Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post

Or maybe our measurement of the distance to Andromeda is wrong.
I think not.

That was meant more like "I am in the middle of Nowhere" which also does not usually mean that you have measured your location and are actually exactly in the middle of a place called nowhere. What I literally meant was that he could have placed all the light along the entire way from Andromeda to Earth. I do not believe that he did this, it's just a possible explanation if you believe there is a god who is all powerful and has no limits in our universe.
See... you are on a slippery slope if you allow magic to enter the discussion. It would be case in point for any of the arguments in here. The sedimentary layers, the radio carbon dating, the agriculture - all answers appealing to magic.
God made the earth in 6 days - but by magic he sped up the processes needed to make it. In 6 days he magically took the earth through a 4 billion year process. All carbon dating is correct - its just that by magic - God made it all happen in 6 days. God created man as a hunter/gatherer and during untold years Adam & Eve could reap the fruits of the garden(s) - they were cast out and by magic - god made the earth hard to till. The earth would no longer yield her abundance and Adam and his posterity had to till the earth and make things grow to sustain the human family. Adam lived a thousand years after being expelled in which his posterity grew and spread out to all the corners of the earth (except the earth isn't flat and square).

During the creation of the universe - he magically placed light photons along the routes of all stars toward earth - so astronomers in the 20th/21st centuries could be deceived. Your God the great deceiver analogy is not painting a good picture of deity.