How old is the universe?
Catholic Fundamentalists have no trouble believing how long ago The Loving Programmer wrote and downloaded The Creation Program, or as much of it as we needed to have provided for us.
The Midnight Mass Liturgy on Christmas Eve/Day makes as clear as it needs to be when The Creation Program was downloaded.
The widest range of the actual date of Christ’s Birth puts it between 7 B.C. and 2 A.D. So, we would find the Year of The Creation Program’s Download by adding our current year, plus one or two years, or minus up to 8 years, to the 5,199 years that preceded the Birth of Christ. 2012 plus 5199 equals how long ago The Creation Program was downloaded, about 7,211 years ago. That date is either plus 1 or 2 or minus as many as eight years.
If we don’t think it is possible for the Universe to be of such recent creation, we are left with several possibilities. Believers may apply St. Peter’s teaching: “To God, a thousand years is like a day.” to the problem of squeezing all that’s said to have happened into 7,221 years.
Those farther from belief in Scriptural Truth end up with the ever-popular “Scripture is an allegory. We need not take it ‘too seriously'”. That’s a step ahead of “Scripture is a superstition.”, which is better than “Religion is a lot of hooey.”
The Loving Programmer, Who programs particles and energies, could have written, compiled, and downloaded The Creation Program and all within it in the time He has described in Scripture. That tells us all we really need to know to answer the question, “How old is the universe?”
The Creation Program was written and downloaded in such a way that we could freely choose to believe that it was Created or that it appeared by accident. That’s one way He separates sheep from goats and wheat from chaff.
