Murf wrote:

Hello everybody,

Last week I was wandering the shops during my office lunch break when
I was harassed by a religeous zealot selling magazines and CDS.

Feeling argumentative I asked him whether he was (1) a creationalist
and (2) a "Young Universe" creationalist - i.e. one who believes that
dinosaurs etc didnt exist and that the universe is about 4,500 years
old...

When he replied that, yes, he didnt believe in evolution, dinosaurs
(and women's rights I assume) I suggested that he was a little
misguided.

In evidence I said "how come you can see all of the stars at night
then? After all, many of them are clearly more than 4,500 light years
away?"

He told me that "astronomy is a souless science - they lie to you".

Hmmph. He was obviously a twat, but is my line of arguemnt sound -
i.e. that you can see (or even detect) stars more than say 10,000
lightyears away a robust argument against a "young" view of
creation/existance?

   I believe it's one of the most rational arguments (assuming the other
guy understands and accepts minor things like the value/constancy of the
speed of light, parallax and other means of determining interstellar
distances, etc.) one can make (in this 'young universe,' distant stars
would also be steadily just coming into view, and we'd know nothing of
galaxies), but I've heard some counter that God merely created the
Universe with all the light already in transit, as well.

   WTF?

   Personally, I think you either have to believe in a Universe that's
very old, or a God that went far out of His way to make it *look* that
way for some unfathomable reason.

   Apply Occam's Razor vigorously here.

   And if there is a God, I believe He's a far more indifferent sort
than many of his followers want to believe, and wouldn't be bothered to
stage all this for our benefit alone. There's no center (or edge) to the
Universe in the normal sense, but that doesn't stop creationists from
thinking they live at it....

-- 

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