The UNIVERSE: Understanding NUMBERS and Reason
14 Billion Years – how so; you start simply enough using basic math, but with much speculation. t = D ÷ c. That is Time (in years) equals Distance (of farthest star) divided by the speed of light. Thus, according to gsfc.nasa.gov is “13 billion light years… comes out to approximately 123,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km.” Thus, simply by using point A to point B map, the Milky Way is said to be 150,000 light-years across. And some say the Universe is a sphere of about 100 billion light-years. Nevertheless, Newton said nothing is faster than the speed of light, which is the speed at which electromagnetic radiation propagates in a vacuum or 186,282 miles per second. Ok so a Trillion is 10 to the 12th power; and a Sextillion is or 123 sextillion kilometers or about miles.
Now, so we know a few things – roughly. We know that the Universe is big; and for argument sake let’s use 3 different numbers: 76 sextillion miles, 500 sextillion miles, and a Googolplex (which is more than number of particles in the universe) so let’s just say infinity wide. So using infinity the equation would be the universe is ∞t = ∞D ÷ c. We also know the speed of light – in a vacuum anyway. So we know speculative distances and the speed of light; but don’t get caught up in the distances – just understand it’s amazingly omnipotently big.
So, we are rational Christians, we do not argue we the fact the Universe is big and the speed of light is fast but constant. But now, come let us reason together. Ok, let’s say I hire you (and a civil engineer) to come to my city’s water treatment plant. We tell you we are using DN600 or 24 inch pipe and running it 100,000 feet at a flow rate of about 23 gallons per second or a velocity of 1 foot per second. And we ask you 2 questions. FIRST, how many seconds will it take for water to travel from the plant to the 100,000 feet at the end of the plant? Well your civil engineer says, that’s easy enough you already provided the answer 100,000 x 1’ per second or 100 thousand seconds or about 27.8 hours.
So we say great, that confirms the answer to our first question. Now, for the second question, exactly how old is that water line based on those facts? The civil engineer says, respectfully sir; the time in which it takes for the water to flow from one end of your pipe to the other – tells nothing and has absolutely nothing to do with how old the SYSTEM itself is! If you assume that the System was built a second before the water reaches the end of the pipe today – then I say it’s about 28 hours old. But unless you can be like God and speak that water pipe and the pumping system into existence in would say it’s at least years old and somewhere in the mid to late 20th century base on known facts.
But here we are speaking of stars out to an unknown distance. So we know how long it takes for the speed of light to travel, but that does not tell us when the SYSTEM of the Universe began. By secular standards denying God and a first cause in favor of ridiculous speculation it could be from 13 billion years to infinity. But by truth and the word of God, it is between 5,760 according to the Jewish calendar and Hebrew Bible and up to about 6,000 years according to James Usher and others. We know by history that the first recorded dynasties were about 4 to 5 thousand years ago and we know that even secular anthropologists tell us that about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago civilization began in Mesopotamia that is in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates as described in Genesis. Thus, based on these facts, of course the Universe could have been spoken into existence by God less than 6,000 years ago. The things within the universe vary in age based on how He created them – so you tell me an asteroid – which cannot be Carbon dated because it is not a living thing – is a billion years old – what do I care – what is it to God; He spoke the material into existence as an actual and appearingly old rock – it still only took Him a millisecond to do it. (2 Peter 3:5: “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.”)
The TRUTH SOURCE 