Intelligent design and extinctions

[smilingsynic]

If there is some intelligent designer, then why have there been several mass extinctions in which 75% or more (in some cases, much more) of all species have gone extinct?

The most famous mass extinction of all took place 65 million years ago when a celestial object crashed right off the Yucatan, wiping out the dinosaurs and most life; but an even bigger mass extinction took place 250 million years ago, the so-called Permian extinction, which eliminated 90 plus percent of all species.

If there truly is an intelligent designer, how can these mass extinctions (and others) be explained? They make little sense. Why would an intelligent designer have to destroy life and start over again, many times. Wasn't the designer happy with the dinosaurs? What about that fascinating life fossilized up in the Canadian Rockies, in the Burgess Shale?

Any explanations?

 

[acronym]

Sure, you see this "intelligent designer" relied on a faith based model, which repeatedly screwed up, as it was out of sync with reality.

Resulting in the ultimate insult, being that the only species with rational thought, based on said creator, took a faith based approach to the world, and subsequently exterminated more other-species than any other single macro lifeform/species to have existed.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

Do you really expect that the human brain, which weighs less than the brain of a bottle nosed dolphin, could really understand the hows and whys of a creator of the entire universe and that creator's design and plan for life?

Where does this infantile demand that is so often expressed about the idea of being able to understand and fully comprehend the design of a Supreme Being come from?

Quote from smilingsynic:

If there is some intelligent designer, then why have there been several mass extinctions in which 75% or more (in some cases, much more) of all species have gone extinct?

The most famous mass extinction of all took place 65 million years ago when a celestial object crashed right off the Yucatan, wiping out the dinosaurs and most life; but an even bigger mass extinction took place 250 million years ago, the so-called Permian extinction, which eliminated 90 plus percent of all species.

If there truly is an intelligent designer, how can these mass extinctions (and others) be explained? They make little sense. Why would an intelligent designer have to destroy life and start over again, many times. Wasn't the designer happy with the dinosaurs? What about that fascinating life fossilized up in the Canadian Rockies, in the Burgess Shale?

Any explanations?

 

[acronym]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

Do you really expect that the human brain, which weighs less than the brain of a bottle nosed dolphin, could really understand the hows and whys of a creator of the entire universe and that creator's design and plan for life?

Where does this infantile demand that is so often expressed about the idea of being able to understand and fully comprehend the design of a Supreme Being come from?

Straw man.

So a dolphin could? Or is that just another ridiculous comparison.
Naturally, i'll point out a homing pidgeon, with a brain the size of a pea, can do things we cant, and you will use it as evidence to attempt to back your assertion, that nobody can really know anything, because magistrates, materialised out of pure potentiality know all, and that the absence of proof of a creator/intelligent design is somehow, bafflingly, proof they do exist, and that your position is correct, regardless of the failure of your straw man arguements, which nobody reading them bought, then you will use this as further proof of your supposed point, being that beleif in the irrational contradicts any other beleif, due to the very fact of its existence contradicting that people were meant to be rational, hence proving that nobody could really know, further proving your point, according to you.


Next.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from smilingsynic:

If there is some intelligent designer, then why have there been several mass extinctions in which 75% or more (in some cases, much more) of all species have gone extinct?

The most famous mass extinction of all took place 65 million years ago when a celestial object crashed right off the Yucatan, wiping out the dinosaurs and most life; but an even bigger mass extinction took place 250 million years ago, the so-called Permian extinction, which eliminated 90 plus percent of all species.

If there truly is an intelligent designer, how can these mass extinctions (and others) be explained? They make little sense. Why would an intelligent designer have to destroy life and start over again, many times. Wasn't the designer happy with the dinosaurs? What about that fascinating life fossilized up in the Canadian Rockies, in the Burgess Shale?

Any explanations?

Dont you know the earth is only 6000 years old and any evidence that it is older was planted by satan to trick us and scientists who claim its older are all in a conspiricy to deny gods word. Or at least that is what they preached in the church i used to attend.

 

[Mercor]

The idea of intelligent design mostly refers to humans and the human consciousness.

Some may argue the 6000 year old mark refers to the time that mankind started to develop a history and civilization.

Certainly something happened from the years 8000 to 3000 bce.

Somehow man develop a better mind with a conscious and began recording its development. This started the generational advancement that we enjoy today.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

Not a strawman at all. The initial question in the thread makes a asumption without any logical foundation that the human mind could understand the motives and thinking of a Supreme Being.

I know it is difficult for many of the atheistic folk to accept, but they are not the Supreme Being.

We see commonly even on a human level that those with superior minds are found to be unintelligible to the ordinary humans with fully developed minds. While I laugh at those who act if they truly understand Einstein's thinking, etc. they continue to profess that they own a true understanding of the most advanced human thinkers in human history.

Okay, have we seen any human being with the complete knowledge of how to produce an earth planet? How about producing a solar system that sustains life? How about producing a galaxy filled with solar systems? How about producing clusters of galaxies? How about producing the universe?

No, of course not. Man's mind is extremely limited when it is put in perspective of the totality of knowledge that it would take to create the physical Universe and the life within it. Yet the assumption is that they could understand the thinking of a Supreme Being that created the Universe, that a Supreme Being must conform to their limited logic based on a tiny brain, limited senses and limited intellect?

Hubris to the max, just like an infant who cries because he sees the actions of his parents as "unfair" which of course you exemplify to the nth degree...

Quote from acronym:

Straw man.

So a dolphin could? Or is that just another ridiculous comparison.
Naturally, i'll point out a homing pidgeon, with a brain the size of a pea, can do things we cant, and you will use it as evidence to attempt to back your assertion, that nobody can really know anything, because magistrates, materialised out of pure potentiality know all, and that the absence of proof of a creator/intelligent design is somehow, bafflingly, proof they do exist, and that your position is correct, regardless of the failure of your straw man arguements, which nobody reading them bought, then you will use this as further proof of your supposed point, being that beleif in the irrational contradicts any other beleif, due to the very fact of its existence contradicting that people were meant to be rational, hence proving that nobody could really know, further proving your point, according to you.


Next.

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

Do you really expect that the human brain, which weighs less than the brain of a bottle nosed dolphin, could really understand the hows and whys of a creator of the entire universe and that creator's design and plan for life?

Where does this infantile demand that is so often expressed about the idea of being able to understand and fully comprehend the design of a Supreme Being come from?

How 'bout a serious attempt to answer my question instead of attacking me for actually asking it? You seem to have a propensity for mocking others. Grow up already.

Thinking is driven not by answers, but by questions. Without quetions, there would be no knowledge.

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from vhehn:

Dont you know the earth is only 6000 years old and any evidence that it is older was planted by satan to trick us and scientists who claim its older are all in a conspiricy to deny gods word. Or at least that is what they preached in the church i used to attend.

Creationists have no answer for my question, because the mass extinctions and even smaller-scale extinctions contradict Scripture. They duck and cover instead.

If God created and declared the creation good, then why did God let any species go extinct?

Before the nineteenth century, biblical scholars and most intellectuals believed that extinctions were impossible, because God would NOT have done that. Even non-Christians such as Thomas Jefferson were taken in, warning Lewis and Clark that they had better be on the lookout for giant elephants in the frontier, since they were still there.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from vhehn:

Dont you know the earth is only 6000 years old and any evidence that it is older was planted by satan to trick us and scientists who claim its older are all in a conspiricy to deny gods word. Or at least that is what they preached in the church i used to attend.

Actually, vhehn, the age of the earth is 1,972,949,101 years. Exactly, according to the Disgusting Alcoholic Troll ZZZ.

We asked him if it was possible that the earth was 1,972,949,102 years old. He said no, and that the age of the earth was given in the holy books he reads.

Since he has converted back and forth between at least 3 of the world's major religions, it is unclear which holy book he was referring to.

I know it seems bizarre, but it's true....see the first long Evolution thread from '06 and search for 'magistrates'.