Dniosaurs and Christianity

[wiggins]

Hey guys, I know and believe that God created everything, but doe the Bible mention cavemen and dinosaurs anywhere? How do they fit into our Faith? I mean, it is for certain that we are not monkey descendants, and that God created us, so... how do they fit in? Thanks!
Wiggins

[Mithrandir]

There are quite a few schools of though on this. I belong to the:
"The bible is not a history/science book, and consequently evidence for every little thing like cavemen or dinosaurs need not be there to have existed."

Everyone feel free to post what school you belong to - and post references to back that up if you want. Don't turn this into a debate, though.

[Technomancer]

I feel that there is no necessary conflict between the Christian faith and modern scientific findings regarding evolution, geology or other issues. Moreover, I am also pretty certain about the veracity of these findings.

As for the bible, I would agree with oldphil that the bible should not be taken as wholly historical.

[Gremio]

There are dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible you know, leviathan for example. In those days they were refered to as dragons, scientific evidence is increasingly showing that these dragons/dinosaurs lived at the same time as man, which the Bible testifies to.

Athiests often wave the dinosaur thing in christians faces, but I really see no reason to worry about them or to let that effect your faith. We dont believe IN dinosaurs, we believe IN G-d. If anyone comes up to me and says that the world has to be millions of years old my responce usually is "well that makes G-d even more awsome, he made a world that feels millions of years old in only 6 days"

[righteous_slave]

In reference to dinos, remember that the word dinosaur was not invented until the early 1800s,when the earliest fossils were identified as something completely diferent then anything we knew about at that time. Compare the descriptions of Behemoth and Levaithen in Job to pictures of the giant, four leggend dinosaurs, and some of the sea creatures. As far as cave people go, we still have people who live in caves today. There is a lot of good information available on the web. Sixdaycreation.com and Terrestrial Soup (tsoup.org) both have free info, while answersingenesis.org has books to buy, as well as audio and video on it's site. Keep in mind there are two schools of thought, Old Earth Creationism and New Earth Creationsm, OE agrees with the idea of an Earth that is billions of years old, while NE believes in a literal interpretation of the Creation, six, 24 hour days. I lean towards the NE, but that's just so you know where i'm coming from. If we get started on that debate, the thread will probably get locked and I'll probably get myself in trouble.

[Technomancer]

Gremio, can you back up your assertion with details from the scientific literature (peer reviewed journals, that sort of thing)?

I would strongly urge people interested in the subject to learn the actual science involved from the scientists themselves. Listening to what Pastor so-and-so has to say about the subject is rarely worthwhile since such indivduals are often incapable of giving accurate descriptions of the science that they purport to debunk. I'd give the same advice regarding any system of thought e.g find out from Hindus about Hinduism, Catholics about Catholicism and so on. There is no substitute for reliable knowledge.

A good starting point might be http://www.talkorigins.org, or books such as "Puntnam's Geology", or other texts on historical geology and paleontology.

It's also worth pointing out that most major Christian denominations (Catholic, Anglican, United, Lutheran, etc) do not have any official opposition to the current scientific thinking about these matters.

[The Grammarian]

I am personally of the creationist persuasion (young-earth, I might add...though quite frankly, I care very little about the subject in general). My approach is that the Bible details everything necessary for mankind's salvation. It isn't exhaustive--although I would be careful how I worded myself in saying that it's not a historical book. It is. As said, it just isn't exhaustive.

I personally would suggest checking out freerepublic.com's forums. The Cr/Evo threads there go on forever and a day, and there are actually competent people on either side (assuming one is not disposed to discredit someone simply for a different empirically-unverifiable belief than one's own).

[Technomancer]

Wrt to talkorigins I recommend it because of the quality of scholarship there. The authors have a firm grasp of the material being presented, are able to adequetly summarize it, and show proper citations from the scientific literature. Moreover, they do an excellent job of highlighting the demonstrable failures of creationist models.

I'm familiar with the stories of the creature, however it has long since been showing to have been a basking shark (speaking of T.O.):
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/plesios.html

[Saint]

I can go either way with this, as i guess most who lean towards the 'gap' theory.

[JediSonic]

I think that a lot of the bible has more to do with philosophy than accurate scientific jounalism

Ever since I was 5 years old I've wondered about how some of the people in the old testament could possibly have lived as long as they did. That, combined with the 6-day creation story, leads me to consider very seriously the notion that not all "days" were 24 hours. However, I think that there is a very good chance that time itself was made by God. The first thing a programmer does when making a video game is to lay out the "engine".. that is, the basic code for creating and manipulating objects inside the simulation. I don't think it's at all far-fetched to think that God made something very much like that Himself -- an engine to govern reality as we know it -- inside of which all time and space is neatly contained. Just change a few lines of code, and BAM we just redefined the word "day". Darn it there I go again.. I hate when I start thinking of God as a programmer

[Michael]

I believe they exsisted and they died out after the flood from lack of food. I'm can't prove this though.