What was God’s plan behind Creation and why does he need one?

You are larger and stronger than a virus, yet they will kill you. Virii also have worse light recepticles (if any, I'll look that up) than you. you are larger and stronger than a snake, yet it can kill you.Your argument is weaksauce.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

How would this "expend energy"? It takes energy to possess an organ, but not, strictly speaking, to evolve it.It's not like evolution happens as a result of effort on the part of the species. You know sharks have eyes, right?---Your question is a bit like asking an economist why not everyone is a plumber. It pays well, it's always in demand, you're your own boss, it doesn't take years of study ... why doesn't everyone do it?And the answer would be rather similar.

Could I point out that if this was a puzzle in biology, it would not particularly be a puzzle for evolutionary biology?After all, if sharks, thanks to their superior size, strength, pointyness of teeth, or whatever, ought to have driven all other species to extinction, then they would have done so whether they were the product of natural processes or whether God made the original set of species by an act of fiat creation.The fact that the other species are still around is sufficient to show that there are biological niches for them to inhabit even given the existence of sharks.

I liked it very much indead. A good reboot.What about the points I raised?

Hi 3DSOC You seem to think that evolution involves creatures 'thinking' about what new adaptations they need and then growing them using the requisite energy.However, evolution is very far from this. There is no thought and no direction. Random mutations (which happens all the time in all organisms) are selected by the environment (it's not even the environment 'thinking' either) for good effects that enhance the animals chance of getting to reproduction age - that's all that matters in evolution - will the animal reproduce and pass on its genes or not.Example; The ancestor of the giraffe with necks more like that of other grazing herbivores would have raised their heads to chew on leaves of shrubs and small trees such as acacias. If a mutation occurred that gives an animal a slightly longer neck then that animal can reach leaves others can't - that's the environmental advantage that allows it to get to adulthood where others may starve. The environment favours the adaptation and no planning is involved. In this way successive mutations build and the neck increases over time to what we have today.Why aren't giraffe necks 200 feet tall then to get the tops of the trees? I'm sure you can work this one out. Adaptations come at physiological costs - a neck that tall couldn't be supported by the rest of the body and would lead to predators taking them easier.You also appear to have a fixation on 'stronger/bigger' for some reason. Do you know which life-form has been around the longest? Bacteria.
Which constitute the greatest number on the planet today? Bacteria - by several orders of magnitude.
Which life-form can adapt fastest to adverse changes in environment and so survive to a high degree? Bacteria.On a multi-cellular life basis the insects are far far more successful than any other animal and certainly more so than others many times their size.Size and strength are very poor indicators of biological success and evolutionary adaptation.I strongly recommend that you read some biology text books before carrying on with this subject.....a good one would be Richard Dawkins "Climbing Mount Improbable" where Dawkins introduces the reader to how adaptations build and why Darwin's theory holds so much power.

There have been a lot of posts under this topic, but I've just scanned through them all again and can't find any direct answers to my original question (other than "I don't know").Does anyone have any direct answers, or can they point me to a previous message I may have missed that they consider is a direct answer?I find it somewhat surprising that there doesn't seem to be any clear answer to what the purpose was behind the alleged creation, considering how important the whole subject is to some people - some of them blow planes up for Christ's sake (or Allah's sake).

The catechism I was exposed to about five decades ago did - everything is here so that we humans can "glorify God and praise Him."Is that an unsatisfying answer, or what? I thought it sucked then, and I was a prepubescent missionary brat.

no one really knows WHAT his plan is- until they die, of course. then maybe God fills in the gaps. the only absolute answer is the one in the catechism, and that one is just confusing.

This former protestant was given the same boilerplate answers. After a while I just nodded my head and went through the motions. Looking back I wonder how many other members of that congregation were doing the same.It just seems really weird that an all powerful, all knowing creator would produce a massive universe just so one day he could get pissed off watching a hairy little primate teen ager whacking off in a tiny little corner of the Universe. Billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, each with planets of their own, and this supreme creator is worried about us eating pork? Sometimes it's a little hard to figure out.

The sad thing is the humans have done this to ourselves. Humans invented the most beligerent, murderous, cruel, tyrant of all time and then willingly bow down and worship such a horrific being, imaginary though he is and some points in history have made other unwilling participants worship this imaginary jerk by the point of the sword.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Funny, that's exactly what I had suspected!I just thought it reasonable to give the other side a chance (again) to explain, in case there was something I'd missed.It seems we can now conclude that we have:A supernatural creator - though we don't know what it actually is;That created the universe - though we don't know how it did it;That had a purpose - but we don't know what that is either.

Drosophilla, Larni, DrJones and Dr Adequate,You all have made several good points and have shed light on this topic.Allow me to share a passage from Darwin himself about sight;"...if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real." - 'Origin of Species'I am not comparing myself in any way to Darwin, I just think he stated what I see as a "problem" better than my posts.Obviously Darwin looked at the world and saw that lots of creatures had developed sight, so if his theory of evolution is correct, then evolution did, somehow overcome this 'insuperable' challenge. Whether you believe natural selection to be real or not, doesn't make it true or false.I'm stuck on the "if" part. Has the evidence proven;1. That these gradations exist?I understand the adage that "A lack of evidence doesn't meant there is a lack of evidence", so if the current evidence doesn't provide for these gradations, that doesn't mean evidence won't be discovered.2. That each minor mutation was useful to it possessor?If these mutations didn't benefit the possessor, then they would not have survived, natural selection wouldn't favor them.

Forgive me, but I don't know what you mean by you've 'dealt' with Adam.To your point though about illness; Couldn't an act of will by humans discover a cure for phenylketonuria? Couldn't an act of will by a human rescue a family whose parent(s) have become addicted? Couldn't an act of will by humans develop better early warning systems for tsunamis? better evacuation plans for areas about to hit by a hurricane? Imagine what the world would be like if countries spent money on health care and education instead of defense.If humans actually 'loved their neighbor as themselves', would people still die in natural disasters? Yes. Would people still die from accidents? illness? Yes.Now before you think I'm painting a 'isn't life just rosey!' picture of life, suffering sucks. Losing a loved one because of a drunk driver sucks. Watching your little daughter suffer from seizures sucks. Finding out that your new born baby boy is deaf sucks.How a person responds to their situation is bigger than the situation itself.God's mechanism of choice is actually 'a still, small voice'Problem is, its easy to let the noise of life drowned it out, so people ignore Him, myself included.

He didn't say that it was a problem. He says, as you quoted, that "the difficulty [...] can hardly be considered real."What he says is insuperably difficult is for people to imagine it happening. He was right about that too. Yes. We can see a whole range of eyes in nature, from the simplest to the most complex. In some cases we can see the whole range within a single phylum --- mollusks are the usual example, but this is also true of jellyfish. Nilssen and Pelger (here) have shown that there is a pathway from the simplest eye to the most complex such that each small step is an improvement. To quote their paper: So such a pathway will be favored by natural selection for so long as the benefits of increased visual acuity outweigh the costs to the organism of producing the eye.For further information, I suggest this article on eye evolution, a work of such penetrating insight and erudite genius that I can only say ... I wrote it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The point is that Yahweh decides that these people need to be punished for no good reason!Yahweh can do anything; he can achieve his aims without imposing all the horrible things that you say we should 'choose' to eradicate. This implies that it is our fault we can cure the plagues Yahweh plagues us with. See post 65