Proving common descent (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, November 12, 2012, 16:31 (4395 days ago) @ dhw

[DHW] There is a slight misunderstanding here. The context of the discussion is the Cambrian Explosion, which you get onto in your next paragraph, and the question David and I are fighting over is how to explain the sudden surge in new organs and organisms. David appeared to be aligning himself with the Creationists in accepting the idea of what I called God's "hands-on creation", and the focus of my final remark ... which I should have made clear ... was on the fact that vast numbers of the species "created" then and also afterwards went extinct. It's therefore hard to see how they could have been essential to what David and you see as God's purpose (to create humans). I accept the rest of your argument.
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> And this is where the whole idea of purposeful Creation becomes too involved for me to find credible. If God was capable of building and fine-tuning a whole universe to sustain life, and if his purpose was to create humans, then was he NOT capable of controlling the climate? Why did billions of species have to come AND GO before he finally got to what he wanted? It's the same question I asked on the dodo thread long ago. If I did believe (but please remember that I don't disbelieve) in a creator, I would still suggest that the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings of evolution fit in more easily with a god who is experimenting than with one who is planning. You have focused on what has survived, as evidence of planning. I am focusing on what has not survived, as evidence of randomness. 
> -Ok, I have a slightly unique perspective from my studies in game design. As a game designer, generally speaking I don't create objects, creatures, or anything else for that matter. What I create is the rules that govern their behavior and the programmer creates the mechanisms that govern their existence in such away that it implements the rules that I have laid out. This is an important distinction because, as a designer, in most cases I do not create each and every individual. I create templates, rules, and mechanics that often play out in different and unique ways every single time the game is played. The fact that the game changes is not randomness, it is 100% designed and happens according to rules that are written in stone. -In a game, a million creatures can be created and destroyed without me having done anything to 'cause' it provided that their interactions are written in the rules. I believe God made the rules, designed the mechanics and started the game and handed the controller off to his creatures to play for themselves. -Not a great analogy, but I hope the point gets across

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.