Via Big Dumb Chimp and the SciAm blog comes news that the Universe is only 12,000 light years across:
The BCC [Biblically Compact Cosmology] Theory Of Everything applies the rigorous equation D=2R to the scientifically impeccable premise that it takes light a year to travel a light year. As the radius of the Universe R, equals the number of light years since Genesis : ~4004+2007=6,011; the B.C.C.T.O.E. concludes that surely as Numbers follows Leviticus, The Universe must be 12,022 light-years across !
This (satirical) post really points out the absurdity of trying to use the Bible as a scientific tome when we know it cannot be utilized as such. However, despite the sarcasm of that post, people really do believe the Universe is 6000 years old, and thus have to dance and squirm and equivocate to make that jibe with the overwhelming (one might call it a Flood) of observational evidence to the contrary.
An interesting corollary is that if the Universe is that small, and we know it contains 1022 stars or so (roughly one hundred billion stars in each of a hundred billion galaxies), there must be 10 billion stars per cubic light year. From that you can calculate the average distance between stars: roughly 3 billion miles, or the distance from the Sun to Pluto. Wow!
As I pointed out on that page when I left a comment about this, however, we have made a fundamental mistake in our assumptions: the stars, of course, are mounted on crystalline spheres. No doubt the Voyager probes will smash through them any day now. Expect a press release from the Discovery Institute when they do.
