re: permian extinction - snooker
An interesting series of comments on the big issues. There are several points I would like to make. About those "created fossils". This is the line used by fundamentalist Christians to maintain their need to have a literal interpretation of Genesis. I think such a line is an insult to God and has the effect of turning God into a liar. Why? Man has been exploring His world for millenia, in one way or another, when he observes it He interprets it as He sees it. If He sees a skeleton he interprets it, from His knowledge of the world, as the remains of a dead animal. In the case of fossils He sees bones turned into stone but still bones of animals. Man knows that bones can be transformed. So when Man looks at the fossil remains He sees the skeletons of animals and He is able to re-construct them to resemble those animals from which they came. He concludes that the animals existed before. With the explanation you, and others, put forward we are expected to look at the bones and say: "Looks like a giant lizard but it is not a giant lizard, only an artifact - made by God."
Now here is the rub - by appearences we see the remains of a long dead animal, all of our experience says so. We are then expected to say that God made the fossils to "look like that." If He did so then He has lied to US. He has mislead us. He has set us up to believe what we see but then we are expected to not believe our eyes and our understanding.
The bottom line is that to accept that argument is accept that God tells lies - an impossibility for a true believer.
To my mind there is no conflict between Science, Evolution and a belief in Creation. Science is about observing the world and the Universe and understanding it. From this process we know a lot of Laws. These Laws are inherent in the system - made by God. Therefore they are True. The Laws of Nature or Physics we have discovered are true so to accept a short period for the Universe's (?) (Earth's) existence we have to say that those Laws are invalid under some circumstances. (It would again make God out to be a liar.)
To hang it all together a most satisfying explanation is this. Matter is mostly empty space, when you get down to the atomic level. Why could not God create that material (electrons, protons, etc) in one place imbued with all those Laws scientists are discovering today (He made the Laws). With the release the whole train of events began unfolding (there is no need for two bits for a big bang, remember all those bombs) according to the Laws He imposed. As part of that process life comes into being. (I have problems with the idea that Life, DNA, Cellular structure, etc is a random thing, it is just too beautiful and complex.) The process of evolution then proceeds due to some of the things we know today.
What about the Creation bit? I think that it is due to our human nature. If you believe that Man is body and Soul you have to explain the soul, the body is easy. The soul is not of this world (which explains why we are the way we are) so each time a baby is conceived a new soul must be created, it did not pre-exist. Because we are the way we are we have percieved this spititual nature and projected it onto the rest of the world. However, it is each of us that is a Creation, and the world was created according to the Laws we can find in the world.
