Why would an intelligent designer use mass extinctions?

[TimCallahan]

Whether one sees intelligent design in terms of old earth creationism or sees the hand of a divine architect behind to workings of evolution, as in theistic evolutionist belief, I see a real problem with mass extinctions. They're sloppy and wasteful. Consider the Permian extinction. A theistic evolutionist would likely argue that God had us in mind when He started the evolutionary ball rolling. Logically, then, the dominance of the synapsids, the mammal-like reptiles, in the Permian should have led directly into the age of mammals and the evolution of intelligent mammals, like us. Instead, the Permian extinction very nearly wiped out the mammal-like reptiles and dis placed them as the dominant megafauna. So, by the time they had produced mammals, these mammals had to spend the next 120 million years under the feet of the dinosaurs - until another mass extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous period, gave them the opportunity to reclaim dominance.

This all seems rather haphazard and chaotic. I'm interested in hearing from any believers - Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other - as to how mass extinctions fit into their idea of an intelligent designer. Is this designer capricious? Does he get bored over the eons and change his mind a lot? If the designer is not capricious, how does one explain mass extinctions?

 

[Navigator]

Whether one sees intelligent design in terms of old earth creationism or sees the hand of a divine architect behind to workings of evolution, as in theistic evolutionist belief, I see a real problem with mass extinctions. They're sloppy and wasteful. Consider the Permian extinction. A theistic evolutionist would likely argue that God had us in mind when He started the evolutionary ball rolling. Logically, then, the dominance of the synapsids, the mammal-like reptiles, in the Permian should have led directly into the age of mammals and the evolution of intelligent mammals, like us. Instead, the Permian extinction very nearly wiped out the mammal-like reptiles and dis placed them as the dominant megafauna. So, by the time they had produced mammals, these mammals had to spend the next 120 million years under the feet of the dinosaurs - until another mass extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous period, gave them the opportunity to reclaim dominance.

This all seems rather haphazard and chaotic. I'm interested in hearing from any believers - Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other - as to how mass extinctions fit into their idea of an intelligent designer. Is this designer capricious? Does he get bored over the eons and change his mind a lot? If the designer is not capricious, how does one explain mass extinctions?

I am not a believer but do not feel it is necessary to believe in order to examine the concepts you are speaking about TimCallahan.

I think that if there was intelligence behind the inception of the idea and then construction of that idea as the physical universe were true, and the idea also that the construction was for the purpose that the intelligent consciousness then experiences that creation in the first person - through the individual forms, then it wouldn't really matter that from this process new improved forms could be created and experienced through.

When I look at this universe and see what it is at face value and ask myself why if intelligent creation experiences it consciously through form, does it evolve new forms and to what end such experience is ultimately trying to provide for the intelligence and what might that intelligence 'see' in relation to itself and what can be achieved with this physical universe, I 'see' (in relation to earth) that the forms changed which enabled consciousness better equipment in which to explore - through 'the great apes' and such form was very good at turning elements into functional tools which are then used to create animated devices.

Ultimately space is the final frontier but the human form is ill equipped as a tool for consciousness to further explore in this way through - but the human form is ideal for possibly creating something far more robust through.

Some machine forms which are capable of housing that consciousness. The consciousness wants to experience the larger reality (off planet) and is using the human form to achieve this.

 

[Donn]

Intelligent extincting. Like ctrl+z for god.

 

[TimCallahan]

I am not a believer but do not feel it is necessary to believe in order to examine the concepts you are speaking about TimCallahan.

I think that if there was intelligence behind the inception of the idea and then construction of that idea as the physical universe were true, and the idea also that the construction was for the purpose that the intelligent consciousness then experiences that creation in the first person - through the individual forms, then it wouldn't really matter that from this process new improved forms could be created and experienced through.

When I look at this universe and see what it is at face value and ask myself why if intelligent creation experiences it consciously through form, does it evolve new forms and to what end such experience is ultimately trying to provide for the intelligence and what might that intelligence 'see' in relation to itself and what can be achieved with this physical universe, I 'see' (in relation to earth) that the forms changed which enabled consciousness better equipment in which to explore - through 'the great apes' and such form was very good at turning elements into functional tools which are then used to create animated devices.

Ultimately space is the final frontier but the human form is ill equipped as a tool for consciousness to further explore in this way through - but the human form is ideal for possibly creating something far more robust through.

Some machine forms which are capable of housing that consciousness. The consciousness wants to experience the larger reality (off planet) and is using the human form to achieve this.

Try as I might, I can't figure out how this post answers the questions I've posed regarding mass extinctions. What exactly are you talking about?

 

[Brian-M]

I see a real problem with mass extinctions. They're sloppy and wasteful.

That's perfectly consistent with the God of the Abrahamic religions. Hell, their religious texts explicitly attribute their God with causing a mass extinction, when it would have been far more efficient just to kill off the people he wanted to get rid of directly, like the way he supposedly killed off all the firstborn sons in Egypt.

(Although, the mass extinction described was supposedly done with a flood, which is inconsistent with known mass extinctions).

 

[Navigator]

Try as I might, I can't figure out how this post answers the questions I've posed regarding mass extinctions. What exactly are you talking about?

"Why would an intelligent designer use mass extinctions?"

I am offering an answer to the question. I assume the question is metaphorical.

 

[Navigator]

That's perfectly consistent with the God of the Abrahamic religions. Hell, their religious texts explicitly attribute their God with causing a mass extinction, when it would have been far more efficient just to kill off the people he wanted to get rid of directly, like the way he supposedly killed off all the firstborn sons in Egypt.

(Although, the mass extinction described was supposedly done with a flood, which is inconsistent with known mass extinctions).

There is some cherry picking perhaps going on in this answer Brian-M.

The impression I get from the story is that this far-seeing god was sorry for creating such a particular form because consciousness was not so easily directed/controllable within the form - it had too much independence and was too self centered to see its connection to the whole process and as such - on global scales could make a whole mess of things.

I get the impression that the character (god) made a mistake and tried to rectify that by washing it away. More like a scientist who creates a monster and then decides the extreme thing to do to kill that monster even if the whole 'town' must be destroyed as a consequence.

 

[SimonD]

Why bother with mass extinctions at all? Why not just create man, say from dust

Tim, what is it you are trying to achieve by asking this question? You know the responses you are going to get from creationist is either,

a) Dinosaurs didn't exist, or if they did they got wiped out by the flood (which was punishment from God - so technical not a 'mass extinction')
b) God works in mysteries ways and who are you to question the almighty

 

[Brian-M]

I get the impression that the character (god) made a mistake and tried to rectify that by washing it away. More like a scientist who creates a monster and then decides the extreme thing to do to kill that monster even if the whole 'town' must be destroyed as a consequence.

Or like a scientist who discovers that his petri-dish has been infected by an unwanted strain of bacteria, and so he washes out and sterilizes the petri-dish to get rid of it, and then re-introduces the original cultures... along with a few members of the unwanted bacteria for good measure.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Intelligent extincting. Like ctrl+z for god.

V 1.0 Garden of Eden, Adam and Lilith.
V 1.1 Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve.
V 2.0 Kill everybody and everything but six people.
V 3.0 Jesus does another reboot.
V 3.1 Still waiting for JC to return.

Stupid stories.

 

[TimCallahan]

"Why would an intelligent designer use mass extinctions?"

I am offering an answer to the question. I assume the question is metaphorical.

No, the question is not metaphorical. Perhaps I'm being dense, but your post # 2 didn't seem to me to address mass extinctions.

 

[TimCallahan]

Why bother with mass extinctions at all? Why not just create man, say from dust

Tim, what is it you are trying to achieve by asking this question? You know the responses you are going to get from creationist is either,

a) Dinosaurs didn't exist, or if they did they got wiped out by the flood (which was punishment from God - so technical not a 'mass extinction')
b) God works in mysteries ways and who are you to question the almighty

I'm not asking young earth creationists to answer this question. It's primarily aimed at theistic evolutionists. I could also ask it of old earth creationists. The latter argue, for example, that God first created Eohippus in the Eocene, then wiped that model out to create successively larger horses, etc. The logical question to ask OEC's is, "Why not just create the likes of Sea Biscuit from the git-go?"

My question is for those who see evolution as God's way of creating everything. It's the position I used to espouse when I still tried to believe. It's the question I frankly could not answer. The way I see it is that any deity that would work by way of mass extinctions would have to be rather capricious.

 

[Dinwar]

I take it you haven't played Sim City. Everyone goes for a while, then gets bored and causes a disaster or six.

 

[Navigator]

Or like a scientist who discovers that his petri-dish has been infected by an unwanted strain of bacteria, and so he washes out and sterilizes the petri-dish to get rid of it, and then re-introduces the original cultures... along with a few members of the unwanted bacteria for good measure.

No.

In the case of the biblical idea of god the washing out did not get rid of the unwanted.



The unwanted was not the form but the attitude coming through the form.

 

[Navigator]

No, the question is not metaphorical.

Well my answer was.

Perhaps I'm being dense, but your post # 2 didn't seem to me to address mass extinctions.

Sure it did. Improvement on the model of the form and what the form could be used for.

 

[Navigator]

I'm not asking young earth creationists to answer this question. It's primarily aimed at theistic evolutionists. I could also ask it of old earth creationists. The latter argue, for example, that God first created Eohippus in the Eocene, then wiped that model out to create successively larger horses, etc. The logical question to ask OEC's is, "Why not just create the likes of Sea Biscuit from the git-go?"

My question is for those who see evolution as God's way of creating everything. It's the position I used to espouse when I still tried to believe. It's the question I frankly could not answer. The way I see it is that any deity that would work by way of mass extinctions would have to be rather capricious.

This is perhaps why so many abandon belief in any god idea, and sometimes retort in the negative to any such ideas of there been a creative mind and purpose behind the universe. They have no way of rectifying a creator god with their having to experience life in the physical universe, therefore "no 'god' did it".

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Why would an intelligent designer use mass extinctions?

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The people who designed this board were obviously pretty intelligent. And yet, they didn't allow the Admin and Mods the power of mass extinction.

Now look what we're stuck with.

Pretty clear case that mass extinctions would be a critical part of any omnipotent being's plan.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Pretty clear case that mass extinctions would be a critical part of any omnipotent being's plan.

That was just silly.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

That was just silly.

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You don't think a little mass extinction would be useful over in the CT threads?

 

[angrysoba]

Mysterious Ways.