Creationists: Why not a mature universe?

D

Dinosaur

Rational Skeptic
Valued Senior Member
If I were a fundamentalist believer rather than an atheist, I would defend my view by advocating the concept of god having created a mature universe. This argument is the following.
  • When the Garden of Eden was created, there were surely trees that appeared to be 50 or more years old. Suppose that Adam had cut down a tree and polished the stump. I would expect him to see growth rings indicating perhaps that the tree was 100 years old, even though it had been created only a few days prior to having been cut down.

    All the scientific evidence for evolution and a universe billions of years old could similarly be explained. When god created the universe, he made it look as though it was billions of years old. He created the universe with a fossil record supporting evolution, even though it never occurred.
The above view does not require refuting evolution, time measurements via radioactive decay, geological evidence, astronomical evidence, et cetera. It is logically consistent.

I forget where I heard or read about the above theory. I do not remember it being advocated by a creationist, an ID’er, or other fundamentalist.

Do any religious believers advocate the above view?
 
This argument has been used before. I find it totally irrelevant. Citing God as a First Cause to the Universe is all well and good, but it's not really that useful an idea. Kind of extraneous, me thinks.
 
the entire idea that the universe and our world is only 6000 years old... is nonsense.

no where in the bible does it say 6000 years... if GOD wanted to say 6000 he would have... but he did not... he said 6 days.

how long is a day to GOD??? it could be billions of years.


they came up with the stupid 6000 years thing, from adding up the life spans of the people descibed as from the line of adam to noah.

totally dumb.... and not supported by anything other than that.


and that stupidity.... has lead to lots of other stupidity.

the bible... doesnt say.. so the bible isnt wrong.
stupid scholars... say... and they are wrong.

-MT
 
Yea, actually I was just dusting off an old bible the other day and in Genesis it mentions God creating man and woman in his likeness and whatnot, and that's before the Adam and Eve story, so adding up the ages of the characters in the bible is a useless gesture to begin with, even assuming that you use the bible as the final word on the subject.
 
Dinosaur said:
If I were a fundamentalist believer rather than an atheist, I would defend my view by advocating the concept of god having created a mature universe. This argument is the following.
  • When the Garden of Eden was created, there were surely trees that appeared to be 50 or more years old. Suppose that Adam had cut down a tree and polished the stump. I would expect him to see growth rings indicating perhaps that the tree was 100 years old, even though it had been created only a few days prior to having been cut down.

    All the scientific evidence for evolution and a universe billions of years old could similarly be explained. When god created the universe, he made it look as though it was billions of years old. He created the universe with a fossil record supporting evolution, even though it never occurred.
The above view does not require refuting evolution, time measurements via radioactive decay, geological evidence, astronomical evidence, et cetera. It is logically consistent.

I forget where I heard or read about the above theory. I do not remember it being advocated by a creationist, an ID’er, or other fundamentalist.

Do any religious believers advocate the above view?
Click to expand...

Actually creationists and evolutionists work out of the same paradigm - namely linear time - if you accept that the material cosmos is an eternal contigent energy of god that moves between states of manifestation and unmanifestation (just like spring and winter) under the conscious direction of the top most living entity (god) then you have something to work with - namely cyclic time
 
I've seen it argued that we live in a mature universe. That coupled with the concept of an all-good deity, it seems rather deceptive to create a universe that appears older than it really is.
 
The argument that the universe could have started off mature is not an argument at all. It has -no- foundations for the affirmation, besides an anti-rational (not even irrational or arational, but specifically -contrary- and -against- reason) desire to conform fact to belief.

Moreover, if it is accepted, all arguments from Atheists can use the same thing to disprove God. "Oh those miracles? Just random chance, man! Despite the evidence that you just presented!" (Though of course no miracle has ever had evidence of Divine Cause).
 
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