arguing over.

Models such as anisotropic light are useful and interesting as a way of exploring the limits of what our scientific theories can tell us, but unfortunately they’re also used in a range of pseudoscientific models. In this case, the idea of a young Earth. One of the basic challenges for young Earth models is the starlight problem. If the universe is only a few thousand years old, how can we see light from the edge of our galaxy, much less other galaxies. One way to address this issue was to propose that the speed of light was much faster in the past, allowing distant starlight to reach us in a short time. But observations of line spectra from distant nebula shows that speed of light has changed no more than one part in a billion over the past 7 billion years. Then in 2010 Jason Lisle revived the idea of anisotropic light. If light moving toward us travelled at infinite speed, and away from us at half the traditional speed of light, then it would allow the most distant light in the young universe to reach us while still agreeing with relativity.

As crazy as that might sound, Lisle is right in claiming that such an effect would be indistinguishable from relativity, and this has made the work popular with young Earth supporters. However agreement with relativity isn’t enough. If light did actually reach us from distant galaxies instantly, we would expect galaxies at all distances (or more formally redshifts) to all look the same age. In fact, what we see is that more distant galaxies are younger than closer ones. If Lisle’s idea was correct, we wouldn’t see the magnification of distant galaxies due to cosmic expansion, nor fluctuations in a cosmic background, nor galaxy clustering in agreement with dark energy, nor a host of other observational results.

On its own, relativity doesn’t require isotropy and homogeneity, even though we generally assume it to be true. But when we combine relativity with the confluence of evidence we have in astronomy, we find that assumption is not only justified, but valid to the limits of observation so far.

Paper: Md. Farid Ahmed, et al. Results of a one-way experiment to test the isotropy of the speed of light. arXiv:1310.1171 [gr-qc]

Paper: John Winnie. Special relativity without one way velocity assumptions. Philosophy of Science, Vol. 37, No. 2 (1970)

Paper: Jason P. Lisle. Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem. Answers Research Journal 3 191–207 (2010)

[SavedOnebyGrace]

44 minutes ago, johnc5055 said:

This really isn't that hard! Radioactive decay is what is being measured in radiometric dating. The rate at which an unstable atom loses energy through radiation is naturally going to be a function of the speed of radiation. Light is one form of radiation; all radiation moves at the same speed. The loss of energy through radiation would be faster if radiation moved faster.

So the Bible says that God is light.  Are you now claiming that God is slowing down?  Do you think He's tired or needs a rest?

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On 5/23/2016 at 10:12 AM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

a day is a day.

i know you say this to honor God. but i don't believe it is something you can be dogmatic about. 

a "yom" is not always 24 hours in scripture. the same word or a variation of it is not even translated as "day" many times, because context makes it obvious that that's not what is meant. any dictionary, even Strong's concordance, will tell you that it may mean a day, it may mean a period of sunlight, it may mean a year, it may mean a completely indeterminate "age" or other length of time. 
there's not even a sun in the sky to mark the times for the first couple "yoms" in Genesis 1 -- how can it mean from sunrise to sunrise if there is no such thing as sunrise yet? 


But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
(Genesis 2:17) 

24 hours here? of course not. 

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD
(Genesis 4:3) 

here? probably at least a whole growing season, possible much longer, right? 

And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.
(1 Kings 11:42) 

here "yom" obviously means 40 years

Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever
(Isaiah 30:8) 

here "yom" means "for ever and ever" -- how many hours is that? 

and this is recorded in Greek, but have a look - 

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
(John 8:56) 

does Jesus Himself use the word "day" to refer to a 24 hour period? or figuratively? 
this is written in Greek, but He most likely actually said it in Hebrew, and would have spoken the word "yom" here -- using it in a way that did not at all mean 24 hours! 

. . so a "day" is not always a 24 hour "day" -- even the Lord Christ does not always use this word that way. 
just like in this verse "father" does not mean the direct sire; so the 6,000 year figure calculated from genealogies could very well have hundreds of missing generations or more. 


Israel was given a weekly sabbath to mimic the order of creation. but for the same reason they were given a sabbath year. some people speak of a sabbath of centuries or millinea. in every case, it's a 7th part. so that's not a dogmatic reason to see the Genesis account as 24 hour "yoms" either. 



i say this to honor God too. 

because He is not a God who has made the universe in order to deceive us any more than He is a God who would author a lie to be written for us as a record of His creation. He doesn't write lies in His book and He doesn't write lies in His created cosmos.
but when God stepped down to live among men, He taught in parables - not plain speech - so that those to whom it was given to understand, would gain, and those to whom it was not, would lose even what little they had. to depend on Him, rather than our own understanding - to humble us before Him.
If He spoke figuratively when He walked among men, why is it hard to believe He spoke figuratively in Genesis? it's no less true; it just means the ultimate meaning is hidden behind symbols. the character of the first chapter is not like the literal history that follows: i'm not saying there was no man 'Adam' and no woman 'Eve' but that 'waters' might be more than H2O and 'day' may be more than 24 hours. 

i don't know how many hours He spent creating the universe. i wasn't there. i know how many "yoms" it took -- because that's what He told me, and i believe Him. 

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On 5/21/2016 at 9:59 PM, johnc5055 said:

That's backwards. If light/radiation was faster in the past then half-lives would also be faster. If light were twice its present speed then the decay of 40AR/39ar would happen twice as fast. It would also mean that distant starlight got here in a shorter time period.

the native speed of light slowing down over time would mean that the light of distant stars got here in a shorter time period . . . along with some other implications . . .
because the idea is that 1,000 years ago, that light was travelling 1,000,000 times faster than it is now. or something. 
so it didn't take 1 million years to get here; it got here in 2,000 years. or something. 
implication being that maybe the whole universe is 6,000 years old ((the goal of a lot of YEC science: see, they are not 'unbiased')) -- because now, we think we see billion-year old light of stars being born, so we think well the universe is billion years old. but if we're only seeing 5,000 year old light, well. you all get picture; i don't have to explain. 

but i don't see how that has anything to do with half-lives. 

[Guest shiloh357]

35 minutes ago, post said:

i know you say this to honor God. but i don't believe it is something you can be dogmatic about. 

a "yom" is not always 24 hours in scripture.

That is true, but that does not mean we are free to arbitrarily make "yom" in Gen 1 whatever we want it to mean.   When "yom" is used in conjunction with an ordinal number like it is Gen 1, it is always understood to refer to a 24 hour day.   So, it doesn't really matter how it is used elsewhere.   If the word "yom" is used in a non-literal sense, the onus is on you to demonstrate that there are internal textual indicators that demand "yom" is meant to be understood as anything other than a literal 24 hour day.

Not only that, but when God recounts the creation of the world in Exodus 20 he again, uses the word "yom" in the ordinary sense.   It's not like ancient people were too stupid to understand the concept of long eons of time spanning thousands or millions of years.   They were smart enough to understand advanced concepts within physics and engineering, so if God meant to communicate that it took millions of years or long eons of time to create the world, the words existed in Hebrew to make that point.   God is not incompetent in communicating His thoughts to us.

Quote

He doesn't write lies in His book and He doesn't write lies in His created cosmos.
but when God stepped down to live among men, He taught in parables - not plain speech - so that those to whom it was given to understand, would gain, and those to whom it was not, would lose even what little they had. to depend on Him, rather than our own understanding - to humble us before Him.
If He spoke figuratively when He walked among men, why is it hard to believe He spoke figuratively in Genesis? it's no less true; it just means the ultimate meaning is hidden behind symbols. 

It's easy, when we don't really want to believe what is written in the Bible, to write it off as a "parable" or an "allegory" or whatever.   But that is a textual argument that requires textual evidence.   If you are going to claim that this was a parable, then you have the responsibility to show where the Bible points to Genesis 1 as a parable.  Does the Bible call Genesis 1 a parable??   If so, where?    If it is a parable, what is the parable about???   Every parable has a lesson.  What does the Bible say the lesson of Genesis 1 really is??

There is absolutely NO indication that figurative devices are employed in Genesis 1.  Where are the metaphors, similes, hyperbole, symbols, etc?   Where does the Bible tell us that anything in Gen. 1 is symbolic?   What does it tell us the "symbols" if they are there, mean??

If you cannot provide the internal textual indicators in Genesis 1 that demand that it be taken as anything other than a literal account of a creation event that took 6 24 hour days, then the default understanding of what is written is that God did exactly what He said He did.   That's not relying on our own understanding.  It's relying God's faithfulness and knowing that we can trust what we read in God's word.   It's relying on the 100% inerrancy and 100% infallibility of the Bible.

[Guest shiloh357]

The Bible is always correct.   The Bible is always 100% inerrant, meaning its historical accounts are always 100% true without any mixture of error.   There is obvious tension between what the Bible says and what science says about Gen. 1.

What we do NOT do as Christians is treat science as the infallible standard by which to judge the accuracy of the Bible's claims.  Rather, what Christians do is judge the claims of science by the Bible because the Bible is also the 100% inspired Word of God.   The Bible finds it origin in God and not man and so nothing the Bible says is wrong simply because God is incapable of error. 

Just because there is this tension doesn't automatically mean that the Bible is wrong.  It exists because God is always right and our understanding of science and the universe is lacking.   There are things about the universe God made and things about God himself that we cannot always have the answers for, or cannot prove.  

The question for the Christians is, "can you believe and trust in what the Bible says, even when every external entity is telling you that you are crazy to do so?"   Many times faith means that I trust God's word and what he said when everything and everyone around my tells me that my faith in God is unfounded and foolish.

In Psalms we are told that God preserved His words, yet many claim that the Bible is not inerrant and that God's words can't really be trusted.    In Genesis we are  told that God created the world in six days, and we are told that God's word cannot be taken literally  and we cannot trust that claim.  Human reasoning calls us to reject two things that God said he did.

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5 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

When "yom" is used in conjunction with an ordinal number like it is Gen 1, it is always understood to refer to a 24 hour day.

where do you get this "rule" from? 

look: 

Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the LORD listened to me at this time also.
It was not his will to destroy you.
(Deuteronomy 10:10)

here's the same Moses using the word "yom" in conjunction with an ordinal number, and it is understood to mean a period of 40 days and forty nights - 960 hours. 

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5 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

the onus is on you

the onus isn't on anyone. 

for all i know, i was created this morning, already full of memories of decades before me, and in a body that shows decades of wear but is actually fresh. 

isn't that what you believe? that the earth was created brand-new with every indicator that it is much older? 

whether i believe the driver's license i discovered in my wallet is correct, or whether i believe that this hour is the first hour of my life, makes no difference at all in how i live and whether i honor God or not. 

if you want to argue with the rocks and the stars, because you think they are lying about their age, that's fine. but the scriptures say that this same creation testifies about God & His eternal characteristics, glorifying Him and His works. if you think they're being duplicitous, then perhaps if there is any onus, it's on them to explain themselves, why they don't act their age. 

i don't know how the cosmos was created and what God considered a "day" to be -- for all but the last bit of the 6th day, He was the only one witnessing the creation, so i don't have any reason to think He was necessarily measuring time in human terms. 

i'm not here to argue about this. all i meant by what i put is that we don't have cause to be dogmatic about the details of this; we're 'darkening counsel without knowledge.' 

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5 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

The Bible is always correct.

yes, and when what we observe disagrees with what we thought we understood, it's not that God deceived us, and it's not that the Bible is incorrect. 
it's that our understanding of either what we observe, or our understanding of what is written, is incorrect. quite possibly both. 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

6 hours ago, post said:

where do you get this "rule" from? 

look: 

Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the LORD listened to me at this time also.
It was not his will to destroy you.
(Deuteronomy 10:10)

here's the same Moses using the word "yom" in conjunction with an ordinal number, and it is understood to mean a period of 40 days and forty nights - 960 hours. 

I read Hebrew, Post.  I know what I am talking about.   And your example doesn't really contradict my point concerning Gen. 1.