mardi 31 mars 2015

How Smart Was Ancient Man?

1) Creation vs. Evolution : How Smart Was Ancient Man? · 2) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Someone Considered Me Psychotic, Because I Know Cultural History of Early XX C. Better than He

1) Creation vs. Evolution : How Smart Was Ancient Man? · 2) New blog on the kid : Agnostic About God, Very Dogmatic About Neanderthals

I will quote a little passage from a novella:

A strange-looking animal was running across the open glade toward the forest. It looked something like a human being, but was entirely naked. Its body, except on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, was covered with reddish-brown hair, but on the head it was nearly black and long and matted; while on the rest of the body it was short and curled—nearly fur, in fact. Its arms were long, reaching below the knees, and the great toes, as it ran, stood nearly at right angles to the others.

The animal carried no weapon of any kind, if we except a club or staff broken from a dry branch, which it seemed to use in maintaining an upright position as it hurried toward a large tree with pendent branches which stood at the edge of the forest.

Just as the creature reached the outer branches, which extended nearly to the ground, a storm, which had been rapidly approaching, burst with great violence. There was a loud clap of thunder, a bolt of lightning tore the tree to splinters, and the animal fell to the ground, stunned by the shock. It lay unconscious for some time, and the thunder shower had passed, leaving the sun shining brightly, when it raised its head and sat up. At first it slowly rubbed its body and head, and then, reaching full consciousness, its attention was attracted by a roaring and crackling sound a short distance away.

The lightning had prostrated the tree and had set fire to a mass of brush and logs lying at its roots. The beast sprang to its feet in astonishment and alarm.

The animal was one of our primitive ancestors, and he now saw fire for the first time.

As his body, chilled by the recent rain, began to feel the warmth, he first drew near, but as the heat increased, he was compelled to withdraw to a greater distance. He gazed as if fascinated, however, at the curious sight for a long time.

When it began to grow dark, he was surprised to see that the forest for some distance around, remained nearly as light as day.

His feeble intellect, however, soon wearied of the new sensation, and he withdrew to an overhanging rock near-by. He knew of a small cave at its base with a narrow entrance, and of this he at once took possession, rolling against the opening some masses of stone lying near and piling in others after he had entered, until he had secured the opening against any dangerous animal. He gave little further thought to the phenomena of the fire, for man had not yet reached a development in intellect which permitted a consecutive train of thought for any considerable length of time. He slept soundly, but when he crawled from his refuge in the morning, the smoke still rising from the pile of logs and brush attracted his attention and recalled to his mind what had occurred the evening before. He approached the fire, which had nearly consumed its supply of fuel, but was smouldering still in a large decayed log and the ends of several poles which lay partly in a bed of glowing coals.


Not VERY smart, is he? Not exactly even Rahan style smart, though with little previous knowledge, and absolutely no match for John G. Hartnett.

That is more than I can say of his KNOWN author C. H. ROBINSON.*

This man considers that someone like Longhead had evolution for its author. But he knew he was himself the author of the precise Longhead we were reading about.

So, while an unknown "individual like Longhead" might in C. H. ROBINSON's view have had an author which was less smart than himself, to wit evolution, or perhaps even evolution is supposed to be a life force ultimately smarter not just than Longhead but than us too, the known novella character Longhead certainly had for its author C. H. ROBINSON who was way smarter than the Longhead he described.

Here see how the society of Longhead is described:

Most of the people in the group to which he belonged had short round heads, such as scientists call brachiocephalic, but this man was dolichocephalous, or longheaded, and this peculiarity had given him the name of Longhead among this group at the few gatherings of these people, which happened occasionally, more by accident than design, for they had no social organization whatever. They had no laws; no leaders; no permanent habitations and wore no clothing. They slept in nests built in the branches of trees at night, or sought shelter in any chance caves of the region through which they roved. This had no defined boundaries and they remained in the locality only because they found food fairly plentiful.

As yet, there was not even family organization, for it was many ages after this time before it dawned upon man anywhere that the male animal played any part in the propagation of species. To the ordinary and usual phenomena of nature our primitive forefathers never gave a thought or question, but accepted them without speculation as to their cause or fear as to their continuance, so long as regularity obtained. The rising and setting of the sun were to him perfectly natural events of daily occurrence from his childhood, and had so continued during the recollection of the oldest members of the group, and it was only when eclipses occurred, breaking this orderly continuity, that he felt at all alarmed. It was natural for the moon to shed her soft light when not obscured by clouds, and even its waxing and waning occasioned no alarm, for this, likewise, had continued "since the fathers fell asleep." There was nothing strange about the gentle dew descending by night or rain falling from the clouds; these he had observed from his earliest youth; but when the loud thunders reverberated through the hills, and the forked lightnings flashed athwart the sky, frequently rending the giant trees of the forest or bringing sudden death to a comrade, this mysterious and dangerous display of an unknown power, was, to him, alarming, and he early attributed these and all other infrequent or unaccountable phenomena to supernatural beings with whom his fancy peopled the hills and forests, the rivers and the sky.

It was entirely natural to primitive man that in the spring the trees and plants should bud and send forth leaves and blossoms, to be followed later by fruit, "each after its kind." This, also, had always occurred from his earliest recollection and that of his elders, and it occasioned no thought upon his part. It was only when floods, drouths and other calamities interfered with this orderly sequence of events that any mystery was presented or any thought required. It is clear that among these common and natural occurrences, which were simply accepted without question because they had always happened, must be classed the bringing forth of young by all mammals. Man had always observed that the females of all the animals about him brought forth young, "each after its kind." This was to be expected and gave him no surprise, nor, in the then condition of his intellect, did it give rise to a thought as to its cause. Likewise, his own womankind gave birth to young, from time to time, just as did the other animals, and there was no cause for speculation or thought in regard to this; the occurrence was too common to be a mystery.

There being then no knowledge of fatherhood, there were no fathers, and for many generations no relatives were known except in the female line. Consequently, there was no family hearthstone; no paternal love; no marriage. The relations of the sexes was purely physical and were generally indiscriminate, as opportunity might afford; but doubtless, with some, this companionship was continued for a longer or shorter period, as circumstances or congeniality might induce.


Fatherhood unknown (we'll see this again in Clan of the Cavebear by Jean Auel, won't we?) and living things producing "each after its kind" (like in Holy Bible) is a naive observation of people who had no idea of fatherhood and knew not fire. Who had no laws and who could not think in concentrated fashion for very long.

Somehow, C. H. ROBINSON seems to want us to think the Biblical view is very, well, unprofound, primitive, based on thoughtless superficial observations one should think twice about etc.

So, let us read some from Holy Writ, how Genesis describes not just a very early but even the very earliest man:

Genesis 2: [6] But a spring rose out of the earth, watering all the surface of the earth. [7] And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. [8] And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed. [9] And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. [10] And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.

[11] The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth. [12] And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. [13] And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that compasseth all the land of Ethiopia. [14] And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. [15] And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it.

[16] And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: [17] But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. [18] And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself. [19] And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name. [20] And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field: but for Adam there was not found a helper like himself.

[21] Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. [22] And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam. [23] And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. [24] Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. [25] And they were both naked: to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed.

There is a similarity : the first man and woman are described as being naked and not ashamed.

But apart from that, the description is totally different.

Adam is:

  • communicating with his Maker;
  • well aware of language and of how to name and categorise things;
  • aware of geography (and presumably of cosmology as well);
  • told he has a wife and reacts with a prophecy about all of his (married) descendants, or of many of them at least;
  • told to procreate, meaning he and Eve understand perfectly well how children are made. This also means they are going to use sex for the sake of making children.


So, do we believe in Longhead and Broken Tooth or in Adam and Eve? We can't chose both for the very first man who knew what fire was. Longhead and Adam are too dissimilar.

We can note that some of the belief in Evolution comes from the story of Longhead and Broken Tooth. And that C. H. ROBINSON meant it to, back in 1913.

Longhead: The Story of the First Fire
BY
C. H. ROBINSON
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47845/47845-h/47845-h.htm


BOSTON * L. C. PAGE & COMPANY * MDCCCCXIII

First Impression, July, 1913

THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.

Here are the chapters in the index:

CHAPTER PAGE
I.Introduction of Fire1
II.Weapons—Cooked Food—Companionship36
III.Germs of Social Organization62
IV.Co-operation76
V.Dawn of Invention, Art, Marriage, Religion and Government97


Now, if I do not believe C. H. ROBINSON on the item of invention of fire, I am obviously not believing him on the chapter five matter either. Even before (just possibly) reading it.

But I do believe this kind of stuff has been written much later than 1913 also, namely in diverse East European countries of the Warszaw Pact, while it lasted. And in Soviet Union even before there was a Warszaw Pact.

And though I believe a scientist can tell the difference between brachycephalic and dolichocephalic, in my book that does not amount to being able to reconstruct the story of a very long lost past.

However, if Adam and Eve are the true account, we are, fortunately, not dealing with a reconstruction:

Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. (Haydock)


From Haydock comment (1859, this portion originally marked "A." presumably as in "author", thus George Leo Haydock) to chapter 3 of Genesis.

I find Genesis more believable than Evolution (irrespective of where inbetween I put Pagan myths) for the reason of preferring tradition over seven intermediates to be preferrable to reconstruction, but also for the fact that man as we know ourselves could never have evolved from something as dubmed down as Longhead. I wonder if Chesterton and Belloc got their prejudice against dolichocephalic physiognomies from this story.

Btw, if someone claims again that Tarzan is somehow not Evolutionist, because Anglo-Saxon culture wasn't ready for it, look at fact that Tarzan was created in 1912 and Longhead came in 1913.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Tuesday in Holy Week
31-III-2015

* Known and known ... I know for one thing he probably is NOT identic to the founder of the transport company or whatever C. H. Robinson, since I asked them and their founder died as early as 1909. Apart from that I have so far found no trace of C. H. Robinson on internet. Except of course, on the project Gutenberg, as author of this book.

Wow, John admitted Astrophysics is Not an Operational Science ! (Quote and Link Post)

In my realm of interest there are really only two types of scientists:

1. Experimental physicists carrying out experiments in laboratories,
2. Astrophysicists (or cosmologists) who use the universe as their ‘laboratory’.

Both construct mathematical models to describe their observations. Both test their models against those observations.

However the experimentalists (type 1) can interact with their experiments in a way the astrophysicists cannot. For example, they can send in a light signal and measure the response in the system, i.e. see what comes out. But the astrophysicists (type 2) cannot interact with what they are observing in the universe. The universe is just too large to do that.


It is also too large for us to look at stars or even "solar system" from all sides. But even so, thanks very much for admission!/HGL

Why is Dark Matter everywhere in the cosmos?
A product of the Dark Side
by John G. Hartnett Published: 31 March 2015
http://creation.com/why-dark-matter-everywhere

samedi 28 mars 2015

Does Geocentrism Discredit Creationism?

1) Creation vs. Evolution : Does Geocentrism Discredit Creationism?, 2) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Date of Gospels, Lita!

CMI : Does creation damage Christianity’s credibility?
Feedback, answer by Lita Cosner
http://creation.com/creation-damage-credibility


Does Geocentrism damage the credibility of Creation?

Think about it.

You may think Geocentrism is wrong and is not adressed by Joshua X or a certain Psalm ... your questioner thinks the same about creation.

What exactly in your own stance would become incredible to any seriously interested enquirer (as opposed to a scoffer!) by being shared by me who is (as you suppose, wrongly) also a Geocentric?

Neither more nor less than the witness for Resurrection your enquirer today is hopefully trying to give would be less credible for being shared by you and by me, if we were both wrong on how and when of Creation, and not just I wrong on Geocentrism.

A serious enquirer, as opposed to a scoffer using guilt by association like those trying to link us to Flat Earth Society - when the modern flat earth maps actually lacks the Biblical four corners, or has them less clearly marked than the Earth globe map I still believe in, by the way, let us take this point before going on about the serious enquirer:

My choice for Biblical four corners: NW either Alaska or Scandinavia/England/Iceland. SW either Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope. NE Sakhalin/Japan. SE Singapore/New Guinea/Australia. Undecided whether Americas are an "earthsea" archipelago outside the earth (as in Continent) that has four corners or whether Atlantic is rather a huge ditch or pond within it. Modern Flat Earth maps would rather give three corners (all South Corners!) of the Earth : Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, Singapore/New Guinea/Australia. Unless Ceylon and close part of India should count as a fourth South corner. So, the four corners' passages (after modern geographic discoveries) clearly speak for a round Earth sphere underlying both sea and land, while most landmass as opposed to sea is still in a space having four corners, opposed to either Pacific or Pacific/Americas/Atlantic outside these.

A serious enquirer, then, would very much know that a true position may very well be held by someone who is also holding a false one. To a serious enquirer, Resurrection of Christ cannot be undermined by Creationism - except insofar as he understands Creationist claims are involved in Christ's claim of being True God, through for instance Mark 10:6. But in that latter case, what would undermine his confidence in Resurrection as you well understand, is his belief in Evolution. And if you believe (as I think correctly) his belief in Evolution is erroneous, it is not your duty to share his error in order to bolster his confidence in Christ by glossing over Mark 10:6.

And if he were a serious enquirer, he would also understand that. He would not tell you or the questioner you got today that "I can nearly believe Christ was seen by Apostles, but these guys bring in Evolution being wrong, and I can't believe it anymore", he would say "I could nearly believe Christ was seen by the Apostles, and He was God, but then there is that matter of Mark 10:6 ..."

Similarily, if I maintain Resurrection of Christ is indeed linked also to Creationism through Mark 10:6, and Creationism to a "small" and not Heliocentric universe through Distant Starlight problem, a serious enquirer cannot loose confidence in you or more importantly in Genesis because of what I say, but if his Heliocentrism is incurable (depending on his own choices, ultimately), the one thing it can contribute to his disbelief is like "sure, stars could have been created on day four, but what about the distant starlight problem?"

He would, if honest, not complain to you about me. He might refer to my arguments in saying "HGL has shown that a very easy way to get around distant starlight problem is Geocentrism, I can't believe that due to gravitation, so I can't believe stars were created on day 4, 7200/6000 years ago".

If so, your job is not keeping me away from getting public attention, your job, if you are right and I am wrong, is showing how distant starlight problem can be solved without geocentrism. If it can be done at all, you might even be better off for referring to my arguments by quote and reference before rebutting in detail.

Think about it.

I am not complaining of how Flat Earth society is damaging my credibility as a Geocentric, but simply saying I place the four corners "of the mainland" or "of the dry land" are best identified on a globe, by now.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Saturday after Annunciation Feast
28-III-2015

mercredi 25 mars 2015

CMI Cites Bible Text Supporting St Thomas over St Bonaventure

1) Great Bishop of Geneva! : Saint Thomas Aquinas was Not an Atheist ; 2) Creation vs. Evolution : CMI Cites Bible Text Supporting St Thomas over St Bonaventure

How so?

CMI : ‘Creation is faith; evolution is science’?
by Florin Mocanu
Published: 22 March 2015
http://creation.com/creation-faith-evolution-science


Cites:

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

But actually the text as given in DR is less clear in the issue between the two scholastics:

Hebrews 11 (DRBO) : [3] By faith we understand that the world was framed by the word of God; that from invisible things visible things might be made.

Which exactly mirrors the Vulgate:

Ad Hebraeos, caput xj : [3] Fide intelligimus aptata esse saecula verbo Dei: ut ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent.

Now, what was the exact quarrel between St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonventura (long since settled in Heaven, of course)?

They both agreed that existence of God could be proven from everyday and uncontestable experience, that not itself a piece of operative science, it nevertheless follows logically from operative science. However, they differed on whether one could similarily prove the non-eternity of the universe. St Bonaventure argued from time being a succession of ... I will not credit him with saying "succession of instants" as if time was quantic, but at least a succession of potency flowing into actuality, of events future and uncertain (to man) becoming events past (and certain). He argued from this being additive to its having a beginning, like the line of numbers has a beginning in 1. So, time also needs a beginning. Hence a creator outside time.

St Thomas argued differently for the existence of God. In each instant x is moved by y, which is moved by z, in a finite procession of movers : and the first contemporary mover in each instant explains the other moved movers and the movements, but is not explained by them. This first mover is God.

However, knowing God scientifically as first mover (most detailed as a Geocentric analysis of Universe is implied, go rather to full text of Summa Contra Gentes book I chapter 13 - an online English translation omits it - than to first argument in corpus of I, Q2, A3 of Summa), tells us nothing of whether the universe is eternal or was created a moment ago. Hence he argues we can know God as First Mover philosophically, but to know Him as Creator giving a beginning to time in the past, we need faith.

Now, actually the verse, even as cited in CMI article from Sunday, does not quite give the precision of a creatio ex nihilo at a point in time, only a creation of visible things, obviously at a point in time, and these not from previous visible things. But it also gives so much information otherwise on how God created, that the mere point of Universe having a beginning in time, or of time having a beginning, is no big deal when it comes to leaving things open to human philosophy to find.

The full information of what Creation entails, including of course at least in Catholic Bibles visibles being created from invisibles (like perhaps from Platonic ideas pre-existing eternally in God the Son as Wisdom of the Father?), and also, in any Bible, the Six Days and Adam on the Sixth and being head of genealogies, all that is known by Faith alone, and not by Philosophy, humanly accessible at all. What one can do is to show why objections to this Theology do not hold. But some idea of God, possibly as beginner of time, certainly as beginner of movement in each instant during time, still remains accessible to the human philosophy. Otherwise St Paul would have been lying in Romans:

i:[18] Revelatur enim ira Dei de caelo super omnem impietatem, et injustitiam hominum eorum, qui veritatem Dei in injustitia detinent: [19] quia quod notum est Dei, manifestum est in illis. Deus enim illis manifestavit. [20] Invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur: sempiterna quoque ejus virtus, et divinitas: ita ut sint inexcusabiles.

1:[18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: [19] Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. [20] For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

And the words "from Heaven" actually do point to the Geocentric version of First Mover argument. Or to its parallel which Flavius Josephus in Antiquitates attributes to Abraham.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Annunciation Solemnity
25-III-2015

mardi 10 mars 2015

Dr. Jonathan Sarfati takes out one Heliocentric YEC explanation

1) Triviū, Quadriviū, 7 cætera : Distant Starlight Problem - Answered by Geocentrism, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : Dr. Jonathan Sarfati takes out one Heliocentric YEC explanation , 3) New blog on the kid : Implications of a Wobble

Relevant quote:*

Many creationists in the past have proposed a solution for the distant starlight problem: that God created not only the stars but also the light beams in transit. But this is reminiscent of Gosse’s Omphalos idea. It fails for the same reason: while neither Gosse nor these creationists intend this, it would make God into a deceiver, by showing ‘evidence’ of events that have not happened. That is, this light pattern would show events that under this theory have never happened.

For example, a supernova is an explosion of a massive star that temporarily outshines its entire galaxy. But in ‘core collapse’ supernovae, this explosion is preceded by a collapse of the outer layers. This results in huge amounts of fusion reactions that produce enormous numbers of neutrinos. These are ghostly particles that interact only by the ‘nuclear weak force’, so mostly pass straight through matter. Then this implosion ‘bounces’, creating the ex plosion that we see. But because neutrinos pass almost unimpeded through matter, while light doesn’t, we detect the neutrinos from a supernova several hours before the light.

But the ‘light-created-in-transit’ model would entail that a neutrino stream was created followed by a light stream, and just appear as if a supernova had exploded according to the laws of physics.


Omitted statement of presupposition : Heliocentrics generally accept the inflated distance "measures" of where stars and supernovas are. Some of the supernovas are according to these "millions of lightyears" away. Thus, the supernova, for its neutrinos and light to reach us now would have had to happen millions of YEARS before now, and hence also millions of years before the Biblical distance back to Creation.

So, shall we say light outside the Solar system doesn't take any time to travel? In that case, it slows down within solar system (and yes, some measures of speed of light are through observations of Venus around Sun or of Moons of Jupiter around Jupiter - like the one by Rømer so it would really be a finite speed in solar system, unless we can find away around the argument of Rømer and reinstall light as instantaneous, as "infinite speed" as travelling one end of the universe to the other without taking up time at all). And a slowed down light means a light congestion, like if all cars travelling at 100 mph on a motorway get out on one same outlet with 50 mph, there is a congestion.

Or shall we rather say, distances are wrong.

Now, that involves for instance saying the conventional analysis of parallax (as also restated with other explanation in detail by some Neotychonians) that this analysis is wrong.

So, if parallax were something else, like angels carrying certain stars along a comparatively small distance (max 0.76 arc seconds of a circle - the kind of arc which at surface of earth is 30 meters wide), parallax is not a sign Earth is moving and thus not a sign we have a triangle involving the distance of Earth to Earth (it obviously has nothing to do with the distance Sun to Sun over the year, in a Geocentric universe). But wouldn't that make God and these angels fraudulent?

No. I leave the word to Jonathan again :

A hypothetical modern observer who travelled back in time to see Adam and Eve at the end of Day 6 might infer that they were 20-year-old adults, but in reality they were less than a day old. However, they were mature adults. Also, when created, the blood in their arteries was already oxygenated so it could power the cells in the body. Nowadays, the oxygen comes from the air through the lungs into the blood. ... [headline:] Does ‘mature creation’ make God a deceiver? [end of headline] By no means! Since age is an inference based on assumptions, there is no deception involved when people make the wrong assumptions about the starting conditions. Indeed, how could God be deceiving when He has told us plainly when He created? Rather, those who deny His word are deceiving themselves. A charge of deception could only apply if the appearance of a false history were created, one which was totally unnecessary for functional maturity.


Similarily, if God gave us very clear indications in the book of Joshua that Earth neither stopped nor restarted a movement but stayed still all the time, since it was to Sun and Moon that Joshua adressed his words, then no explanation of distances involving a supposed annual movement of earth is in court. And then, in its turn, distant starlight problem is no more a problem.

A supernova one or two light years away, sorry, light days away would involve no problem. And if Adam and Eve could see the stars on the evening of day six or the evening that started in their reckoning day seven, and not just two or three planets, the most straightforward explanation for that is that stars created two days earlier are one or two light days away and no further.

But wouldn't angels effecting what we take as "parallax" be a kind of deception?

No, not if sufficient counterindications were also given, against that interpretation.

"Annual aberration" was first observed in the constellation of Draco. To a Chinaman this might read as a recommendation, but to a Christian, it should be a red light. Even more, Ophiuchus has one star, 63 Ophiuchi, with negative parallax - a phenomenon which reasonably negates the parallactic interpretation or at least by making the positive angles of parallax bigger reduces the distances. And Ophiuchus means "the one who fights agains the serpent". That should be a recommendation to a Christian.

So, the "parallax" indicating to certain of its interpreters stellar distances of several light years, and why not millions of them, does not make God a deceiver. God has instead given us over a few centuries a history of astronomic observation, where at first one could consider the Modernist interpretation of the evidence so obvious that one "had to" consider God as either deceiving in stars (impossible) or as deceiving or not involved in Holy Bible, but newer observations have shown their interpretation was somewhere wrong, and so they did not really have to consider it so. Kind of reads like a lesson of trusting Holy Writ over purported and seemingly very realistic scientific conclusions.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Forty Martyrs at Sebaste
10-III-2015

* From : CMI : God created with functional maturity, not ‘appearance of age’
by Jonathan Sarfati, Published: 10 March 2015 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/is-apparent-age-biblical


PS: This other site, TalkOrigins, has a page on the matter too:

Determining Distances to Astronomical Objects
by Björn Feuerbacher
Copyright © 2003 [Last updated: October 26, 2003]
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/distance.html


Relevant quotes:

An often-used argument for the universe being much older than proposed by young earth creationists (YEC) is the fact that we can see astronomical objects which are billions of light years away (a light year is the distance which light travels in one year, approximately 9.5 × 1012 kilometers). Obviously (well, perhaps not so obvious - see section 5), the light from these objects needed billions of years to reach us, and therefore the universe has to be billions of years old. ... For measuring distances to astronomical objects, one uses a kind of "ladder" of different methods; each method goes only to a limited distance, and each method which goes to a larger distance builds (in general, but not always) on the data of the method(s) before. The starting point is knowing the distance from the earth to our sun; this distance is called one astronomical unit (AU) and is roughly 150 million kilometers. I think that even YECs agree on this number, hence I don't discuss here where one gets it from. (Need I mention that one has to accept the heliocentric model, too?)


May I highlight this? Here :

(Need I mention that one has to accept the heliocentric model, too?)