What Was Before ' the Beginning '....?

[TheBeardedDude]

The Ediacaran Fauna probably doesn't belong to a new kingdom though. That seems less likely given the expansion of our fossil discoveries. Instead there appear to be some ancestral organisms (like the fossil Kimberalla being an ancestral mollusk) and some of the weirder ones (like the Dickinsonia you posted) are kind of a hollow sac of single-celled organisms behaving as a multicellular colony (maybe like a slime-mold does?).

[Sword of Christ]

What would not happen is any sign of decreasing complexity. Sadly, of course, we see many examples of decreasing complexity alongside advancing complexity in other areas simultaneously.

I'm sure there are natural rhythms and cycles involved, but we're not going to revert to the single cell stage bar some catastrophe. Even if that did happen on Earth the complexity exists in the universe as a whole, billions of planets like the Earth will now exist. They didn't exist 12 billion years ago. There was accumulative complexity built into the system from the start, the universe is something that grew and developed, there most certainly was a direction or goal to it.

So, for example, the 5 great extinction events we know of caused a massive and sudden decrease in complexity of life on earth - pretty much across the board.

Cycles of decay and death cycles of emergence and new growth, spring and winter. Everything is on a natural cycle of some kind and it is a deliberate one. This is the nature of what the universe is and what it does.

Even if you were to view these as temporary set-backs (or maybe even planned slim-lining) you have to face the fact that some levels of complexity have never been achieved again (to date anyway).

Nothing (we know of) is physically more complex than the human body and brain. There was nothing like humanity before on this planet everything was built up toward the point of ultimate complexity. This being a function of the universe itself as designed, created and sustained by the eternal God who is the ultimate source of all nature. All this is a complete and well manufactured living system. Feel free to point out how science contradicts any of it.

If we look at flight, for example, the Pterosaur, it now appears was the ultimate flier and nothing has come close to what it could do till our machines. It appears their flying ability was far superior to that of today's birds.

Pterosaurs declined and went virtually extinct by the end of the era of the dinosaurs due to competition with birds. Birds were the more effective and advanced organisms you could say. Even if pterosaurs were the most advanced organisms to evolve on Earth it wouldn't detract from the general progression toward civilization. A progression intentionally built into the universe by God, this occured on a planet wide and universe wide scale everything is linked as part of the same process.

Why would God create something more complicated and then abandon it?

He made the processes that lead to the evolution and development of life not the individual organisms. Though human like intelligent civilized life was his goal that's what the universe is for this is what he had in mind and that's why we are here.

[TheBeardedDude]

^
This is why I drink

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Would you like to have an actual discussion on the great mass extinctions that Earth has experienced, or would you rather just claim that they are somehow related to seasonal cycles, even though they are preserved in the rocks that are supposed to be deposited by the flood?

[max-greece]

" There was accumulative complexity built into the system from the start, the universe is something that grew and developed, there most certainly was a direction or goal to it. "

Really - and you know this how exactly?

" Everything is on a natural cycle of some kind and it is a deliberate one."

Really - and you know this how exactly?

"This is the nature of what the universe is and what it does."

Well not exactly. We are seeing the same types of celestial bodies now as we see 10 billion years ago. There's no onwards and upwards in space - only, possibly in life, and even that's not 100% as we have already established.

"Nothing (we know of) is physically more complex than the human body and brain. "

Whilst I might agree with the brain the human body is no great leap forwards. In fact huge parts of it appear to be very badly designed indeed.

"There was nothing like humanity before on this planet everything was built up toward the point of ultimate complexity. "

And how do you know we have reached the point of ultimate complexity? Judging by the past (98% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct) there is a VERY good chance we too will go extinct to be replaced by something else.

"This being a function of the universe itself as designed, created and sustained by the eternal God who is the ultimate source of all nature. All this is a complete and well manufactured living system. Feel free to point out how science contradicts any of it. "

No evidence of design. Certainly the universe is not well designed for life, that much we know. In fact the only place in the entire universe we know we can live is here. There might be other places, there might not, but they are going to be a bugger to find even if they do exist.

"Pterosaurs declined and went virtually extinct by the end of the era of the dinosaurs due to competition with birds."

Source? What bird, exactly, could compete with a 400 kilogram pterosaur as tall as a giraffe?

"A progression intentionally built into the universe by God, this occured on a planet wide and universe wide scale everything is linked as part of the same process."

No evidence of intention. Planet-wide apparently not (The thriving life of Antarctica is now buried under 2 miles of ice). What link is there between the process on earth (evolution and natural selection) and the operation of the universe? I don't see how you made that leap.

"He made the processes that lead to the evolution and development of life not the individual organisms. Though human like intelligent civilized life was his goal that's what the universe is for this is what he had in mind and that's why we are here."

So you are saying evolution, through natural selection, operated to a plan - with the aim of creating us? Evidence? Why did God go through 5 great extinction events with entire phyla of creatures roaming the earth for tens or even hundreds of millions of years going extinct? Why would he make it look so totally random?

4 billion years to get to his target state of human like intelligent civilized life? How inefficient can a God be?

[Zazzy]

A great deal of evolution is reductive- resident genomes like those of mitochondria and chloroplasts are excellent examples. There is simply no doubt that genomes can and do evolve reductively, especially in mutualistic relationships. Just STOP with the "upward evolution" thing already. It's embarrassing.

[Esquilax]

Really - and you know this how exactly?

Careful Max, you keep asking question like that, you might get him to admit that he just made it up!

"How do you know?" is the question theists fear the most, because hows are almost completely absent from the staid "godidit" answer. For something with a pretension of being scientific, there's an awful lot of talking about what happened, but almost no discussion of the mechanisms involved.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

A great deal of evolution is reductive- resident genomes like those of mitochondria and chloroplasts are excellent examples. There is simply no doubt that genomes can and do evolve reductively, especially in mutualistic relationships. Just STOP with the "upward evolution" thing already. It's embarrassing.

I think he's pretty much going to carry on regardless of what we say. Unfortunately.

[Zazzy]

I think he's pretty much going to carry on regardless of what we say. Unfortunately.

No doubt. I always wonder, though, why they don't want to learn the facts so that the can mount any sort of convincing argument. At least the Discovery Institute tries.

[Doubting Thomas]

‎and Evolution of all organists ‎

So what were organists before they evolved? Pianists?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I think he's pretty much going to carry on regardless of what we say. Unfortunately.

No doubt. I always wonder, though, why they don't want to learn the facts so that the can mount any sort of convincing argument. At least the Discovery Institute tries.

They don't need to try because they've got god on their side, and it does all the hard work for them. It's easy to be intellectually lazy when you believe you've got the supreme chancellor rooting for you in the background. I mean, why bother, with anything? If faith is all you need, why not just ignore everything going on around you and follow it?

I guess the best people to ask are them. But I cant say whether you'll get a coherent response.