Creationist and dinosaurs?

Great Debates
21

Dinosaurs. Dragons. Devils.

When Lucifer and his minions were cast out of Heaven, they were not sent to Hell (contrary to the popular culture image of Satan and his demons ruling over Hell.) They were sent to Earth:

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. - Revelation 12:7-9 KJV

Now, is it possible that these “dragons” who were cast down to Earth were in the form of dinosaurs/great lizards? After all, most Biblical descriptions of angels in Heaven do not describe handsome young men:

Cherubim:
And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. - Revelation 4:4-6 KJV

Seraphim:
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. - Isaiah 6:1-2 KJV

Since Lucifer and the demons were also angels, we can imagine that they had a similar fearsome appearance. Also, we can infer from Scriptural accounts of angels appearing in human form that angels are capable of altering their appearance. Is it unreasonable to suggest that Lucifer and his fallen angels appeared as dragons, or gigantic serpents on Earth?

Traditional descriptions of dragons frequently describe the creatures as ancient and also wise. “Serpent” is word that is often used interchangably with “dragon”. It makes sense that an angel (fallen or otherwise) would be ancient and wise. Therefore, I propose that the fallen angels did indeed take the form of, or inhabit the bodies of dinosaurs/dragons/serpents. Perhaps the “serpents” were intelligent beings who willingly allowed the fallen angels to inhabit them? Their presence on Earth must have been fairly common, and relatively un-noteworthy to humans. Certainly, there is no specific reference to dinosaurs in the creation account; this is insignificant, because there are countless other species that are not mentioned, too.

Note the account of the serpent tempting Eve:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden… - Genesis 3:1-2 KJV

There is no indication that Eve is the least bit surprised to encounter a talking serpent, which again leads me to believe that it was an unremarkable occurance in and of itself (and relates to my idea that the serpents were intelligent creatures who allowed the fallen angels to inhabit their bodies). People were well aware of these big talking serpents. (Note that the Bible does not call it a “snake”. The Devil being a snake in the story is a much later characterization.)

Then God curses the serpent:

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life Genesis 3:14 KJV

I can suggest from this that God was decreeing that serpents would no longer be these towering, powerful beasts. Rather, they would be small and relatively insignificant. “Upon thy belly shalt thou go” is a good figurative description of being shrunk from 20 feet high down to the size of a small dog. Perhaps this was God’s way of punishing the serpents for allowing themselves to be used by Satan. This may have been something that happened gradually with later generations of serpents/dragons/dinosaurs. Since the Flood was many generations later, the serpents were small enough that there was no problem getting them into the Ark. This would also explain the lack of dinosaur bones “…all jumbled together if there was a flood?” - the “serpents” were no longer huge by that time.

BTW - Maybe they are mentioned, though in a roundabout way:

All the kingdom of Og in Bashan, which reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei, who remained of the remnant of the giants: for these did Moses smite, and cast them out. - Joshua 13:12 KJV

There are several other references in the Bible to “giants” who lived in an earlier time (either a race of human giants, to which Goliath was a throwback, or else a reference to humans in general being much bigger in the early years). If there were “giant” people, might there not also have been “giant” animals?

Anyway, this is all just speculation in which I’ve engaged over the years, but I think it makes a certain amount of sense.

22

I thought it was inerrant on matters of doctrine not inerrant in total.

23

Ok, I am sure I will get corrected many times over for sharing my view on this but here goes…

When I was growing up I thought the dinosaurs were part of the ‘first’ world before Lucifer rebelled and they were destroyed when God cast the ‘bad’ angels out of heaven… he gave Lucifer/Satan dominion over the earth… and then he created humans.

24

Do I need to explain to you the opinion held by the average Christian Fundamentalist about Catholics? Teling them that Catholics are okay with evolution, etc. is just proof to many of them that the Church is, in fact, the whore of Babylon.

-stonebow, raised Catholic, living in the Bible Belt

25

I know, Stonebow, I know.

I didn’t mention evolution though. I believe in Creationism in the sense the it means that God created everything and so the universe isn’t a purely materialistc entity.

My views on evolution (and what type of evolution there is or isn’t) are for another thread.

26

Think about who’s talent you are questioning.

We know how long the orbit that makes up one of our years is in our little neck of the woods, right? Think how long God’s orbit is that includes the entire universe. Our’s could be less than a blink of an eye as compared to his. Maybe he made the big ugly guys and then thought better of it the next year, that is, His next year.

I can’t believe an agnostic just typed this. I must be keeping my options open. :smack:

27

Well, strictly speaking, the bible says God created the world (and the stars and all the other stuff like the land and the seas and the animals and, ultimately, Adam) in six days. And on the seventh day, he rested.

28

Dinosaurs are simply a popular illustration of a much larger problem for creationism: extinction. Lots of species have come and gone, but most are unfamiliar to most people. Dinosaurs, however, are very familiar to most, so they tend to get singled out in these kinds of discussions. As such, any logical contortions that creationists engage in in order to reconcile dinosaurs with a literal reading of Genesis is ad hoc. You still have a whole bunch of creatures, for which we have physical evidence and which no longer exist, to account for. So, again, the problem is not how to reconcile dinosaurs, but how to reconcile extinction in general.

And there, I see nothing even remotely satisfiactory in terms of explanation from creationists. Not only in terms of the logistics of the whole ark tale (I am willing to give a pass regarding the description of creation, as few groups are explicitly named therein), but philosophically, as well: if God is truly a benign power, then why resign entire groups to death – groups which ought not be bound by the folly, and Fall, of Man? Further, there is no evidence that most of these creatures even lived alongside Man, so why were they created in the first place? And why were they destroyed?

29

The point still stands, as there are plenty of species of carnivorous dinosaurs that could have terrorized human beings if they had been contemporaries.

30

From an Orthodox Jew’s POV:

While every Orthodox Jew is (by defintion) a creationist, there is much room within the Orthodox world for the matter of dinosaurs.

One can go by a literal reading of the text and posit that God created the world in six twenty-four hour days. How does that explain dinosaur findings? I suppose one could posit that they are fraudulent. One could also posit that God created a world with implied (but not actual) age. Just as one looking at Adam on the day he was created could imply that he’d been around for years (he wasn’t created as an infant), likewise one could imply age that did not actually happen. That also helps to explain coal and oil deposits and light from stars over 6000+ light years away.

On the other hand, there is room within the Orthodox movement to accept that the six days of creation were not twenty four hour days but six time period of undefined length. That would allow one to posit the existence of a big bang (after all, while accepting that God created the world is mandatory in Orthodox Judaism, the method thereof [big bang, wave of His magic wand, etc.] is not explicitly stated). This too would explain coal and oil deposits and the like.

Likewise, one could even accept (within limits) evolution of the species. Since we can observe microevolution today in species, one could certainly posit that, given enough time, one could evolve one species into another. However, the Orthodox Jew will probably disagree with the classic view of evolution in at least two regards: (1) He will tell you that evolution was not random but was divinely guided and (2) human beings did not evolve but were created as they are by God.

In the Orthodox camp, you will find the whole gamut of views, from the first I presented to the last.

I personally dislike the “God is testing us” theory. While I can accept that God created the universe with an implied age, I don’t like the idea that God is deceiving us by planting evidence of something for no reason other than to test our faith.

Zev Steinhardt

31

I think this explains everything.

32

Well, there’s always that old standby: Our limited minds can’t possibly understand God’s purposes.

33

Darwin’s Finch
I fail to see why extinction is any problem. The damned creatures just dies out, unless I missed a verse somewhere, there is nothing in the bible the contradicts extinction.

34

Well, in Genesis 1:31 God did look at his whole creation, “… and, behold, it was very good.” [italics in original KJV]

I think Darwins Finch’s question might well be: If all of creation was very good why were some singled out for extinction? If they were just going to go extinct why create them in the first place? And since God is omniscient He must have known in advance about the extinction.

35

Well, David Simmons, the same argument could be applied to the passenger pigeon, or Steller’s sea cow. I don’t think that there are any creationists that would argue that those creatures never existed.

Zev Steinhardt

36

Uhh, Zev, it is actually worse than that, ENTIRE ecosystems that don’t exist anymore supported things like the trilobites, and after that, the dinosaurs.

Between those ecosystems: millions of years!

A pigeon to an ecosystem is a small thing; we are talking dozens, if not hundreds, of species wiped out at the end of those eras!

37

Perhaps those species were sort of like construction subcontracters. They were created to perform a certain task in a certain niche, and when that task was completed or was no longer necessary, they were “let go”.

38

Sorry Phase42, but going even further into the past, there is the creation of the moon, the best evidence is pointing to a planetary collision that created the moon and gave us the earth as we now it, AFAICR there is some evidence that organic material was present before the almost complete destruction of the original crust.

Life was possibly present in a proto earth’s ocean that was obliterated. Again, not only subcontractors, but the whole enchilada did go down. :slight_smile:

Life had to wait several million years more to return.

39

Extinction is a problem because species are, in the creationist mind, especially pre-Darwin, immutable. They do not change. Dying out wholesale is a pretty significant change, however, and even more significant when it is evident that they died out without human intervention.

Even aside from Darwin’s theory, we have all of these fossils which need to be accounted for. Clearly, these species no longer exist. According to Genesis, Noah saved one pair of every creepy, crawly, fly-y thing (and seven pairs of various eatables). So where are they all? Your answer of them simply dying out is obvious to us now, and is, in fact, an evolutionary response, particularly as relates to why they died out. Creationism can offer no reasonable explanation for the demise of entire species, especially those which, by all appearances, where not contemporary with Mankind at any point.

And, as David Simmons correctly observes, we have the problem of the utter wastefullness of it all, if such is orchestrated by an allegedly benign being. If all of creation were good, why has 95+% of all of creation died out? I do not mean the death of individuals, I mean entire species. Vast populations of organisms, gone. Kaput. Mass extinctions are seen throughout the fossil record. Were they simply imperfect, despite being created by a perfect God?* How does all of this fit in with the Fall of Man, before which, it is further alleged by some creationists, all species were happy and carefree and the lion lay down with the lamb and all that?

Further, there is the issue of catastrophism. The history of life is puncuated by catastrophe, followed by recovery, with an entirely different ecosystem emerging from the ruins of the previous. According to the Bible, there was but one: the Noachian Flood. This single event is insufficient to account for the appearance of the fossil record when it comes to the pattern of mass extinctions.

As I stated, creationism is unable to answer these questions or offer a suitable explanation for why / how extinction occurs. Yet, when viewed through the lens of evolution, extinction makes perfect sense. It is, in fact, inevitable.

  • The very idea of extinction was inconceivable to to many before Darwin, simply because a perfect God would not allow such. Further there was the concept of “plenitude”, which was essentially the idea that if God could think of a being, it must have been created; anything which God could conceive of would not go uncreated. Thus, everything that was currently alive must have been the extent of things which could be alive. And yet, again, we have this fossil record…
40

Well, the origin of my post was the claim by** Rodrigo** that extinction wasn’t a problem because nothing in the Bible contradicts extinction.

Now, you can postulate “subcontractors” but some evidence for this would help strengthen you case. The Bible doesn’t say that some creatures were created to act in that way, and I don’t think that any biologist would say that the theory of evolution requires any such thing.