Where do the dinosaurs fit into the Bible?

The predynastic period in Egypt commonly used petrified wood to make small vessels and figurines and they placed these items in tombs along side items of ordinary wood. Since these items are reliably dated to being over 5100 years old, that would mean the process of petrifying wood had to only take a few hundred years at most according to young earth supositions(in some cases the items were left in tombs older than the calculated beginning of the universe. At such speed, shouldn't we be able to find partailly petrified wood fairly easily? I mean, divers find wood from 1000 year old ships in the same conditions as the flood yet the wood is usually soft or crumbling, in some cases still very much wood-like. The wood in the tombs should have petrified if the petrified wood items somehow transmorgified from ordinary wood after placement in the tomb.

My question is this, evidence indicates it takes at least several thousand years for permineralization to occur, doesn't this call into question the validity of young earth suppositions?

I'm following you so far, where's the part where you explain that they're not Christians?



I'm not sure where you got the 50% number, but as long as we're picking percentages out of the air, why not say 100%?

Catholics follow the pope, Christians follow Christ. That's the difference. Only Catholics believe a man (pope) is infallible in terms of faith. Christians believe Christ (God incarnate) is the only infallible man.

They both follow Jesus Christ, for some reason I thought that was the definition of Christianity.

For a non-christian, you seem to know a lot about christian beliefs. You're wrong, by the way, in so many ways ...

1. Catholics believe Christ is the head of the Church, and that the Pope is God's representitive only as the successor of Peter.

2. Unlike you, (obviously from the above), Christians (Catholics included) believe Christ to be the son of God, not some infallible man.

You say Catholics are not Christian. It would be more accurate (though still wrong) to say that Catholics are the ONLY Christians, since the others could be classed as splinter sects.

As a Catholic, I have to disagree. Catholics are Christians too.

Sorry if I suggested Catholics don't follow Christ's teaching, but they follow the teachings according to the teachings of the Pope. I was Catholic and truly understand how it feels to have people point out issues within the faith.

Now, I will admit most Catholics don't really follow the church teachings, like the teaching birth control is a sin. When I say Catholic in that sense I mean devout Catholic.

While it's true the pope is Christ's representative to Catholics, the pope has the power to declare Catholic doctrine regardless of Christ's teaching. If the pope says the qotes from Jesus were wrong, and he changes them, it would be unCatholic to question him.

Thanks, bbl. have fun.

The Discovery of fossils is what finally ended the iron grip of the church on the schools. They have no clear excuse for fossils that are millions to billions of years old.

Wow, I never thought you would come out with such a bigoted statement, especially considering all your cries for religious tolerence in other threads. You have finally lost the last piece of credibiltiy I held for you. If you want to preach religious tolerence, then you need to start living it.

The old Nazi pope or the new one?

~Ulrika~

A Christian is anyone who believes in Jesus Christ. Whether they follow the teachings according to Him or the pope, does that make a difference? It doesn't matter how we get the teachings, they still come from Christ.

It does make a difference because Christ taught that "there is no way to the father but by me" Christians do not need human intervention to communicate with God. God communicates with us through the spirit and the bible, we communicate directly with God through prayer. No priest is needed to hear our confessions, God will hear them himself. Christ died so that we don't need a priest's intervention, or sacrifice, or all those old testament things. There is no man who is infallible or perfect "For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God" Christ was not merely a man, he was the Son of God.

Does this mean that Catholics are not Christians, not necessarily, but hopefully they will always take the law of Christ and God over the law of the church which in many ways is contradictory.

I do not pretend to completely understand catholicism, but I see a lot of things in the religion that do not fit into the bible so maybe a practicing catholic can answer the following....

Why doesn't the bible mention "holy water"?
Where in the bible say that to pray to Mary?
Where in the bible does it mention purgatory?
Why, when seeing the failures of the Pharasees in Jeruselum throughout the bible due to having a spiritual hierarchy, did the Catholic church develop a chain of command?
How do the patron saints fit into the model of christianity set up in the bible?
Why do the popes continually create new rules and regulations regarding religous practices?
Why do you have to confess to a priest, and not God?
Why do you have to repeat "Hail Mary" rather than "Hail Jesus"?

To try to stay on track (because I'd really, really, really like to be able to photoshop in another picture of Jesus and dinosaurs), I'd like to respond to Kevn's post.

I do remember hearing before the idea that Baphomet and Leviathan were dinosaurs. It's tough for me to try to approach this as literal because of my background studying other texts, like the book of Enoch. Enoch takes a much more allegorical/figurative stance, saying that one is male and one is female - this parallels Babylonian and Egyptian creation myths too - one is earth, one is water - they are "yin and yang", primordial opposing forces. However, if you ONLY are looking at the bible and interpereting it literally, as in "Yes God himself literally came down from heaven and wrestled with Abraham", I will agree that yes, you can say that leviathan and behemoth were dinosaurs. Its just that in doing that we open a can of worms and inconsistencies, like it makes my wonder why the Bible says that Noah put all of the animals in existance into the ark, and makes no mention of why the dinosaurs weren't invited.

I often run into many irreconcilable difficulties with literal interperetations of scripture, especially OT. Well, except stuff like this:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/sexorient/hom_bmar.htm
<and please do not immediately dismiss the above URL - I really want to know how one can literally interperet the relationship between king David and Jonathan as even remotely plutonic>

(Genesis 3:24): "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

And other descriptions of cherubim as having 4 faces, being a mass of "eyes and wings" (appologies for not having the time to find the exact text or an appropriate webpage link). Edit : Well,here we go and I'll even attach an artist rendition...

I'm sure you can cram a cat into a Bible, with room to spare.

In fact, if it's really pissed you off, you can easily cram a fully-grown cat into a...oops, TMI...

-- jj

If I were evil, and I mean... truly evil, I would encourage the discussion of the differences between Catholicism and other flavours of Christianity.

But the ensuing firestorm would be far too entertaining for the atheists, and the spark of instigation might be tracked back to me, so.... I won't.

The most intense hatreds are reserved for those most like ourselves...

I've heard this issue addressed before at least once, by proponents of the idea that dinosaurs were contemporaries of pre-Flood humanity.

Can't remember the details, but the two main arguments were:

1. That the average lifespan of most species, having been on the visible decline after the Fall, was substantially shorter after the Flood, and

2. A dinosaur is nothing more than what happens when you let an ordinary anole, or Komodo Dragon, or whatever, live 800+ years

Needless to say, Noah & Co. would've opted for carrying youngsters aboard the Ark.

-- jj, who's glad he didn't have to swab the decks on that voyage

As a devout ( well, I *did* go to mass today ) Catholic, I have to disagree. Catholics are Christians too.

If I say that I have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, who are you to say that I am not a Christian? Catholics believe themselves to be Christian, who are you to say that they are not?

Catholics believe that Christ has given Peter and his successors certain primacy over the flock (e.g. "thou art rock and upon this rock I will build my church," "feed my sheep," etc. (sorry too lazy to go through all the scholarship behind this.) So, if Catholics believe that the pope is infallible (in certain limited cases), it is because they believe they are faithfully following Christ.

Now, whether Peter (and his successors) really has some elevated status over the flock is a matter of theological debate. But do not make the assumption that because someone is on the other side of the debate from you, that he does not, in his heart, believe he is following Jesus.

Peace.

That's a good one Logan!!!! ROFL

Thanks fot that Kevin. I'll take an open minded look at it!

The next time you see a dinosaur in the Bible, scratch it with your keys.

Nope. Christains are christains. Doesn't matter to me what they disagree about.

Well, see, there are weak Christians and strong Christians ...

But when you hit rock bottom and realize that you're completely powerless to solve your problems by yourself ... when you finally acknowledge your helplessness and you ask your Higher Power for half a cup of sugar, then and only then can you return to the kitchen and finish making that blueberry pie you promised me.

So get your ass in gear, Zuzu!

Quit fucking around with those stupid petals of yours and bring me my pie!

Look, there's no way I'm going to ask HER for the rest of the ingredients, but if promise to make it worth my while I do have other ways of getting that blueberry pie made.



But that flower is a special prize for me and daddy says he can fix it for me.

Eh? V. silly.

Anyhoo, my sunday school techer told me that dinosaurs and people were around at the same time and there were fossilised footprints that proved it. Not long after that I decided I didn't want to be a Christian any more, although think that was more to do with the onset of puberty.