>
> adl wrote:
>> dont get fooled by the title, im am not trying to be redundant.
>>
>> it strikes me that so little people think of the possibility of
>> evolution being created by god. in that view, god created a factory
>> (this world) which would therefore produce whatever creatures he
>> wanted. so if he wanted animal x, y and z, he just set the initial
>> conditions so that the end results would be, after many millennia, x, y,
>> z.
>>
>> of course, there is nothing supporting this idea, nor refuting it.
>
> Another view is that "reality" is really a large experiment being run
> by an extra-universal intelligence (God, if you like). The universe may
> not be much more than a hyper-complex version of Sims.
>
> This isn't a new idea. The metaphysical view in the Kabbalah depicts
> the universe as a seies of creations, in each "God" withdrawing a
> particular "aspect" of perfection as an "experiment" to see what the
> results are. Supposedly the withdrawn element in this universe is the
> requirement to adhere to "divine law" (i.e. the introduction of "free
> will").
>
> If one views the universe as a "divine experiment" then of course
> evolution and God are compatible. Not only can God be the creator of
> the initial conditions, but God can be experimenting to see what the
> outcome is as well.
>
# There may be an Intelligence behind Phenomena but there is no evidence for
it. Any given Universe must operate according to certain "laws", if it is
to be dynamic and not static, and such laws must be consistent in their
functioning. As to purpose, there is no evidence of this, only causal
consequences, of which the production of increasing complexity, resulting in
an ape with a large cerebral cortex, is purely a random fact.
Any Deity need not be anthropomorphic, but could be a bug-eyed monster
with a sadistic sense of humour - as most life preys on other life - and
could, as alleged, have set the whole machinery in motion. Thus Deism,
instead of Theism.
As the extinction of Homo Sapiens seems imminent (within the next decade
or so) due to over-population of planet Earth, no great significance should
be placed on demise of yet one more species, us. Nature, God, or whatever,
will go on, as before, but without ourselves being present.
