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By the way, I'm not kidding - I'm taking this (well most of it) seriously.



First of all, I do appreciate it and, frankly, I do appreciate your tone throughout most of this discussion. It has been very interesting to see this thread and the Bible Contradictions thread be mostly friendly .

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If you believe the earth was created by God 6000 years ago, then it was certainly no problem for God to place fossils in the earth, to create rocks that were already 4.55 billion years old, and to place photons in space so that we can see stars that are billions of light years away.



First of all, I think that most creationists are not hard set on a 6000+ year date. This date was originally conceived by James Usher when he attempted to calculate the age of the earth based on the genealogies in Genesis and through the Bible onward to his day. It is possible that his dates are way off because the Bible does not always give every single person in a genealogy, but tends to mention only the "significant" people in the genealogy (and those needed to "connect the dots"). As a result, it is possible that people (even generations) are missing from lineage presented to us. Therefore, most creationsists believe the earth is between 10,000 and 20,000 years old ... some older.

The other concept that you bring up about placing fossils there or photons already in place is called the Aparent Age theory (at least that is what I have heard it called). It is the concept that things may APPEAR older than they are because of the way that God created things. An example of this is the creation of Adam and Eve. It is obvious that Adam, one minute after being created, was not a baby of only one minute in age (or a fetus, etc). It seems rather obvious that Adam was a full grown adult. As a result, if we were there and saw Adam we would assume he was maybe 20 or 30, but the fact would be that he was only moments old. Perhaps this is the case with the rest of creation as well and it would certainly explain how we can see light from stars so far away.

As far as fossils there is a misconception. It has been reasoned that it takes a long, long time for fossils to form. However, when Mt. St. Helens errupted several years ago (was this in the 1980's?) and quickly laid down layers of ash scientists were excited to see what they would discover within. What they found surprised many of them. Animals that had been trapped in the ash were completely fossilized in under 4 months. Obviously the prossess of fossilization does not take very long periods to occur. I mention this only to state that this observation may lend credibility to the idea that the majority of the fossil record was created by the great Diluge (the flood of Noah) and thus the fossil record (and the strata they reside in) may not be as old as some think they are ... but that is another subject.

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So for what reasons do you need to explain away all those observations?



Anything I say here would be my personal oppinion. So please take it that way. I think that you bring up an interesting point. Why try to explain any of this ... scientifically or otherwise. In the past this may not have been necessary because many people believe in a God or gods as the creator(s) of all that they saw. As the idea of a force other than a god came to be the majority a need arose to try to show that a creator was behind all of this. In other words, as evolution became the accepted scientific way of explaining origins then those that believed in God wanted to come up with equally scientific means to validate their concepts. In this way, creation science becomes two things (once again, in my oppinion):

1 - A means to validate what they believe
2 - A means to cause people to believe what creationists preceive to be the truth

Lastly, the Bible states that God gave man "dominion" over the earth. I believe that part of this "dominion" manifests itself in the desire to explore the creation and to master it. As a result, even the Christian wants to scientifically examine the creation to see what "secrets" it holds. In the process of doing this they believe they will also find evidence of the handiwork of God himself:

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The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. - Psalm 19:1



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For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made - Romans 1:20a



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