It takes billions of years for light to travel from distant stars to the earth. How can we see this light, if the universe is less than 10,000 years old?
Most proponents of a young universe claim that God created the universe with appearance of age as a mature creation that would be immediately functional, with mature humans (not helpless infants), balanced ecosystems, our energy-giving sun, and starlight created “in transit to us” instead of coming from a shining star. This beginning of history is analogous to a movie that begins in the middle of an action scene, without showing everything leading up to the action. The universe appears to be older than it actually is, so it has a false apparent age (AA). Yes, if the earth is young, some AA would be essential for Adam and Eve in Eden. But some AA doesn’t seem necessary, so we can ask: Would an honest God create a universe with detailed nonessential evidence for events that never occurred? For example, in 1987 scientists observed starlight from 170,000 light-years away, with characteristics changing in a way that corresponds to the sequence of events during a supernova explosion.
Related Questions
- If nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then how can the universe have expanded by "inflation" to billions of light years across in the first tiny fraction of a second?
- It takes billions of years for light to travel from distant stars to the earth. How can we see this light, if the universe is less than 10,000 years old?
- Distant starlight: how could light travel billions of light years in only 6,000 years?
