Debate:If the universe is young and it takes light millions of years to reach us from far off stars, how can we see them?

Theory 1

Well, I would venture to say that we have not seen the far off ones yet. We can only see the light that has reached the Earth so far. This means that the currently-visible stars are "only" several thousand lightyears away. --<<-David R->> 17:16, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Empircally false. Basic parallax data gets us that there are stars at least 7000 years away and more sophisticated techniques force other stars to be even farther away. JoshuaZ 18:59, 10 March 2007 (EST)

Theory 2

When God created the universe, he also created a complete ray of light extending between the star and the Earth. The light that we see now was created only a few thousand years ago. It looks as if it came from the star, but it really didn't; it was created in mid-air, or mid-space as it were, a few thousand light-years away. The light that started travelling from the star itself at its instant of creation will not reach us for millions of years (or perhaps never if the Earth does not last that long).

<
* = star
- = ray of light
O = Earth
> = where the light we see today was when the Universe was created

BEFORE CREATION:
   [Void]
AFTER CREATION of star, Earth, and complete ray of light all at the same instant
*------------------------------------------------->----O

A few thousand years after Creation (today)
*----------------------------------------------------->O

As opposed to:
AFTER CREATION:
*                                                      O
 
Millions of years later (still can't see star)
*---------------------                                 O

Millions and millions of years later (still can't see star)
*---------------------------------------------         O

Millions and millions and millions of years later (finally can see star)
*------------------------------------------------------O

The language of the Bible, "Let there be light," even can be read as supporting this.

No, I do not believe this. (But I can't prove it's not true.) Dpbsmith 18:27, 10 March 2007 (EST)

This is a variant of omphalism and essentially asserts that God has deliberately deceived humans. I don't think most people would want to believe in a deceptive deity and in any event, it would contradict the verse in Isaiah that says that God is truth. JoshuaZ 19:01, 10 March 2007 (EST)

White-hole Cosmology

The universe began as a white hole. Initially, as matter expanded into it, time did not flow--because the very space-time continuum had four dimensions of space and none of time. Eventually, time began to flow at the outer fringes of the expanding ball of matter, and this region of timeliness worked its way back to the center. So the earth really is six thousand or so years old--by clocks on the earth, which are the only clocks that need to matter to us. By any clock on the outer fringes, the cosmos might well be twenty billion years old. The light impinges on us now because it was always impinging on the border of the region of timelessness until that region shrank away to nothing.--TerryH 19:15, 10 March 2007 (EST)