Why did God get rid of the Trilobites?

[Brian37]

They were so beautiful, peaceful species who flourished in our World's oceans for over one-quarter of a billion years:




Did God just want to make us feel bad?  And, in feeling bad, maybe lead more of us to Jesus, Allah, etc.?

For the same reason the dark side of "The Force" got rid of Alderaan".

God is a bratty child with a horrible temper.

[slartibartfast]

He didn't. It's all a ruse. Since the earth is only 6000 years old all fossils were put into the earth at that time to tempt poor bastards like us 6000 years later to the dark side by making evolution look like a viable theory to test our faith, when none of it actually happened. Stop looking for reasons to doubt God's word - all you need is the magic book. It explains everything.

I have had numerous conversations on other forums where Christians were making exactly this and other related arguments. Same goes for distances between stars etc. Their refutation for light having observably travelled billions of years to reach us being proof of a Universe far older than 6000 years was that God created all of the light beams in mid-flight - at the same time as all of the "Stuff" in the Universe in the exact state that it exists today - so they would appear to reach us at the exact moment he intended (ie. now that he has deemed us to invent telescopes). It never occurred to the person that if God had that power / intention they he wouldn't have to create any stars at all - just continuously creating mid-flight light beams and other radiation would do.

It astounds me that seemingly rational and functioning people can actually believe that if there is a God, he would go to such lengths to create a completely "fake" Universe with the level of intricacy required to continually defeat new levels of the science onion an still remain consistent just for our benefit.

OK, how do they explain the fact that the farther away the star system is, the younger it is. It is possible to see star's beginning to form. It is possible to see vast hydrogen clouds collapsing onto a central region. It is even possible to view molecule hydrogen (H2) forming streams. These appear as dark lines since they absorb the radiation coming from behind them.

They don't (explain the fact). Any God that goes to the trouble of creating light beams in flight wouldn't hesitate to add various levels of galaxy maturity to complete the illusion. 

The fact is that people who believe the earth is 6000 years old are either uneducated and don't understand the contradictions and issues this introduces, never mind the science, or they haven't bothered to look at any of the evidence to the contrary because they are lazy. This makes for very awkward conversations. The level of "thought" required to exist in that bubble is extremely low. It also has the added side-benefit of making the "Explanation" accessible to everyone so that even uneducated / intellectually challenged people can adequately explain the way of life to their children. 

Religious people exist on a spectrum of acceptance of science - this ranges from completely literal interpretation of the bible (including the 6000yr "theory" and literal belief in the story of Noah) through highly educated Christians who follow science who bend their interpretation of the bible wildly to fit their broadened world view. If you talk to the latter, it becomes much harder to refute views with science as the person's world view has already been adjusted carefully to incorporate reality. For instance, I talked to a person who believed in evolution for all non-human life-forms (albeit guided by God rather than being purely based on natural selection), but believed that humans were "special" and "upgraded" to have a soul only a few tens of thousands of years ago by God from the mindless animals they were before. This viewpoint is much harder to challenge with evidence, since you can't disprove that God may have contributed to natural selection, and you then have to have a conversation about what makes humans "human" including a "soul" conversation which is highly philosophical. 

In my OP I was more thinking about the grass chewing type.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

“Very closely related” is to distort the truth to an rather extreme.   Insects (Hexapoda) and the order that includes prawns (Crustacea) are more closely related to each other than to trilobites or spiders, that is true, but they are not much more closely related.  

Hexapoda diverged from Crustacea at least 425 million years ago.    While the ancestors of both diverged from trilobites about 540 million years ago.     So insects and prawns might be said to be about 80% as distant from each other as either are from trilobites, spiders or millipedes.

Both hexapoda and Crustacea have exoskeletons, but so do members of other branches of arthropods.   So that shared trait does not denote closeness or relations between them.   look closer and the exoskeletons of Crustacea and hexapoda only resemble each other superficially. They are formed by different biochemical processes.     Contrary to what is said on your quote,  Hexapoda have three part  bodies, but crustacea have only two.   Crustacea doe not have separate heads and thorax as Hexapoda do.   More significantly, from embryon development perspective, the combined head and thorax in Crustacea are not analogous to the head and thorax in hexapoda in terms of where in the segmented fetal structure they developed from.    The segmented legs of Hexapoda may seem to resemble  those of crustacea, but they are structurally different.  Hexapoda legs are uniramous, that is each leg grows out of the body as a single series of segments attached end to end.    Crustacea legs on the other hand, are mostly biramous, that is most leg branch into two separate parallel series of segments where it attached to the body.   From embryonic development, it is also clear crustacea legs grow out of different parts in the segmented fetal tissue from Hexapoda legs.

So it is a distinction with quite a deep seated difference in genetics, biochemistry, embryonic development, and morphology.

 OK, thanks for taking the trouble, I learned.  How long I'll remember it is a horse of an entirely different colour.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I like to imagine that Trilobites had achieved some kind of collective intelligence and formed a vast world wide civilization that ruled Earth long before Man.

[Ferrocyanide]

OK, how do they explain the fact that the farther away the star system is, the younger it is. It is possible to see star's beginning to form. It is possible to see vast hydrogen clouds collapsing onto a central region. It is even possible to view molecule hydrogen (H2) forming streams. These appear as dark lines since they absorb the radiation coming from behind them.

They don't (explain the fact). Any God that goes to the trouble of creating light beams in flight wouldn't hesitate to add various levels of galaxy maturity to complete the illusion. 

The fact is that people who believe the earth is 6000 years old are either uneducated and don't understand the contradictions and issues this introduces, never mind the science, or they haven't bothered to look at any of the evidence to the contrary because they are lazy. This makes for very awkward conversations. The level of "thought" required to exist in that bubble is extremely low. It also has the added side-benefit of making the "Explanation" accessible to everyone so that even uneducated / intellectually challenged people can adequately explain the way of life to their children. 

Religious people exist on a spectrum of acceptance of science - this ranges from completely literal interpretation of the bible (including the 6000yr "theory" and literal belief in the story of Noah) through highly educated Christians who follow science who bend their interpretation of the bible wildly to fit their broadened world view. If you talk to the latter, it becomes much harder to refute views with science as the person's world view has already been adjusted carefully to incorporate reality. For instance, I talked to a person who believed in evolution for all non-human life-forms (albeit guided by God rather than being purely based on natural selection), but believed that humans were "special" and "upgraded" to have a soul only a few tens of thousands of years ago by God from the mindless animals they were before. This viewpoint is much harder to challenge with evidence, since you can't disprove that God may have contributed to natural selection, and you then have to have a conversation about what makes humans "human" including a "soul" conversation which is highly philosophical. 

In my OP I was more thinking about the grass chewing type.

I suppose they can claim that the jewish god added various levels of galaxy maturity to complete the illusion.
But why would a god want to fool people?

There are multiple lines of evidence that says that the Universe/Earth combo is not 6000 y.
Again, the YEC type can claim that the jewish god created that illusion since it is omnipotent, omniscient, omnilocated.

I’m going to give pointers as to how to have a conversation with religious people, no matter what their level of acceptance of science is.
=========> You don’t have to read this stuff. You are suppose to know it already.

1. I can’t refute every wild claim. For example, if someone decided that their god is omnipotent, omniscient, omnilocated, then sure, he can do any magic trick he wishes.
Maybe this god made everything 1 ns ago.
I can’t tell the difference between a “natural universe” and “an artificial universe with such a trickster god playing games with me”.

2. We can explain to them what science has discovered and how the Genesis story of creation + the flood story doesn’t make sense.
For example, you can tell them that 1 male and 1 female will not have enough genetic variety (the offspring will not have enough genetic variability).
The believer can claim that their god does magic somehow to fix that issue.
Again, I can’t refute every wild claim such as that ^^^.
It is ad-hoc reasoning.
I do realize that the god is a magic key and it fits into every door of possibility and it unlocks them and fixes every problem (via its magic!).

3. You can ask them why does science not include such type of ad hoc reasoning: ie: The insertion of a magical being to explain parts of nature.
We know that that has been done in the past and eventually, when the real answer comes along via science, the old magical explanation gets tossed.
I have never seen the reverse happen.
I have never seen an aspect of science get tossed out and get replaced by god, fairies, demons, aliens.

“For instance, I talked to a person who believed in evolution for all non-human life-forms (albeit guided by God rather than being purely based on natural selection),”

==What this means is that this person, there is an aspect of nature that he fails to explain and so, he needed to insert god into his explanation to explain nature.
I think he is having trouble figuring out how new genes (or alleles) get invented.
He sees mutations of DNA to be strictly a detrimental event.

4. Which other professions deal with reality?
There are police investigators. Why is it that they don’t try to explain a murder scene with non-natural means? Perhaps the god came with a gun and shot that guy? Maybe it was a demon or fairy or alien?
What caused that car accident? (Police science)
What caused the failure of so many XBox 360s? (The domain of electrical engineering)
What caused that bridge to fail and collapse? (The domain of civil engineering or mechanical engineering)

Who created the COVID-19? Was it bat lady (The main researcher at the Wuhan lab)? Does she work for the jewish god and the god wanted her to spread this disease?

Note: My goal is to get people to think, such as your dude who sort of accepts Evolution theory and he thinks his god guides evolution.
I’m not saying that the god broke anyone’s XBox 360 or caused any car crashes.
The goal is to see how reasonable they are willing to be, how willing are they in accepting nature, etc.

“This viewpoint is much harder to challenge with evidence, since you can't disprove that God may have contributed to natural selection, and you then have to have a conversation about what makes humans "human" including a "soul" conversation which is highly philosophical.”

==That’s true but we can challenge them anyway and try to get them to consider other things. For example, car crashes, XBox 360s, this and that and police investigation and much more.
Why should biologists be the only ones to insert god into their investigations? Let’s all do it.
MacDonald’s : “I’m sorry Ma’am. You spilled coffee on yourself and burned yourself but that decision came from Satan. Please sue him. He heated your coffee and he spilled it on you.”

[Fake Messiah]

Why did God get rid of the Trilobites?
Because he chose the process of trial and error in which he just creates animals to destroy them over and over again for billions of years, just so he can create humans after wiping out 99.99% of all animals that ever lived.

I know, a very stupid and inefficient process for a supposedly intelligent creator, but also keep in mind that he is perfect.

[Jehanne]

Why did God get rid of the Trilobites?
Because he chose the process of trial and error in which he just creates animals to destroy them over and over again for billions of years, just so he can create humans after wiping out 99.99% of all animals that ever lived.

I know, a very stupid and inefficient process for a supposedly intelligent creator, but also keep in mind that he is perfect.

I have heard it said that Plato argued passionately that the planets must go around the Earth in perfect circles due to the perfection of God.

[Fireball]

Why did God get rid of the Trilobites?
Because he chose the process of trial and error in which he just creates animals to destroy them over and over again for billions of years, just so he can create humans after wiping out 99.99% of all animals that ever lived.

I know, a very stupid and inefficient process for a supposedly intelligent creator, but also keep in mind that he is perfect.

I have heard it said that Plato argued passionately that the planets must go around the Earth in perfect circles due to the perfection of God.

Plato was a quite uninformed individual. I wonder what he would think now, matriculating through the US educational system? Smart, but with lack of basic facts is a handicap.

[Jehanne]

I have heard it said that Plato argued passionately that the planets must go around the Earth in perfect circles due to the perfection of God.

Plato was a quite uninformed individual. I wonder what he would think now, matriculating through the US educational system? Smart, but with lack of basic facts is a handicap.

Question is, "Would he be supportive of CRT?"

[Ranjr]

He probably didn't like the feel of crawly tentacles and began swatting himself.  Who hasn't woken up that way?  All part of god finding the Earth creature he can sincerely abide.  We people are close but, as they tell me, he's coming back.  I figure he'll not just swat but hack, stomp, and kill us with fire.  A lake of it.  At least the Anthropocene got it's own epoch.