Bible Thumpers + Creationists: Please Explain the Dinosaurs

[Lord_Davinator]

dude haven't you seen jurassic park? those raptors seemed to be pretty social...
oh wait... but then it had mosquitos in the age of dinosaurs...

rabble rabble god made a dabble
rubble dummble out came a mammal

how does that sound?
God I fear had very little say in creation...

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Well, why didn't God give humans superpowers to hunt the dinosaurs? That would be fun.

[Ben Kenobi]

Uberkrux-

A couple problems with the way that you have worded the question.

"what the hell was god doing for eons with those giant animals?"

You don't need this- the rest is sufficient.

There are many different ways to explain this question, all of which are legitimate in-house debates among Christians. The best one that I have heard merging the existence of dinosaurs with Creationism comes from Constable.

Constable notes that God creates trees in the Garden with rings as well as creating Adam and Eve as adults. He argues that it is entirely possible for God to create the universe with the semblence of age, ie, he makes the universe 'look' older than it really is.

This has huge consequences for radiocarbon dating, and enables dinosaurs and humans to co-exist. If God made the universe appear to be older, than ALL of the dates we have are off.

I'm not a Creationist though. I'm a progressive evolutionist

[Zero-Tau]

Originally posted by obiwan18
I'm not a Creationist though. I'm a progressive evolutionist

And that means?

[Ben Kenobi]

It's kind of complicated. One definition of 'progressive evolutionist' is someone who accepts the interpretation of the Hebrew word for day in Genesis 1:5,

"God called the light day , and the darkenss he called night. And there was eveing and there was morning, the first day."

as eon rather than day. Both interpretations are acceptable as the Hebrew word is used for both day and eon, and both seem to fit the context of the sentence.

Essentially, it allows for a universe between 10-20 billion years as eon is not precisely defined. Another verse used to defend this interpretation is Gen 2:2

"By the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."

where the tense of rested in the Hebrew can indicate that he is still resting, and therefore, the seventh day continues. This makes sense if day is translated as eon.

Progressive Evolution allows for 4.5 billion years as the age for the Earth, although chance mutations are not the mechanism used. God-directed evolution, causes jumps from one species to another, while still allowing for observed intraspecies variation.

The philosophical background of progressive evolution is that both scientific investigation and Scripture help us to understand how God works in the world.

[Zero-Tau]

Ah, okay.

[MRT144]

last time i went to church christianity wasnt about the creation of the earth or any scientific mumbo jumbo. it was about treating other people with kindness and compassion and not that republican half assed compassion.

[Robert]

The usual explanation is, as far as I can see,
that there were dinosaurs (the bible speaks about great dragons) and they lived before and during the flood.

after the flood the athmosphere had changed (all the water that was surrounding the earth was gone) and in the new environment dinosaurs were incapable to survive so they extincted.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by CyberShy
after the flood the athmosphere had changed (all the water that was surrounding the earth was gone) and in the new environment dinosaurs were incapable to survive so they extincted.

Not more than 5000 years ago?

[Robert]

Not more than 5000 years ago?

some say 5000 years ago.

[Demerzel]

lets contemplate two scenarios and consider which is more likely to be true...

1. The world wasn't created several billion years ago but was in fact created just a few thousand years ago by a "supreme being" with lots of fake things making it look old.

2. The world wasn't created several billion years ago but was in fact created just five minutes ago by a "supreme being" with lots of fake memories making it seem old.

If you believe via faith that (1) is true, then why shouldn't (2) be actually true? Neither can be proved wrong per se, but is either particulary realistic? If you're willing to ignore all the scientific data and blindly follow something that can't be proved to be true then you have to admit that you've lost your ability to have rational thought. Rational thought is being able to take something that contradicts what you believe, discover it to be true and then use that to alter your beliefs. Or do you have the ability to rationally consider things and we've just been misled by the devil? Heh amusing indeed

For those who like to quote the bible to others as the ultimate guide on how to live, this page is quite enlightening - http://www.biblebabble.com/laws.htm

My favourite bits to quote are

Don't cut your hair nor shave. (Leviticus 19:27)

Commandment 2. You are not to make any graven images.

People seem to think the second commandment says you aren't supposed to make a graven image of God, and that's it. But you are not to make any graven images of anything in heaven, in the earth, or in the water. This would include no graven images of fish, moles, worms, birds, shrimp, ants, and all sorts of things. One must wonder why God was so worried about these things that he felt the need to put these ahead of murder and stealing.

oops guess I'm damned eh? I've been having my hair cut since I was a lad and shaving for the last 13 years or so.

makes me laugh indeed that making a graven image of a worm is worse than murder. ooh you so naughty mr engraver!

[FrostyBoy]

We're humans Demerzel, we're not omnicient.

If God doesn't exist, I would still read the bible and try to live my life by a lot of it. Whoever wrote the bible, was incredibly intelligent.

In my eyes, I see that Jesus was without weakness, he was the strongest of all humans, he was without problems and was the most happiest, of all people, ever.

When you don't understand Jesus, you try to understand him, when you do understand him, you try to be him. That is the power of Jesus. There will never be any direct answers; only more questions.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by obiwan18
It's kind of complicated. One definition of 'progressive evolutionist' is someone who accepts the interpretation of the Hebrew word for day in Genesis 1:5,

"God called the light day , and the darkenss he called night. And there was eveing and there was morning, the first day."

as eon rather than day. Both interpretations are acceptable as the Hebrew word is used for both day and eon, and both seem to fit the context of the sentence.

Essentially, it allows for a universe between 10-20 billion years as eon is not precisely defined. Another verse used to defend this interpretation is Gen 2:2

"By the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."

where the tense of rested in the Hebrew can indicate that he is still resting, and therefore, the seventh day continues. This makes sense if day is translated as eon.

Progressive Evolution allows for 4.5 billion years as the age for the Earth, although chance mutations are not the mechanism used. God-directed evolution, causes jumps from one species to another, while still allowing for observed intraspecies variation.

The philosophical background of progressive evolution is that both scientific investigation and Scripture help us to understand how God works in the world.

I agree with this statement. Man today thinks in term of 24 hour day, but what is a day in the life of GOD or heaven?
On Venus a day is 200 + days on Earth, on Saturn it is 8 + hrs. Even our moon has a 28 Earth days cycle.

[Demerzel]

Originally posted by Sn00py
We're humans Demerzel, we're not omnicient.

If God doesn't exist, I would still read the bible and try to live my life by a lot of it. Whoever wrote the bible, was incredibly intelligent.

In my eyes, I see that Jesus was without weakness, he was the strongest of all humans, he was without problems and was the most happiest, of all people, ever.

When you don't understand Jesus, you try to understand him, when you do understand him, you try to be him. That is the power of Jesus. There will never be any direct answers; only more questions.

Most of us live our lives by some high moral code, I tend to agree with a fair bit of the bible's ethical code but that's because I created my own ethics which happened to be very similiar to the bible, not because of it. All I was trying to say was that the bible is an old document which contradicts itself in many places and should not be taken literally imho but is still very interesting & useful in some respects.

I just get annoyed with those Christians who quote from the bible to condemn certain things but ignore other quotes which would weaken their case. For me, it's a case that as long as people understand that its an old document that was never perfect and has lost some relevancy over time but can still provide valid points then I think they're on the right track.

[Urban Ranger]

Demerzel,

I am wondering, is a cross a "graven image?" After all, they are supposed to be copies of the "One True Cross."

If so, aren't lots and lots of Christians are breaking the Ten Commandments?