[DFSchmidt]

OK. so how do we determine the distance to the stars 10,000 light years away? A fixed observer on a rotating planet, with assumption of relative displacement between measurements and attempting to measure a frequency shift as Earth rotates towards the star and from rotating away from the star?

Sounds like a good way to me :) How much error would you expect, based on this method?

Again we make an assumption of the properties of space in deep space, behavior of light in far galaxies and intermediate spans, if even such terms are meaningful beyond our locality.

True. It's possible that we have something other than a vacuum between us and the star. If it's a vacuum, the speed of light is the usual 299,792,458 m/sec. If it's not a vacuum, the speed of light is less than 299,792,458 m/sec, which means we're underestimating the amount of time it took to get here. But I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and agree that it's all vacuum, thus making the universe a youthful 10 billion years old, give or take a billion.

It may also be the case that evolution as identified and defined by current scientific trends is merely a functional subset of a Scriptural literal timeline.

Or it may not - You're right, we don't know. At any rate, if you remove the word "literal" I will wholeheartedly agree with you, despite our admitted mutual uncertainty :) Otherwise, we're back to the fact that we cannot simply brush aside the matter of interpretation. We would be rash to do so with any other great piece of literature, after all.

All digressions and jargon aside, however, I'm talking about the distance to the stars right now, not evolution. I'm making a case for the world being (much) more than 10,000 years old, contrary to the seemingly unsupported assumption of a literal scriptural timeline.

We agree that the astronomical measurements referred to are necessarily inexact. Can we make a strong case that our measurements of the distance to deep-space objects are off by a factor of a million?

On the contrary, there are spiritual phenomenon wherein space and time do not seem to be limited by the speed of light.

Absolutely correct, the descriptions we have of such phenomenon imply exactly that! Another excellent reason to invoke the idea of metaphor in religious texts. Again, I'm glad we're on the same wavelength here (no pun intended).

Thanks for reading,

DFS

[Cvengr]

If one is to afford respect to both science and Scripture, then at least one would attempt to normalize their common functions.

The absence of such effort by evolutioists telegraphs an ulterior motive to place faith elsewhere.

In each of my examples, glaring assumptions are made which beg the question of verification of the hypothesis.