Where do the dinosaurs fit into the Bible?

μ@xX0r!N6 ЋRe@d5 ¢ 2oo4, F00eleven

No Chip, you are not slow. That is in fact what He says. Did you, however, see how He wants us to submit to His reign?

Try to take a look at it from a non-secular point of view. Try to look at it as a child does to his father. Is it wrong for a father to expect respect from his child?

I know we look at this through our eyes here on Earth, but God looks at it from 'outside the box' of Earth. He sees our spirit even after death. He sees what is truly in our hearts and minds. He knows our thoughts and our desires.

Can you imagine what most people would think of you if they knew your every thought and desire? Most people would shun me at times to say the least.

Humans are a selfish lot for the most part (maybe not all the time, but it comes to all of us at some point, some of us more often than others), but God loves us exactly how we are. He asks us to willingly bow our knee to Him in love. And, yes, He will judge those that do not.

I think the real question is how does the bible fit in with dinosaurs. Since dinosaurs are more or less a proven scientific theory.

Submit or fry is not exactly an exercise in free will or choice, and it has nothing to do with love.

Ok Chip, I give, I agree to disagree with you.

Here is a link on how dinosaurs fit into the Bible Dinosaurs and the Bible.

Here are a couple of links about the ark, since it has been in question here
How did all the animals fit on Noah's Ark?
and
Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?.

Sorry Kurgan We'll always end up back at that point I'm afraid.

That link is like an irony festival. It uses evolutionary speciation as an argument to reduce the number of individual species that had to be on the ark!

i liked reading the first page and going directly to the last page where chip is quoted as asserting that jesus christ was an antisemite...

from now on i will read all religion threads in this manner as it seems to be the only way to enjoy them or get anything interesting out of them.

Um yeah. When you start with the premise that the bible is right, and then make the evidence fit that interpretation, it is difficult to argue with science. Even teh catholic church recognizes that the faithful should listen to the teahcing of science, and that literal interpretation of the bible leads to dangerous fundamentalism.

This junk science promulgated as creationsim or intelligent design does nothing to further religion or science. It certainly does not add or detract from gods infallibility. There is nothing wrong with allegorical interpretation, and mindlessly adhering to the notion of a six thousand year old earth does not make you a man of god, it makes you a man of ingnorance.

Since I got distracted early on in this thread I never actually got to answer the original question.

Anyway, this is the jist of what I was taught about it:

~250-150 Million years ago -- Dinosaurs
~4-5 Million years ago -- first evidence of human ancesters
~200,000-2,000,000 years ago -- "modern" humans (depending on what you consider modern)
~5000-6000 years ago -- First civilization

The bible came after this and is a collection of stories, poems, laws and history that discusses humans and their relationship with god. The historical accuracy of the writings are not important because it is the message that the stories convey that matters. As a consequence the lack of mention of dinosaurs is irrelevant, what matters is that it give you an understanding of your relationship to god and other people.

That is what they teach in school, yes. Most who studied that material will agree with the timelines.

One of my favorite authors, Daniel Quinn, surmises that the bible is the history of the rise of agrarian based societies over of hunter-gatherer societies. I find this to be a very credible theory.

All we ask is that children have exposure to religion, not only their own, but that of many other people from around the World.

By understanding people at the core of their beliefs, one is better able to understand from where they are coming. If we want our next generation of leaders to follow the current trend, then we should do nothing for our education system.

There are worse things than learning about God, ya know

request denied.

They do. It's called history and social studies. I also had electives in anthropology in highschool. I could have taken comparative religion if I had wanted to. It was offered. Did you not go to school?

We are talking about grade school.

You already have the right to expose your children to almost anything you choose; that is their cross to bear (should you procreate as god dictates you must - he told me that in a bar the other night).

Contrariwise, if you wish to force my child to suffer your ideosyncratic view of the universe, thems' fightin' words, but as an accomplished troll you are relying upon that.

And personally, I can think of few things that would be worse for my child to learn about than your conception of god, tyvm.

Send your kids to a parochial school. That's what they're for.

One way for a parent to make sure their children got taught about a variety of religions would be to take them to a variety of churches.

You could take your child to a different church for as many services as you chose to do. This would have the added benefit of teaching the parent about the other religions as well.

It is sad indeed a person who says they think religious education is important wants to palm the job off on the school system instead of doing it themselves.

Hmmm, it's uncanny, it is almost like those who penned the establishment clause of the US Constitution had experienced something almost exactly like our provocateur is envisioning.

Congratulations, Mr. Klein, you've managed to devolve a few hundred years. Please do it right next time and get us back to Eden.

Inna gadda da vida, baby!

Except the overwhelming majority of dinosaur bones are stone.


That's like saying, "They are quoting scientists who don't believe the earth is the center of the universe". At one time, the church persecuted scientiests for claiming the earth was not the center of the universe, because *literal* translation of the Bible seemed to see it that way. After literally centuries of the catholic church being a joke about this issue, people circumnavigated the globe and catholic church had to admit that maybe a looser interpretation is needed
No one took it seriously - case in point, Columbus - he wasn't daring because everyone thought the world was flat. People knew it was round. He was daring because he was going against the Church. Fortunately, Spain's leaders (and the church) cared more about the promise of gold and spices.

The simple fact is that the absolute overwhelming amount of scientists, regardless of personal religious (or lack thereof) beliefs, believe in evolutionary theory.


By the way, to be anything scientific, you need to be using a source that has some credibility, not an obvious religious front group as your source.



1 tree species - a very unique one, at that, that lives in odd soil for evergreens and is specially adapted.
http://www.laspilitas.com/plants/515.htm

Also, the article lists no source for this research, nor any corroborating support for it. 1 research study, out of years and years of research by an an entire field of botanists.


Well, good thing you labeled it as a guess.

Impact craters, like the ones referred to, are the equivalent of dozens of atomic bombs for even a few meters of meteorite. Let's take the 1908 meteorite that broke apart above Siberia.

http://www.psi.edu/projects/siberia/siberia.html

"You can get a sense of the magnitude of this event by comparing observations made at different distances. Seismic vibrations were recorded by sensitive instruments as much as 1000 km (600 mi) away. At 500 km (300 mi), observers reported "deafening bangs" and a fiery cloud on the horizon. About 170 km (110 mi) from the explosion, the object was seen in the cloudless, daytime sky as a brilliant, sunlike fireball; thunderous noises were heard. At distances around 60 km, people were thrown to the ground or even knocked unconscious; windows were broken and crockery knocked off shelves. Probably the closest observers were some reindeer herders asleep in their tents in several camps about 30 km (20 mi) from the site. They were blown into the air and knocked unconscious; one man was blown into a tree and later died. "Everything around was shrouded in smoke and fog from the burning fallen trees.""

How big was this meteor? Estimates say a paltry 30m.

Consider impact craters around the world have been much, much larger ... and it's pretty inconceivable that these would not have been reported on. More likely, they would be recorded as a godly event of destruction.

Again, see my comments about the dinosaur eggs. Many dino eggs started out as larger than any existing adult reptile.


You are changing the words by translating. Translating is changing the words. In fact, simply translating "The Word of God" into scripture is changing it.

Read up on your OT stories - Babylon. God specifically broke apart languages so that man could not be as powerful as him - because language itself is powerful. But post-Babylon, languages scattered apart, and a word's meaning is no longer concrete. There is mobility and evolution in language, and so no longer can people precisely understand each other through spoken / written language.

The consequence is that any holy texture is still a translation from what in theory would be a holy language - a language of god - one that literally creates - and change it into a language of man.

It is through studying and interpreting the Bible and holy scriptures that we derive meaning - not simply reading.

Heck - even the meaning of one specific word means one thing to one person and another to another. Take the word "pie". What image do you have in your head? Apple? 3.14? Pecan? That subtle difference of visualization happens even on an object as simple and trivial in meaning as a baked good. Now think about "love" and you get totally different concepts from person to person. And the Bible is about metaphysical concepts, love, philosophy- all abstract thoughts.

So really there's a second translation, too - from language to your brain. So all in all, assuming the Bible is divinely inspired, we're translating:
god -> ancient Hebrew / Greek / Aramaic -> Latin -> English -> modern English as most people understand (and most people aren't well educated in English) -> your brain.

It is through the faith that we fill in this gap, and are able to interpret things with an understanding that *our* words - *our* language is flawed, but that we might understand a deeper meaning via Faith.

If the word of holy texts were enough, there would be no need for faith.

..


All that said, is it so hard to believe that God might want to start a Big Bang, manufacture a world with all his wisdom that things could be set in motion from the start that would create an ideal environment for the evolution of man? That God - whom is supposed to be infinitely knowing and powerful - would be able to construct the start conditions so well that no specific creating is needed later?

And remember, we're in the time-space context of God. If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, then God exists at all times at once, and so creation, to God, is not something that starts and ends - it is all the same instant. Translating that into linnear human thinking and language is a stretch - at best - and it's rationale to assume that it would be written in a way for people of the ancient world to understand.

But we're intelligent beings! Our civilization evolves, and if you believe in God - then you have to believe it would be with a creator's blessing. So why then would the fruits of civilization - such as science - whose intentions are to better understand the world that your creator made - would not be a viable source of explanation of how things came about?

Evolution. Get with it! (c)

Yes, but it still divides them up into genera. It maintains that you can have a kind of animal evolve into the same kind of animal. It in no way states that a bird can become a dinosaur, or a cat can become a dog. Speciation is well within the realm of creationism, but the idea of genera spawning new genera is not.

Other than that, did you find anything that you did not agree with?

Well, what else would you want a Christian that believes the Bible literally to base ideals upon?

Is there any scientist that does not try to mold evidence into their hypothesis? It is hard to argue with science that bears out peer review, even when reviewed by those who do/did not hold the same beliefs.

I can't help that the Catholic church disagrees with me. I disagree with a lot that the Catholic church espouses. And no, this is not to say that I think Catholics are not Christian. It means I have different views than they.

Agreed on religion. But, it doesn't move science forward? Check out what some scientists think. Can you honestly say that if it turns out that creation science is correct that science was not advancing?

I agree.

I would say that we can agree to disagree.