Astronomy and the Bible | Creation Data Institute

Astronomy and the Bible

featuring Mike Riddle (72 min.)

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Topics

Two models
Evidence for age
Origin of stars
Scientific evidence and the big bang
The Bible and big bang cosmology

Evolution/Theistic Evolution

Day Age Theory – God used the big bang to start things off, but the universe is billions of years old and the days of creation are long indefinite periods of time.
Gap Theory – Puts billions of years in between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
Progressive Creation Model – Big bang, long periods of time for days of creation.

► All the above believe in the big bang, universe is 12-15 billion years old, and that stars formed by natural processes.

Biblical Model

God spoke the universe into existence by his great power
Young Universe
God created the stars and all heavenly bodies

What are the implications of accepting the big bang as part of, In the beginning God Created?

The big bang is associated with long ages and stellar formation by natural processes.

From a Biblical Perspective it means:

God’s creation was not 6 days
The meaning of “very good” in Genesis 1:31 becomes questionable
Death before sin
Genesis Flood was not worldwide
Colossians 1:16 “all” does not mean all things
What do the heavens declare? God or Evolution

Textbooks and Science Journals

Big Bang – billions of years old
Distant Starlight – billions of years old

Are we being given all the evidence?

Recession of the Moon – 4 cm/year (Contact of earth and moon in 1.4 billion years.)
Comets – Made of ice. Long period comets circle around the sun or solar system 200 years or more. Short period comets circle around the sun or solar system 200 years or less. As they circle around our solar system they lose mass and therefore should not exist over long periods of time. Evolutionists claim that out in space is an Oort Cloud that produces comments to replace the ones which melt away. An Oort cloud has never been observed, there is no evidence for its existence, and there would not be enough mass in the hypothetical Oort cloud. Oort clouds are accepted and taught on faith, not science. Danny Faulkner, PhD Astronomy, More Problems for the Oort Cloud, Technical Journal, 2001 p.11 states, Since it cannot be detected, the Oort Cloud is not a scientific concept. This is not bad science, but non-science masquerading as science. The existence of comets is good evidence that the solar system is only a few thousand years old…
Age of the Sun – Sun creates energy by thermonuclear fusion (turning Hydrogen into Helium). As it ages, the sun gets hotter and hotter. If the earth is 4.6 billion years old, then we should be 40% hotter today than in the beginning. According to evolutionists, life started 3 ½ billion years ago. At the time life formed, the average earth’s temperature would have been below freezing at 27º F or -3º C. Yet, evolution theory requires much heat to supposedly create life.
Supernova Remnants – We have observed stars exploding into gas clouds.

Supernova Number of observable SNRs

Remnants predicted if our galaxy is:

Stage (exploded in years) Billions of Years 7000 Years Actual

First (recent) 2 2 5

Second (thousands) 2260 125 200

Third (millions) 5000 0 0

Galaxy formation – Spiral galaxies should not exist if the age of the universe is billions of years old. Book – The Facts on file Dictionary of Astronomy 1994, p.172. – Galaxies must have expanded from the big bang… Details of the formation of galaxies are still highly uncertain, as is their subsequent evolution. This is evidence of a faith in evolution, not in science. Why should we accept the evolutionist’s believe system, when our own fits alongside the observable evidence.

The Origin of Stars

Evolution – Stars evolved billions of years before the earth.
Theistic Evolution/Progressive Creation – Stars evolved billions of years before earth.
The Bible – Earth created on Day 1, The sun, moon and stars on Day 4.

How are stars formed? Evolution teaches that stars are formed from gas and dust clouds through gravitational contraction. This theory is counter to basic physics. The process causes heat pressure and expansion, not contraction. Fred Whipple, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1985, p. 213. says that Astronomers have yet to find an interstellar cloud in the actual process of collapse. The textbooks are filled with deception, and hold back evidence that might suggest special creation.

Star Formation and Time

Based on the number of estimated stars in the universe, the star formation rate should be around 31,700 stars per second, yet we can’t observe any stars forming. Evolutionists suggest most stars formed at the point of the big bang or shortly thereafter. That conveniently masks the problem of star formation.
Star nurseries are a figment of the imagination.

Background Radiation

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP satellite: New York times, 2003 – The most detailed and precise map yet produced of the universe at its birth confirms the Big Bang theory in triumphant detail…. It reveals theemergence of the first stars in the cosmos, only 200 million years after the Big Bang, half a billion years earlier than theorists had thought… The pictures were just a bit more clear than previous pictures. They made a great claim with no evidence, and that’s called faith.

Marcus Chown, “Let there be Light”, New Scientist, Feb 7, 1998 states, The truth is that we don’t understand star formation at a fundamental level. The question is then; why do so many textbooks state we know how stars formed? It appears the scientific evidence doesn’t matter.

From the perspective of the evolution model we are:

A non-special species
Living in a non-special place in the universe
An accident of chance occurrences

Is there enough evidence to support a belief in billions of years?

This is what evolutions use as evidence for billions of years:

Redshift
Cosmic Background Radiation
Element abundances
Education system and the media (biggest supporter)

Evidences against the Big Bang (left out of most textbooks)

Redshift
Cosmic background Radiation
Galaxy formation
Spiral galaxies
SNR (supernova remnants)
Distribution of galaxies
1^st & 2^nd Laws of thermodynamics
Medium and heavy elements
Star formation

The big bang model proposes that in the beginning there was matter which expanded in the relationship of space and time, similar to blowing up a balloon. It assumes there was matter, but doesn’t explain where it came from. The bible has the answer. It requires more faith to believe the big bang theory than, in the beginning God created.

Redshift – As with sound, as light travels towards you is compacts (blue-shift) and expands as it moves away from you (redshift). Compacting is shown on a blue scale, and expansion or stretching out is shown on a red scale. Most of the light we see is on the red side of the scale suggesting that the universe is expanding away from us. That is used by evolutionists to support the big bang model. Also, the further away a galaxy is from us the further it shows on the red scale or the faster it appears to be moving away from us.

Assumption to the big bang model is that the universe is homogenous, with no center, and redshift everywhere. What we observe is redshifts in concentric circles 1 million-light-years apart, with nothing in between. Big bang predicts everything should be the same. Evolutionists, W.G. Tifft and W. J. Cocke, wrote, “Global redshift quantization”, Astrophysical Journal, 1984, There is now very firm evidence that redshifts of galaxies are quantized… This went against the big bang theory and was totally ignored. This has been confirmed out to a billion light years by the Hubble telescope. The big bang theory suggests that before the time of Copernicus we thought ourselves to be the center of the universe, but as stated by Stephen Hawking and George Ellis in 1973, in the Cambridge University Press, we are nothing special. Yet we have come full circle and it now appears that everything in the known universe is moving away in concentric circles from our galaxy. Halton Arp (Staff astronomer at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories for 29 years), Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies, 1987, p. 195. The fact that measured values of redshift do not vary continuously but come in steps – certain preferred values – is so unexpected that conventional astronomy has never been able to accept it, in spite of the overwhelming observational evidence.

Does the evidence support the big bang model? NO!

The Bible and Big Bang Cosmology

Can we fit big bang cosmology into the Bible? Danny Faulkner, PhD Astronomy states, There are many today who interpret Genesis in terms of the latest scientific theories and even fads. If the history of science is any teacher, then we must conclude that many of these ideas eventually will be discarded. Many churches today compromise God’s Word to the fallible theories of man, like the big bang. Many of these ideas were devised to counter the biblical record, which is firmly against cosmic evolution over billions of years. Once compromised, it is easy for them to believe other evolutionary ideas. If the foundation is let go to evolution, then what can the righteous do?

The Bible and Time of Creation – There is nothing in the Bible which leads us to believe the earth is billions of years old.

Day with a number
Evening and morning
Genesis 1:14 – And Gods said, Let the bright lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. They will be signs to mark off the seasons, the days, and the years.
Exodus 20:11- For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; then he rested on the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. Plus Exodus 31:17.
Words used to indicate time
Sentence structure
Genealogies (Gen 5, 1Cron 1, Luke 3)
Plants and sunlight
The sun
The plain reading of the text
Lexicons and theological dictionaries
Semantics

A God of Miracles

God created trees mature with fruit
God created mature animals
God created Adam and Eve mature
Jesus fed the 5000
Jesus turned the water into wine
Jesus withered the fig tree (Matt 21:18-19)
Instant learning of language (Tower of Babel)
Instant healing of soldier’s ear (Luke 22:51)
Creation was “very good” (Genesis 1:31)

Question – Is that the God we worship, or do we have to bring God down to our level of understanding of science? If the latter statement is true, then we are creating God in our own image and that’s idolatry.

What have we seen about the pattern of evolution?

Not reporting all the evidence
Constantly updating the big bang model to match observable data
Disagreement among astronomers
A disregard for biblical interpretation
An appeal to churches to accept “real science” claiming you can have the Bible and Evolution

Which is easier to believe?

Nothing created something (Universe)
God used evolution
In the beginning God created

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. Fables today come in the form of evolution.

The creation by God gives meaning to the Universe. We were created in the image of God. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to save us from ourselves and forgive our sins so that we would be worthy of grace when we face our God in Heaven.

Biblical References:

Genesis 1:16 – And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Isaiah 40:26 – Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number:…
Psalms 8:3 – When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
Exodus 20:11 – For in six days….
Ps 19:1 – The heavens declare the glory of God
Ps 33:6 – By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them…
Ps 148:5 – …for he commanded and they were created.
Is 45:12 – …I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded
Nehemiah 9.6 – Thou, even thou, are Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host…
John 1: 3 – All things were made by him…
Rev 4:11 – …for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created