[Creationist]

Thats right and thank you for clarifing that about the stars, frevolutionist do not usually do that. If we do not know how far they are away then we do not know that it takes billions of years for the light to get here.

And by the way slow down when you read I said observable not testable.

[Thalos]

observable not testable

That is precisely the problem with astronomy. Most of the theories cannot be observed because they rely on observations that would take millions of years. Are there really gas giants around Vega? The evidence suggests there is, but we can't see the planet(s) unless we go there, and that would take millions of years with current technology. Will Betelgeuse explode? Maybe, and it may have already exploded, but it could also take thousands or millions of years for us to find out for sure. None of these theories are observable.

That doesn't stop me from believing them, but the fact is the evidence for these theories is actually less than the evidence that the earth is billions of years old and evolution creates new species out of old species.

[Liberal Classic]

If we do not know how far they [the stars - LC] are away then we do not know that it takes billions of years for the light to get here.

The *smack* sound you just heard was the palm of my hand striking my forehead.

The distance to supernova 1987A can be measured using trigonometry:

radius = 6.23 x 10^12 kilometers = 0.658 light-years
angle = 0.808 arcseconds  = 0.000224 degrees
distance = 0.658 light-years ÷ tan(0.000224)
distance = 0.658 light-years ÷ 0.00000392
distance = 168,000 light-years

We should take note here that SN1987A is in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, which is the second closest galaxy to the earth. There are millions of other galaxies in the universe. So 168,000 years simply represents a very small lower limit. In other words, the universe must be much, much older than 168,000 years, because astronomers can literally observe events like SN1987A in these other far more distant galaxies, events that correspondingly have taken place much farther in the distant past.

source

[dread78645]

If we do not know how far they are away then we do not know that it takes billions of years for the light to get here.

Trigonometry is a tool of the Great Deceiver.