tehmackdaddy said:
If God created a star twelve thousand light years away, he could also create the photons of light already on their way to earth to be measured, all with the overlying laws of the universe that we measure with reliability.
I don't see any problem in assuming that a God that could create existence could also do this. But, if you insist on purpose to existence and illusion of age, it's fair to ask the purpose to creating a universe that appears old.
Consider a telescope image of a nebula or exploded star that is more than 6k light years away. What is that? Did God create an exploded star's guts of a star that never existed? And for what? What should be made of increasing red shift from further and further galaxies? God left evidence of billions of years of expansion in the universe that never occurred? The Cosmic Microwave Background is an echo of a ghost? Something that never happened?
Suppose you are right, I am certainly not one to say I can prove otherwise. What purpose is the illusion of this reality if not to deceive? It serves no purpose in informing our macroscopic level existence - only in informing our cosmological place in the universe.
Young Earth Creationism is analogous to turning one's head toward a pool and observing a 10' wide circular ripple in the surface and assuming that it was created as a 9.9' ripple a fraction of a second ago with the normal outward movement from a ripple that we'd expect from one that starts at a point. It requires, in light of modern science, an abandonment of reason. It is emotional. And I don't say that to belittle or to judge you . . . But let's call a spade a spade. YEC is abandonment of reason and logic in favor of an idea that pleases a view of reality that you don't want to give up.
And if your theory is true , I think it's fair to ask why a God would expect or hope for us to abandon reason in favor of an answer that is where reason goes to die.