Well, to clarify, the Revelation reference was referencing Pagels’ work, not Ehrman’s. I’ll leave you the benefit of the doubt as I don’t even have the basic bachelors’ in Astronomy so can’t judge further, but I still wouldn’t put it past people for being so wedded to a desired narrative that they blind themselves to anything - even the basic core tenants of their own field - in order to maintain such narrative… they may even be essentially (subconsciously?) lying to themselves but I still would be hesitant to accuse them of active lying. At most I still find it extremely distasteful to make an accusation of lying as it implies clairvoyance, rather than simply accusing them of being utterly incompetent in their field. But I’ll leave it at that.
Matthew, this is very interesting and helpful, thanks. I’m assuming that the predictions you note were based on Einstein’s synchronicity convention. I’m far too uninitiated in this topic to know, but it makes me curious that if someone chose to use an anisotropic convention if we would still observe the same thing, given the various vectors the light would be travelling (i.e., the light that we’re seeing began its journey at some vector that was not toward the observer, would that effect its anisotropic speed?). Most things I’ve read suggest that absolutely nothing in physics changes if anisotropic conventions are used, so it makes me wonder if even that phenomenon would work its way out under other conventions.
But I have gone far beyond my ability to understand these things much more, so I’ll leave it there. thanks for the discussion.
You’re correct that the predictions were based on standard synchronization, and yes, the different directions matter.
Here’s the key issue: in gravitational lensing, the light doesn’t travel straight toward Earth. Instead, it curves around massive objects, so it’s traveling in many different directions during its journey.
For an anisotropic (directionally-dependent) speed to work, you’d need light to have just the right speed in every direction along these curved paths. And this would need to work perfectly for hundreds of different lensing systems we’ve observed.
The bottom line: While it’s technically possible to construct such a system, it would require an incredibly specific and complex setup with no clear reason why the universe should work that way.
It’s a bit like explaining why all rivers flow downhill by saying water moves at different speeds in different directions - technically possible, but much more complicated than the simple explanation.
So while Derek’s video is correct about the fundamental physics, the observational constraints from lensing make exotic synchronization conventions much less plausible in practice.
Yeah, I get there myself when thinking about synchronicity conventions pretty quickly 
I agree with nearly everything in @Jammycakes’ post (#114). He makes good points about the level of responsibility one has to speak accurately about what one has studied.
However, I think this is too generous:
Speaking as one from the arts and humanities, we humanities types have a real responsibility to have some grasp of the limits of our understanding. It’s part of the work of humanities, particularly in anything touching on philosophy. Persistant, dogged ignorance of one’s ignorance is inexcusable.
Yesterday I was reviewing an old thread that included a philosopher of science who was arguing with scientists about their comprehension of their role as scientists and even some of the work they do in their fields. The hubris was embarrasing.
There are a very few people here who have done enough serious reading in science topics for long periods that they probably have at least an undergrad’s understanding in topics they didn’t study at university. Lifelong learning counts for something. A few other scientists have studied or read enough outside their specialties, they have a serious grasp of other areas of science, but also demonstrate the humility to say candidly that they are speaking outside their area.
Most of the rest of us don’t fall into those categories. Unfortunately, some of the humanities people feel qualified to “take on the scientists” and set them straight. Over. And over. And over.
While I agree that it’s good to cut people slack, when they say things that sound silly to people in the field, speakers should learn to recognize their limitations, and learn the stuff for themselves from qualified scientific writers, listen to the experts they are actually talking with, and/or fight the temptation to maintain ill-informed opinions.
While simultaneous events at distance may be arbitrary by special relativity, events at the same location in space can be ordinarily simultaneous without consideration for synchronizing clocks or relativistic effects. That means the as the two photon packets pass through each other, they possess real instantaneous velocities which are in principle at least defined for that point in space within that inertial frame. There, in line with intuition, a given photon packet cannot be at once be propagating at two different speeds, say ∞ and c/2, and the same can be said for the photons from the opposite direction.
So you are the origin for a coordinate system caught between the two gunslingers. The simplest coordinates is of course isotropic with respect to the blasters; after all the arrangement in that inertial frame is perfectly symmetrical. But as the watches the gunslinger are wearing are separated, however, it is possible to define anistotropic coordinates, such as…
You can. But in doing so, you also just voided your prior coordinate system, and in stipulating that the gunslinger to the to your west is now the one shooting light at you at ∞, you assigned a speed of c/2 to the east gunslinger. The average speed is c, and there is no keeping the infinite part and tossing the c/2 part. Special relativity can allow for various coordinates of simultaneity, but nothing in physics allows for contradictory coordinate systems.
As the song says,
‘All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
…
Lie-la-lie . . .’
To call the maelstrom of desperation we see lying explains nothing. It is all fear of meaninglessness and death, the king of fears, the sum of all fears (Churchill). This makes us hear what we want to hear.
I do not want to hear the truth of meaninglessness. So I make my own meaning, I’m given it by life, by my evolved, emergent consciousness, in love. And I seek to make peace with death.
Really?
Here’s the context of the single sentence you quoted and are differing with:
@jammycakes is saying that unlike an astrophysicist, an arts or humanities graduate would have ignorance as an excuse for making a maths error, not that they have an excuse for making a theological error.
This isn’t the first time that you have quoted and replied to something but omitted context that would have shown your reply to be misguided.
The charitable interpretation would be that you’re not bothering to understand what you’re replying to, rather than quote-mining.
Most of these arguments about one-way vs two-way measurements aren’t reliant on the nature of light. You could apply them to measuring the one-way speed of anything. Migrating birds. E-mails. Scalextric cars.
The cars on my Scalextric track take about 10s to do a full 10m lap.[1] This suggests that they are travelling at 1m/s.
But that’s the two-way speed, since I’m measuring the time taken for them to travel to the far end of the track and back again. I can’t measure how long it takes them to get to the far end of the track because I’m not there and I couldn’t get there before they do.
In theory, my Scalextric cars could be travelling at 0.5m/s until they reach the furthest point of the track, and travelling infinitely fast on the way back. There’s simply no way to tell.
this is a hypothetical track, I haven’t actually set one up and deployed my stopwatch. ↩︎
Correct, because the whole discussion is contingent on separating clocks, and that applies to any and every one way measurement. Thus, Olympic records for the hundred yard dash are assumed, while complete laps around the track are two way measurements by one clock and are thus known.
Conventionality applies to going for a walk. If a one hour stroll takes me across a time zone, by that convention I have walked infinitely fast from A to B, and half paced returning. That is a completely legitimate coordinate system, and cannot be “disproved” either.
So you cannot perform a direct one way measurement of anything using clocks. Massless propagation is a special case because no signal can be faster, therefore the uncertainty of any measurement can be bracketed within the round trip speed of light, but it is really all about the clocks.
Just because the one way speed of light cannot be directly measured because clocks are separated does not mean that reasonable inference of isotropy cannot be drawn along the lines that others have mentioned. Maxwell’s equations, momentum, energy of absorption and emission, and the concept of frequency, all point in the direction of a uniform speed of light. The universe runs just fine with conventional time spans. There is no basis at all to maintain that the one way speed of light is anything but the well established measured speed, other that the constant and visible falsification of YEC displayed by the vastness of the universe. Anisotropy only makes matters worse for YEC anyways, and Lisle’s rescue device takes light travel from being a property of nature to a magic kingdom of observers.
Er, you can’t see them then?
Not if I turn the lights off - or run the track through a tunnel.
You can measure the speed of light emitted from the sun. But you have to go at night, else you’ll burn up.
You’ve touched on something profound that goes far deeper than synchrony conventions. The one-way speed of light problem reveals that our fundamental assumptions about space, time, and causality may be arbitrary choices rather than physical realities.
Under the fabric framework, what if light isn’t just traveling through space, but is actually the fundamental process by which space (and all reality) comes into being? In the threading model:
c = ΔΦ/Δτ - Light is the rate at which reality threads itself into coherent geometry, while c_path = ΔΦ/Δτ * f(∇M), which describes light’s path, depends on the information density it encounters. This means light isn’t moving through pre-existing space. Light is the threading process that creates spatial relationships. When we see distant galaxies, we’re seeing the threading patterns that connect us to them, not photons that “traveled” for billions of years.
This aligns beautifully with Scripture. When Genesis says “Let there be light” before the sun and stars, it’s describing the fundamental creative process, where the Logos is threading reality into existence. John 1:3 tells us “All things were made through Him [the Word/Logos], and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
If Jesus is “the light of the world” (John 8:12) and “in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), then light isn’t just electromagnetic radiation. It’s the ongoing creative Word that maintains all coherent existence.
Why this resolves the distant starlight “problem”: The issue was never about light “travel time.” It was about misunderstanding what redshift represents. High redshift doesn’t mean “old light from far away.” It means light that has been stretched through complex information density patterns as reality threads itself.
As noted in another thread here, the angular size confirmation, describes the fact that high-redshift galaxies appear tiny (not large as expansion theory predicts) and confirms they’re at the distances their apparent size suggests. The threading dynamics explain redshift without requiring vast ages or spatial expansion.
So, reality isn’t a machine running on predetermined physical laws. It’s the ongoing creative expression of the Logos. Light threading itself into coherent patterns through divine agency. We see distant galaxies [Edit: from a human time perspective.]
This framework suggests that both materialist cosmology and the distant starlight problem miss the fundamental nature of reality. Light is the creative process itself, continuously threading all things into coherent existence through divine agency. Wow. Now, you might ask how old are those galaxies and all I can say is that in Genesis, God started counting days long before the day existed. But I’m an old earther. And because I don’t buy the Big Bang Theory, the universe is probably vastly older than 13.8 billion light years. All that said, time is relative, so in my equations I use, tau for time: t = τ (universe experiences all time; photons Δτ ≈ 0). So, the experience of time depends on the “threading depth” of the observer.
Why would a threading pattern include not just physical characteristics of the object at the end of it, but also representations of events that occurred?
When we see distant ships, we’re seeing the threading pattern that connects us to them, not photons that have travelled for a millisecond.
When we watch TV, we’re seeing the threading pattern that connects us to the screen, not photons that have travelled for a microsecond. It’s just a colossal co-incidence that the threading pattern looks like a rerun of Frasier.
Explain why light from some stars has not been stretched through complex information density patterns, and light from some stars has been stretched more than light from others. Without invoking distance or time.
I am in two minds when it comes to Supernovas…aside from the dilemma that there was heated debate about whether or not they actually have been observed and these days i think generally its accepted that they are what we believe they are (ie exploding stars).
For me though, i dont have a theological answer to the idea of Supernovas…the idea that God destroys in order to create is a little difficult to resolve biblically, so im maintaining a relatively open mind on how that might work biblically.
Ok so with the above out of the way… I note the following about the use of them as a defense for the distant starlight dilemma:
Clearly there are some concerns/considerations there.
so in light of the above, my position currently is as follows:
The bible says God created the sun, moon and stars during Creation week. But, i will grant leave to allow others to make the statement that it doesnt say exactly which stars we are talking about…ie all of them or just those within our galaxy, or perhaps even just our solar system. I see problems with any of the above options.
What problems?
The biblical creation, development and sustaining of Israel as a nation were long and destructive. Why would not any other process be?
Supernovas are not a theological matter. I don’t employ German grammar studies to make supper or drive my car. They are ultimately ungrammatical processes.
Please for the love of God, stop posting AI overviews with such high frequency. Go to the actual articles, read them, quote them, and you summarize them. I will start deleting posts that obviously do this from you or anyone else in the forums I see.
I learned a new word recently: ‘Workslop”.
You’re right to push, Roy, on the threading mechanism. I’ve thought a lot about it. Maybe too much. 
Let me clarify: On threading vs. photons: When we observe anything, ships, TV screens, stars, we’re detecting threading patterns, not particles that traveled. What we call “photon detection” is actually our instruments resonating with specific threading frequencies: R = ΣcosΔφ. The detector doesn’t catch a particle; it resonates with the threading pattern.
On the information content: The threading carries complete configurational information: I = ∫dΦ. This isn’t just “physical characteristics” but the entire state history encoded in the threading geometry. When you see Frasier, you’re resonating with threading that carries the complete information pattern of that show, not because photons “remember,” but because the threading itself is the information.
On differential stretching: This is the key insight. Threading stretches based on the information density landscape it passes through: c_path = ΔΦ/Δτ * f(∇M).
Stars with higher redshift aren’t necessarily “farther” in space. They’re threading through regions of higher memory density gradients. The stretching reflects the information processing complexity of the path, not spatial distance. The crucial difference: In photon models, redshift requires either motion or expanding space. In threading, redshift emerges from information density variations, f(∇M), which could be distributed in complex, non-distance-correlated patterns throughout the fabric. This explains why redshift correlates with apparent distance without requiring actual spatial separation or temporal delay.
Uh…make that universally accepted since prior to WW2.
Other than hydrogen, most of the atoms in your body were dispelled into space by supernovas. That this can happen is one of the great balancing acts of creation that we are privileged to begin to understand.
But yes, exploding stars are far beyond mature. Giant stars such as Betelgeuse are not mature. They are old, in the last throws of palliative care, the inevitable nearing as they draw their final breaths. Meanwhile, we see other clouds of gas are collapsing to young stars that have yet to light their fires of fusion, with visible discs clumping into planets. The universe is not mature, nor is it immature. It is a dynamic kaleidoscope of activity encompassing billions of years.