Appearance of Age (light Created in Transit)
The Omphalos hypothesis was originally proposed in the context of geology, in the 1857 book Omphalos by Philip Gosse. The book sought to reconcile the long geological ages advocated by the leading geologist of the time Charles Lyell, with a recent creation. Gosse claimed that universe has an appearance of age, but is actually very young. (Omphalos is Greek for navel/belly button. The theory suggests Adam and Eve did have navels, despite never having been born of human parents.) It was revived by creationists in the 20th century. Critics have parodied it as "Last Thursdayism", as in "the world might as well have been created last Thursday", with the physical world and even people's memories of earlier events being merely planted by God.
The Omphalos hypothesis, as applied to cosmology, attempts to answer the "starlight problem" by positing that light which appears to source from distant galaxies was actually created by God en-route, conveniently avoiding long light travel times.
Read more about this topic: Creationist Cosmologies
Famous quotes containing the words appearance, age and/or created:
“I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance.”
—Jean Rostand (1894–1977)
“Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 10 (1919)