DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, November 10, 2014, 13:42 (3664 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: Why do you think your God planned for all those species to “explode” onto the Cambrian scene and then depart so (relatively) soon? -TONY: Your primary question, and please correct me if I am mistaken, is:
If God is knowledgeable and powerful enough to create all of this, why didn't he create it de nihilo plene in extremis (Out of nothing fully formed in its final state).-You are mistaken. You will find my primary questions at the end of this post.-TONY: First, I think the question deserves another question in response:
If we can create a computer program from scratch, why don't we create them straight into their final state and just skip all that intermediary stuff?-I don't know why it “deserves” such a question (see next point).
 
TONY: Your secondary question, which is causative related to the first, is:
If God is knowledgeable and powerful enough to create all of this, why create intermediaries that he knew would have to be destroyed?-Your computer “intermediaries” have been designed for a clear purpose, which is why the analogy is unhelpful. (See below before you jump for joy).
 
TONY: The simple answer is, you don't do it because you can't and it has nothing to do with power or knowledge. Without the laws of physics, the computer won't run [...] unless each stage is already in existence and running you can not implement the next stage. -Same again. Each stage of the computer programme is targeted towards a known purpose. My question concerns the purpose behind the “stages” of mass extinctions. You now offer two (for me) unsatisfactory answers.-1) TONY: Now, as it applies directly to Earth and living species, consider this. What if the end goal was not one lonely planet with a few million species in the middle of a vast and otherwise empty universe? What if the plan was a vast universe teaming with near infinite variety of life? The reason these two questions are of utmost importance is that it goes back to the order of the way things were created. IF the plan was to create just the Earth, and just the (relatively) few species that live on it, then why create the rest of the Universe at all? [...]-Good question. This hypothesis depends on there being life elsewhere in the universe, which no-one has (yet) found. Some folk say the universe is “fine tuned” to support life on Earth, which would answer the question but, just like your ET life hypothesis and your computer analogy, fails to explain the need for mass extinctions on Earth.
 
2) TONY: More tellingly, one of the things that happens when you turn on your computer is that it "sets the environmental variables". In the case of the earth, this would have been the microbial life that forms the foundation of all life on this planet. It acts as a interface layer, a conditioning layer, between higher lifeforms and the environment, and quite literally sets the environmental variables necessary to sustain higher life.-Microbial life was and remains essential to all life forms. Bacteria have survived since life began. I'm asking about life forms that were obliterated. Your computer analogy fits those elements essential to life, but doesn't tell me why your God had to create and destroy billions of species in order to come up with humans (David's “purpose”), or in order to fulfil whatever other purpose you think he had in mind.
 
TONY: This is where evolution fails us. Instead of looking for WHY these things existed, what their purpose was, we try to understand HOW they existed. -Why “fails”? The theory of evolution does not seek to impose philosophical explanations on life (that's left to philosophers and would-be philosophers), but to understand how life has developed from the first few comparatively simple forms to the complexities we have today. So please tell us WHY you think mass extinctions were necessary, and above all what they were necessary for. In other words, what do you think was your God's purpose in creating life, and why does this depend on the creation and extinction of billions of species?