Universe

The universe is everything there is in regards to material existence.

Credible scientists believe that the universe formed approximately 14 billion years ago, and has been expanding ever since, making the visible universe about 156 billion light years across . The apparent paradox can be solved by the fact that although nothing travels faster than light, the expansion of space itself can exceed the speed of light. Imagine ants sitting on an elastic rubber cord, the ants can't walk faster than, let's say 20cm/s, so normally they can't move faster than 40cm/s away from each other, but if you pull the cord the ants can move away from each other faster than 40cm/s, even if they're not even moving their legs.

For any location, it appears that that location is at the center of the expansion of the universe. This can be easily understood through the "balloon analogy": imagine you are a random spot on a spotted balloon, when someone inflates the balloon you'll see the spots moving away from you, so it would seem you are at the center of the expansion, furthermore the further away the spots are the faster they move away from you, this is also true for the universe: the more distant a galaxy is, the faster it moves away from us.

Young Earth Creationism View

Young earth creationists scientists state that the first law of thermodynamics and second law of thermodynamics argue against an eternal universe, mainstream scientists agree with this, and they also claim that these laws point to the universe being supernaturally created. Also, these scientists assert the theory of evolution has had considerable influence on fields outside of biology and this includes the field of astronomy. For example, it is common for astronomers to refer to the "evolution of the universe". Young earth creationist scientists believe the evolutionary view has had a negative effect on science of astronomy and that materialistic explanations of the the origins of various astronomical bodies are insufficient and counter evidence. In addition, creationists often cite the secular scientific literature in order to make the case that materialist explanations of various astromical bodies are inadequate:

“...most every prediction by theorists about planetary formation has been wrong.” Scott Tremaine, as quoted by Richard A. Kerr, “Jupiters Like Our Own Await Planet Hunters,” Science, Vol. 295, 25 January 2002, p. 605.

“We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.” Carlos Frenk, as quoted by Robert Irion, “Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep,” Science, Vol. 303, 19 March 2004, p. 1750.

“We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.” Michael Rowan-Robinson, “Review of the Accidental Universe,” New Scientist, Vol. 97, 20 January 1983, p. 186.

Also, these scientists advance a number of reasons for the earth and universe being approximately 6,000 years old, and raise a number of objections to claims of an extremely old age for the earth and the universe. Young earth creationist scientists also contest the Big Bang Theory stating that it is scientifically unsound.

In regards to the question of how one can see starlight from millions of years of light years away, young earth creationists scientists commonly mention two things. First, these scientists assert that the Big Bang Theory has a star light-travel time problem and cite the work of Dr. Charles W. Misner. Secondly, the work of young earth creationist scientist Dr. John Hartnett is cited.

John Hartnett theorizes that the Earth was trapped in a time-dilation field, caused by an extremely powerful gravitational field, during the first few days of creation. What appeared to be days on Earth would have been billions of years to the rest of the universe.

Hartnett attributes the creation and removal of the field, as well as the required stabilization of our solar system after the field's removal, to God himself.