On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 05:22:09 -0500, asa-digest wrote:
Walter wrote, _inter alia_
>Even Henry Morris (not my favorite person) says:
>
>- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>"Simply stated, the idea of "creation with appearance of age" means that when
>God created, those things which He created might superficially have looked as if
>they had a history. When Adam was created, he no doubt looked like a mature
>adult, fully able to walk, talk, care for the garden, etc. When God created
>fruit trees, they were already bearing fruit. In each case, what He created was
>functionally complete right from the start-able to fulfill the purpose for which
>it was created. Stars, created on Day Four, had to be seen to perform their
>purpose of usefulness in telling time; therefore, their light had to be visible
>on Earth right from the start. .....
I don't want to get too entwined in this. But it seems to me that the argument
concerning the stars is very poor. I agree, they would have to be seen. But did
they really have to be so many millions, billions of light years away? And with
a built-in history of events that never really took place encoded into the light,
as Glenn has pointed out before? In fact, did God have to create them as we now
know they are? In order to fulfil their stated function, could they not have been
created to be no more than they appear to be - small lights at a much lesser
distance?
I have often mused over the stated function of the heavenly bodies - it seems
to me that God didn't do a very good job here. None of the useful periods -
day, various lunar months, solar and sidereal years - are commensurate (I
hope that's the right word), requiring that calendars be extremely complex,
and further compounded by changes, particularly in the Earth's rotational
period, which over time have significant effect, nowadays necessitating the
insertion of 'leap seconds' every so often to keep things straight.
(Or maybe this is another of those degenerative effects ascribed by some
to the Fall?)
/Gary
Received on Mon Feb 2 06:30:03 2004
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