Recently, the notion of "dark energy" has become well-established, suggesting that the universe is expanding ever-more-rapidly with time. Nothing about this notion makes sense, and I find myself wondering if astronomers are not misinterpreting the space-time continuum. Looking out into space is tantamount to looking back in time. If an exploding star 1000 light-years away is 20 percent more red-shifted than expected, does this mean that: (1) the star is NOW moving outward 20 percent more rapidly than expected, or (2) the star WAS moving 20 percent more rapidly than expcted 1000 YEARS AGO? If we accept the second notion - that we're viewing the behavior of the star in the past rather than the present, and if we subsequently find an exploding star located 2000 light-years away that is 25 percent more red-shifted than expected, then would this not suggest a 5 percent SLOWDOWN of the universe between 2000 and 1000 years ago? And, shouldn't the fact that red-shifts seem to increase with increasing-distance mean that the universe WAS moving more rapidly in the far distant past than it is now? And does this not suggest that the universe is decelerating rather than accelerating?