Sam's response to my review of the ICR astronomy statements is that God could very well have created the universe with a snap of his fingers.

I agree that that is a possibility, although not a very energy efficient one. However, it is outside the realm of science and if that is Young Earth Creationism's only response to astronomical data, then YE Creationism is also outside the realm of science and just a religion as the Supreme Court has decided.

BTW_ Astronomy absolutely refutes YEC because it collects light that is 100,000 years old from our own Milky Way as well as light that is up to 12 billion years old from quasars and microwaves that are about 15 billion years old. At the same time from measurements of the fine structure constant the data shows that the speed of light has changed at most by one millionth of its present value over this period of time. So data from the past is available for us to experiment on and the results are repeatable. The universe is much older than 10,000 years.

The only recourse for Young Earth Creationists is to claim that god created the universe with the light already on its way to the earth, which was Sam's response. Besides being a rather silly assumption, for god could have done it yesterday and given us memories to boot- the response is not a scientific response- it is a religious response.

I have no problem with Sam's belief that that is what happened. But he does not have the right to call it science.

Regards,

Richard