Anders, I greatly appreciate your thoughts on this and, as one who accepts the basic idea of the Big Bang, very much agree. I've looked at the red shift and tired light issue and find from what I have read it has largely been dismissed. But, of course, as Graham points out, as a biblical theist I am going to tend toward a view of creation. I don't try to parse the meanings of the "dry land," light and the timing of all of it to the degree that Graham may be attempting. We are all greatly influenced by our predispositions, of course, but I hope Graham will explain more what is it about the idea of a beginning our our cosmos that conflicts with a preferred understanding of reality. I do see that the eastern ideas of an eternal universe may conflict but it seems that is easy to understand in an eternal Ground of Being separate from creation.