How Satan Tempts Christians Using Truth
I recently got to look at a common science text for home schooling Christian parents. Homeschooling is a wonderful thing when done correctly, and the families I know are raising exceptional children. In fact, the best science program I have found so far is this hands on science teacher who sells kits online, teaches over the Internet to provide real experiments and real understanding of the universe in which we live. So, I was interested when of the parents let me see the science book that they were using. It turns out that this was from a different curriculum than the one I expected.
I opened the book at random, and simply read two examples of proofs against evolution. The first proof was that the sun is decreasing in size every year. Given the measured rate of shrinkage, it would have enveloped the earth 20 million years ago. Therefore, the earth cannot possibly be 4.5 billion years old. I then read one more. It states that the stars are wonderful creations, and in fact follow mathematical patterns that are set by God, calling the interplay of those patterns, the “harmony of the stars”. Such beauty could not be random.
While I agree such harmony would indeed be of God, the problem is that this requires our ability to measure the effects of stars, and this need indirectly contradicts the shrinking sun proof.  How so? Well, other than our sun, the closest stars are around 5 light years away, and these are the same stars that were visible on the 4th day of creation. Extending out to the 10,000 years or so that Young Earthers believe the universe to be, we still should not be able to see outside our galaxy, the edge being 30,000 light years beyond our sun. Yet, scripture tells us that all of the stars were visible in the sky before their light could have reached us, and it is those stars’ light from which many of our measurements are made. The contradiction is praising God based on measurements that could not have happened.
The science book is correct that the stars follow complicated mathematical equations. However, its conclusion is assumed true even of stars whose light we should not yet see. To cite the wonder of those stars is to rely on evidence resulting from an old universe; to do so on the same page as a proof that the universe is young requires either a disclaimer about more distant stars, or a theory on how more distant stars can be measured with any certainty. The former requires God to create a universe whose appearance looks old, but is not; the latter would require an approach that embraces mainstream scientific methods.
Interestingly, I found one excellent attempt at explaining how starlight from very far stars could have reached our view within the requisite time prescribed by a young earth.  It is at ChristianAnswers.net and explains the hypothetical proposition of a bounded universe, created without stars by God, and then expanded to include the stars on Day 4. It is an interesting theory, and embraces the mathematical representation of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, but it has one fatal flaw. The theory explains how the light from distant stars could reach us over millions of years from the stars’ perspective and near instantaneously from the earth’s perspective. Therefore, the earth was in fact created in 6 days as recorded, from its own perspective. However, such a solution also means the universe is millions of years old at the same time that it is 10,000 years old… in other words, time is variable over space. Now, I have to commend this theory for embracing the General Relativity, but why go through such mental gymnastics just to arrive at the conclusion that Genesis was written from a different time/space perspective than the rest of the universe? and that God can choose whichever perspective He likes? Isn’t that similar to what Old Earth Creationists have been saying all along? I realize the satisfaction of a model that has the earth being only 10,000 years old form its own perspective, but if you are willing to establish a young earth in a way that still allows for parts of the universe to be old, then what has really been gained?
If God created the stars to emit light that would travel over millions of years, just to arrive in a mere instant from the earth’s perspective, then it is still true that from some perspective millions of years really passed. So, what else happened during that time? Did additional stars come into being? Did any die? By going to the trouble of establishing that stars can be millions of years old in a different part of the universe, these well-meaning theoreticians have established conditions for the very events they are trying to say did not happen. Either the time passed or it didn’t, and either things happened over that time, or it didn’t. This theory tries to have it both ways.
Now, in regards to the shrinking sun, it turns out that our measurements before 1900 are unreliable, and that the sun is in a 76 year cycle. The “discovery” that the sun was shrinking occurred in the 1970’s, and it was real. However, soon after the cyclical nature was suggested, the shrinking actually slowed down as predicted. Unfortunately, the Christian community latched on to the theory before understanding that the earth is effected by the sun’s size in other measurable ways, and that we actually had data to study going back further than the direct measurements initially studied. However, such studies were inconclusive, suggesting the sun oscillates back and forth, but cannot be confirmed to have a long term shrinkage rate of the nature originally proposed. This does not make the measurements false, but the conclusions unwarranted… and yet they still show up as science before our children.
Many Christians unfortunately read these theories and use it to support their faith that the earth is young. To the secular world, and much of the Christian, they just seem ignorant. I know God does not require us to understand all that He does, just that we place Him first to the best of our ability. As I have said before, I would rather have Christians accept unsound scientific theories than to lose their soul, but they do not realize the falsehoods they accept. Remember Eve? She believed eating the fruit would kill her physically; God only meant spiritually. At the very least, not immediately. However, God accepted her faith as it was. When Satan “corrected” her, telling her that she would not die, she assumed it meant she could eat the fruit. So she did, and fell. Accepting a distortion of God’s meaning had kept her in faith; accepting the truth of God’s meaning caused her to lose it. It is like this for many Christians. Because they believe an Old Earth is not true, accepting it would turn them from God. Satan’s cunning that way, deconverting Christians who accept the truth, and isolating the rest because they look foolish to the world. Of course, Satan will not win in the end, but it doesn’t mean we have to give up ground.
May 30th, 2010 at 7:42 am
One more example. In the same paragraph in the science text book describes the harmony of the stars, it also discusses how stars actually emit music. It makes me wonder how much research they did however. According this artice here, http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18862, it demonstrates how sounds might disrupt supernovae. Basically, the the idea is that the supernovae activity creates sounds around middle C, and cause it to explode. It’s based on computer models, and I do not know where the science book got its information, but I found this connection interesting at least.