You still have not dealt with the bigger issue of transcendental truth. None of these other things are of any particularly relevance without a rational basis thereof.
See V-A's post 531 for just one of many pieces of evidence that join together to build the rock-solid conclusion that the world is billions of years old.
You still have not dealt with the bigger issue of transcendental truth. None of these other things are of any particularly relevance without a rational basis thereof.
What, the fact that science relies on the fundamental consistency of the physical world, and that it relies on logical axioms like identity & non-contradiction? This is supposed to be some kind of failing???
Look, everybody who tries to compose an extended rational thought must rely on some logical axioms. These axioms must be assumed a-priori, because to not assume them will lead to fatal contradictions in any meaningful sentence that the person makes. That does not make a system or theory religious.
When we look at very distant objects we believe that we are looking at the very distant past (due to the constancy of lightspeed). In doing so we see what we would expect to see if the speed of light were constant. Everything would look very different if the speed of light had varied (you cannot just go altering c without affecting everything else). So assuming constant speed of light makes a prediction of what we see looking through telescopes, and that prediction is borne out when we look. Constant lightspeed certainly isn't purely an a priori assumption; it has been supported thus far by every test that we can devise. There is ample evidence that it has always been at its current velocity (excepting the currently hypothetical possibility that it may have been a few % higher in the early stages of the big bang) and no contrary *physical* evidence. (The creation myths of assorted religions don't count as physical evidence).
The light from SN1987A (a relatively close object, as cosmological distances go) has assuredly been travelling towards us for c. 160,000 years. This has been measured geometrically. We can see that atomic decay rates and c were the same when the light left that supernova as they are now. The only young-universe hypothesis that stands up once you understand the SN1987A data is that God created the light depicting an incident that never occurred in transit, 6000 years ago. Do you really want to believe in a God who makes stuff like that up to deceive rational enquirers? What exactly would be the difference between the universe being old, and an infinitely powerful God making the universe look old? A difference which makes no difference, is no difference.
You still have not dealt with the bigger issue of transcendental truth. None of these other things are of any particularly relevance without a rational basis thereof.
Philosophise all that you will. Those of us who actually want to make progress understanding the physical universe will just continue assuming that the universe is driven by natural rules. We'll just keep on looking at the data, forming hypotheses, rejecting failed hypotheses, confirming predictions, and chucking out that which has been falsified. You, if you wish, may continue to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Science does not deal in transcendental Truth, (and those claiming to deal in it appear to be largely charlatans).
Obviously this particular method of examining the universe (widely used in the Western World for the last 300 years) has been an absolute disaster. Progress has virtually ceased since we started working that way. [/sarcasm]