I recently had a discussion with someone who thought they had a sound argument against the universe beig as old as God said it is (Wow! This man is supposed to be better than God! What an obvious impossibility!). They said I had a "hubris," that all of my refutations to his claims were based mostly on emotion, and that if I merely thought about his argument for several days ("with an open mind"), I would come to his same conclusion. But anyway, of course, God being infallible, I have assembled here this commentary on the argument, which explains in far too great detail how the argument is irrational:
(The Argument:)
"P1: There is no reason why a good God would deceive us[???]. [It was also claimed that it is impossible to think of a plausible reason.]
P2: The world is designed to appear as if it was older than 5782 years old, and yet it is only [according to Jewish tradition] 5782 years old.
C: God cannot be good while the world is also 5782 years old."
A Refutation of Premise One:
I personally cannot think of one certain and complete answer as to why God created the world the way it is, while it still being 5782 years old. One cannot conclude that because one cannot personally think of an answer, no satisfactory answer exists. That would be a non-sequitur. I will again trust God, an infallible source, that there is a reason that he created the world this way. Being that God is infallible (there is no chance that he is wrong; 0% chance), he is always correct, and thus the "scientists" have a 0% chance of being right. If God is infallible, it's IMPOSSIBLE for him to be wrong. These "scientists" disagree with God. Therefore, these "scientists" are wrong. And I still have yet to be provided with evidence that one can actually know that God cannot "deceive" us whilst still being good (With what moral standard can you judge God? If a moral standard is objective, it must come from God. So where is this objective moral standard that comes from God that can be used to show that God is evil? Nowhere... And how can one know, being a human, that the world looking "deceptive" is bad? Does any human know enough to see what the outcomes of it are that you know they are bad? No.). Until then, just empty assertions.
Commentary on Premise Two:
For the sake of argument, I'll grant that the world was designed to appear older than 5782 years old. God, knowing everything, knew that the time when "scientists" would start claiming that the world is over 5782 years old based on "scientific evidence" would be significantly after (approximately 3100 years after) the Torah was given. So, by the time these "scientists" began making these claims, everyone already had access to God's statements about how the world was created. They already had the means of rationally decucing that God gave the Torah to the Jews, and in that Torah (including the oral Torah), the world's age is revealed. With rationality (deducing that God gave the Torah, that he is infallible, and that there is no Jewish tradition that the creation account is not literal), one can come to the conclusion that the age of the universe is 5782 years. It's irrational to trust humans who were not witnesses of the creation of the world, and who are fallible, more than God, who is infallible, and who did "witness" the creation of the world (he created it).
Conclusion:
I see no evidence that I have any "hubris," that I have rejected rationality (especially as I just demonstrated using rationality how I am correct and how the argument is incorrect), and that if I just "think more about [this issue]," I will come to the claimant's fallible [and erroneous] conclusion. Those assertions are all just worthless personal opinions, and I don't see any value in the fact that he disagrees to the point of calling me "close-minded" and such. And, despite his claim that if I thought about this a lot, I would start agreeing with him, upon thinking more about this more, I can only see how much of a failure his argument was. Now, with more time to think about it, I have thought of many more flaws in the argument. My refutation is even higher-quality. And finally, I will continue accepting God's infallibility, and denying that any human is better than God; believing that humans are better than God or that God is fallible is irrational, foolish, and a characteristic of idolatry.