Christians: Don't. Do. This.

Sigh. Today every physics faculty member in our university received the same correspondence from an M.D (it’s almost always an M.D. or an engineer) attempting to convince us that all of modern science is bunk and the universe is young.¹ Some of his arguments were rehashed (and thoroughly refuted) arguments from Henry Morris, Ken Ham, and Ken Hovind. And some are so bad that they are even (no kidding) in Answers in Genesis’ list of arguments its followers should not make—because even AIG recognizes them as “not even wrong.” ²

Here is one example of Dr. [REDACTED]’s argumentation:

P1: Modern science, in this case the Big Bang Model, claims the universe is 14byo.
P2: The Hubble Space Telescope  (HST) can see 14bly away.
P3: You can turn the HST around and see 14bly in the opposite direction.
P4: That is 14+14=28bly, or twice the age of the universe according to the Big Bang!
C: The Big Bang is wrong!

How could we not have foreseen that obvious problem!

It is not bad to wonder about such things, or to ask a “dumb question” if you are not familiar with the Big Bang. (Although one should ask such questions, as we all should when asking out of our own expertise, humbly.)  His question (notice how P4 mixes up distance and age) would be relevant if the model of the Big Bang was what many incorrectly envision: a traditional explosion in empty space, often with the earth at or near the center of this explosion, and the other galaxies riding the shock wave of this explosion away from us at high speed, perhaps even at the speed of light.

But anyone who spends three minutes on Google (or fifteen minutes on Bing) can learn the answer to this “conundrum” including the overwhelming observational evidence in support of the accepted explanation. The Big Bang was not a conventional explosion in otherwise empty space, for there was no empty space, it was the explosion of space itself. The galaxies are not moving away from us at high speed in the classic definition of moving i.e., through space. The galaxies, in fact, are relatively stationary, but space is expanding (at an accelerating rate!) between us and the other galaxies giving them the illusion of moving at high speed in the traditional sense. Space has expanded so much that the visible universe surrounding us has a radius of about 46.5bly. We can see things that are more than three times numerically bigger  (in light years) that the universe is old (in years.)

This would all be amusing if it wasn’t clear that the Doc was a Christian with a misguided Christian agenda. I would have no problems with atheistic colleagues criticizing Christians for what they perceive as superstitious foolishness. That is to be expected. But when we hand them fodder to criticize us for being scientifically ignorant—and even worse we present as arrogant and smug in our incompetence—then we give them a juicy target against which I can offer no defense.

Atheists can't hurt Christianity. Only Christians can hurt Christianity.

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¹ This post is not a rant against YECism. It is a rant against the anti-science ignorance found in some YECs. I have no problem (just an in-the-family disagreement) with YECs who hold to a young earth because they believe that is what the bible unambiguously teaches, and they don't give a rat's derriere what science has to say in the matter. Fair enough. But I do have a problem with those YECs who try to distort science to make it support their theology.

² One such argument (and the Dr. makes it) is that evolution violates the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics. Even AIG recognizes this old canard as unsupportable.