Omphalos

Here is an email reviving the old argument that the earth was created young with an appearance of age. This is commonly referred to as the Omphalos argument, after the book by that name that popularized this argument.

I've read your page on 'How Old is the Earth' and I am glad to see that you addressed what I call the 'Apparent Age' theory (ie light from the stars was created enroute as well as other aspects you did not address). It appears that the sum total of your argument against this theory is your subjective characterization of it as being deceptive. Was it deceptive to create Adam as a fully grown man even though he was only one day old or was it simply a constraint of creating a being who was immediately self-sufficient unlike a day old baby? Was it deceptive to create fully grown trees bearing fruit so that Adam and the other animals had something to eat or was it simply a constraint of creating an environment in which man and animals could immediately survive without having to wait years for a seed to grow into a tree and bear fruit? Was it deceptive to create a star or a supernova AND create the light that would have emanated from it in order to provide light to the earth or was it simply a constraint of needing to provide light to the earth and not wanting or needing to wait millions or billions of years for the light to arrive? Do you have anything other than a subjective characterization to address this argument? I suspect you don't or you would have already included it in your article. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Well, yes God could have created light en route from the stars at the moment he created the stars. But would that light contain a history of the stars as it arrived at us? As I explain at my site, the arriving starlight shows details of supernova explosions and other stellar activity. The light from SN 1987A even had a built in delay for the reflected light to arrive at earth. Scientists say the delay was caused by the light needing to travel 8 months to the clouds it reflected off of before it came in our direction. I suspect the writer has no answer for this. Why was the reflected light delayed 8 months in reaching us?

For more on this argument, see Omphalos.