# Do Christians believe in Dinosaurs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 18, 2016, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923 "2016-10-18T05:26:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/21 "2016-10-18T16:26:30Z")
Didn’t the Romans feed Christians to the dinosaurs? Cause of extinction? psik ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/22 "2016-10-18T16:37:46Z")
There’s widespread agreement amongst Christians world-wide that evolution is true. …The Church of England’s governing body on Friday approved a motion that emphasizes the compatibility of belief in both God and science. …more than 850 congregations throughout the globe are celebrating Evolution Weekend with the aim of demonstrating that evolution poses no problems for their faith. I suspect that fundamentalist Christians in the US make a lot of noise about Creationism (are they allied to ‘faith healers’?) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/23 "2016-10-18T16:54:26Z")
[Here](https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/when-did-dinosaurs-live/what-really-happened-to-the-dinosaurs/) is a website I found about Christians believe dinosaurs and people lived together, but dinosaurs died after the flood. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/24 "2016-10-18T17:02:35Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I even have the T-shirt > [https://www.cathedralbookstore.org/image/popup?imagePath=%2Fimages%2FProduct%2Flarge%2F773.jpg](https://www.cathedralbookstore.org/image/popup?imagePath=%2fimages%2fProduct%2flarge%2f773.jpg) > > Or as my father would say “the God I believe in wouldn’t want you to be stupid”. Another Episcopalian here. I don’t care for the shirt in your link, but I would LOVE a shirt that said “The God I believe in wouldn’t want you to be stupid.” More or less that’s what we try to teach our kids about faith and science. And, thankfully, the Episcopal church has no problems with evolution. As **Nava** quoted above, we believe in the Nicene Creed (slightly different version): _We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen._ That’s it. No seven literal days, no humans riding dinosaurs, no 6000 year old earth required. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/25 "2016-10-18T17:12:00Z")
> [@skypig](#): > > I understand that the world was built in 6 days, approximately 7000 ? years ago, according to a popular interpretation of the Bible. > > One explanation I’ve heard from a Christian with strong beliefs (my dear mother) was that God buried dinosaur bones. (For a joke? For oil?) > > I guess faith trumps science or common sense for some. (Many?) You “understand” incorrectly. The Pope, leader of the largest Christian denomination, believes in Evolution and Human Caused Global warming- which is more than most of the GOP does. He is a scientist you know. So, who, then, exactly- are the ones to whom faith _trumps_ science? ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/26 "2016-10-18T17:20:31Z")
> [@skypig](#): > > I was raised going to church every Sunday. (Methodist, and Baptist. - I just did as told) > Certainly we were assured GOD made the world in 6 days, followed by the famous day of rest. > There was never any suggestion that he made all sorts of odd creatures which he allowed to roam the Earth for hundreds of millions of years, before coming back and making Adam… Again topics like this would be a lot clearer if the people believing these things (or taught them but no longer believe them, etc), not limited to YEC actually, and those asking or criticizing simply identified them correctly as _some Protestants_, not ‘Christians’. And even among the two sects you mentioned the United Methodist Church says: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.” [http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/the-natural-world#science-tech](http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/the-natural-world#science-tech) But I know Protestantism varies a lot even within denominations, don’t know how old you are or how old that UMC doctrine is, IOW I’m not questioning your experience, just saying anecdotes by Protestants aren’t useful to establish what ‘Christians’ believe (either direction, at the other extreme I’ve read of still practicing Protestant ministers who say they don’t believe in God at all). ---
**Author:** ![vtxrider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d26b3c/32.png) [@vtxrider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vtxrider)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/27 "2016-10-18T17:26:43Z")
One thing no one has mentioned, the part of the Bible that covers the beginning comes from the Torah which is of course the beginning of the Jewish Holy book. So it is not just Christians that may or may not believe in Dinosaurs and evolution, but Jews as well. And I am Southern Baptist. I do not believe in evolution, but as was stated earlier, how things happened do not matter a whole lot in our practice of Christianity. We do focus more on how to live the life that God intends. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/28 "2016-10-18T18:18:38Z")
> [@vtxrider](#): > > One thing no one has mentioned, the part of the Bible that covers the beginning comes from the Torah which is of course the beginning of the Jewish Holy book. So it is not just Christians that may or may not believe in Dinosaurs and evolution, but Jews as well. > > And I am Southern Baptist. Theoretically Jews might or might not believe in evolution based in shared belief with Christians in some version of what Christians call the Old Testament. But practically speaking the main US Orthodox Jewish doctrinal organization, the Rabbinical Council of America, accepts evolution, as do Conservative and Reform Jews. Muslims believe Hebrew scripture in general but that it can he flawed or have been misinterpreted. But the Koran itself repeats the basically same (6 day) story of the Creation. However it’s mainly only recently alongside other more practically important difficulties and complications, let’s say, in Muslim theology that this has become much of an issue. Some _Protestants_ rejecting evolution has been the practical social/political/cultural controversy in the US in modern times. Not Christians in general, not Jews or Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/29 "2016-10-18T18:22:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Not even in the US. And even there, many of the people who “believe in Creation” believe in it in ways that are not the literal view of YECs. > > I believe in a Creator God. I believe that “He created us in His image” means, among other things, that in our own ability to create we are akin to Him. That doesn’t mean I believe God is an old dude with a beard and a dick; if I was speaking my native language, the word “He” wouldn’t even be there and the other pronouns would be neuter. And I don’t believe that He created the world in seven calendar days. > > \*We believe in one God, > the Father, the Almighty, > Maker of all that is, seen and unseen. \* > > Says he made everything, but doesn’t say it was in seven calendar days. The original Greek word translates to “age”, so each “day” could be any length of time. I do believe that dinosaurs and people cohabited the earth, although the people were our distant genetic ancestors, in whatever form they may have been at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Quatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc8723/32.png) [@Mr\_Quatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Quatro)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/30 "2016-10-18T18:36:05Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > Creationism, at least of the young earth variety, is not as prevalent in European Christianity, particularly since mainline Lutheranism, the Church of England/Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church, and Eastern Orthodox are the biggest sects there and by and large they all accept evolution and implicitly reject young earth creationism (though there is a split in the various Eastern Orthodox churches about the compatibility of science with religion). If these churches believe in the Ten commandments then they believe in the Sabbath Day, which was created by God on the 7th day and He did rest. Makes it a little hard to accept that the churches you list believe in evolution. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/31 "2016-10-18T18:50:39Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > If these churches believe in the Ten commandments then they believe in the Sabbath Day, which was created by God on the 7th day and He did rest. > > Makes it a little hard to accept that the churches you list believe in evolution. Bullshit. Open your newspaper. They will list times for “sunrise” and “sunset” even tho we know the sun doesnt actually rise or set, the Earth revolves. Even scientists use this term. And of course, many Protestants observe the “Sabbath” on Sunday, not Saturday. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/32 "2016-10-18T18:54:52Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > If these churches believe in the Ten commandments then they believe in the Sabbath Day, which was created by God on the 7th day and He did rest. > > Makes it a little hard to accept that the churches you list believe in evolution. There’s no requirement for literalism in order to be a Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/33 "2016-10-18T19:32:11Z")
> [@skypig](#): > > I remember a Hollywood starlet interviewed when the original “Jurassic Park” movie was released. Commenting that CGI was so good she couldn’t tell which Dinosaurs in the movie were CGI, and which ones were real.:smack: Maybe she was just ahead of the curve on accepting that birds are dinosaurs. 😛 > [@DrDeth](#): > > The Pope, leader of the largest Christian denomination, believes in Evolution This isn’t even new - the first statement on evolution by the Church was Pius XII’s encyclical, _Humani Generis_, where he stated that evolution did not contradict Catholic doctrine, though he didn’t consider its truth a settled matter. The next time it was spoken of was in 1996, when John Paul II stated that, not only did science and doctrine not conflict on this point, evolution had become an obvious truth. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/34 "2016-10-18T19:49:48Z")
> [@Mr\_Quatro](#): > > If these churches believe in the Ten commandments then they believe in the Sabbath Day, which was created by God on the 7th day and He did rest. > > Makes it a little hard to accept that the churches you list believe in evolution. :dubious: They affirm that the Sabbath was instituted by God, AND also affirm that the “Seven Days” of Genesis are a symbolic _allegory_, not 168 standard hours of physical time. So it fits both ways. They are all Christian churches and it is they, not you or I who define their doctrine. And at least as far as the Roman Catholic Church goes, as has already been reported all the Popes in most of our lifetimes have been on board with evilution as at least not conflicting with the faith. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/35 "2016-10-18T20:07:14Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > There’s no requirement for literalism in order to be a Christian. Like the Roman Catholic Church, about half of Christians worldwide, that believes in a contextualist interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/36 "2016-10-18T20:20:19Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Genesis says there were trees bearing fruit before the sun was created. I’d be interested in what you think could be “much more incorrect” than that. If you’re going to believe that he can make the Earth, it’s not much of a stretch for me to think he should be able to make trees with fruit on them, dinosaur fossils, 3 billion-year-old rocks, and light on its way here from distant galaxies. Likewise, he did all this before anybody thought to invent calendars. To me, the conceit that he took six days to do all this and then rested on the seventh is more likely an argument presented by the priesthood to convince people to hold one day a week as holy. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/37 "2016-10-18T20:35:16Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The Pope, leader of the largest Christian denomination, believes in Evolution and Human Caused Global warming- which is more than most of the GOP does. He is a scientist you know. I don’t think he’s practiced it (chemistry) for some time. But the discoverers of genetics, the Big Bang, and many important anthropological and astronomical finds were all priests. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > Theoretically Jews might or might not believe in evolution based in shared belief with Christians in some version of what Christians call the Old Testament. But practically speaking the main US Orthodox Jewish doctrinal organization, the Rabbinical Council of America, accepts evolution, as do Conservative and Reform Jews. > > Muslims believe Hebrew scripture in general but that it can he flawed or have been misinterpreted. But the Koran itself repeats the basically same (6 day) story of the Creation. However it’s mainly only recently alongside other more practically important difficulties and complications, let’s say, in Muslim theology that this has become much of an issue. > > Some _Protestants_ rejecting evolution has been the practical social/political/cultural controversy in the US in modern times. Not Christians in general, not Jews or Muslims. Jews, yes. [Many Muslims reject evolution although it isn’t universal](http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-science-and-popular-culture/#evolution). Support for evolution is highest in places in Lebanon (don’t know how it breaks down by sect but presumably both Sunnis and Shiites accept it) and Kazakhstan, but very low in Iraq etc. Turkey is a kind of depressing result. [Among US Muslims](https://ncse.com/news/2013/05/polling-muslims-evolution-0014838)it looks like they’re on par with relatively secular countries like Indonesia, Bosnia, and Tunisia (~45%). Among Christian denominations, Catholics and Episcopalians are the most accepting of evolution and science. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is just slightly lower (the smaller, more conservative Lutheran LCMS and WELS explicitly reject evolution in their doctrine). Other mainline Protestants are lower but still common. Support for evolution is low among evangelicals and Pentecostals (with some exceptions, like Nazarenes apparently) and the absolute lowest among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even so I have met Catholics who claim they don’t believe in evolution, but they are at odds with church doctrine and as noted, the Popes for the last 66 years (yes, including Benedict). And as change sometimes moves like molasses in the RCC, Humani generis wasn’t a radical step but explicitly affirmed what was already common belief. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/38 "2016-10-18T21:34:03Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Jews, yes. Many Muslims reject evolution although it isn’t universal. > > Among Christian denominations, Catholics and Episcopalians are the most accepting of evolution and science. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is just slightly lower (the smaller, more conservative Lutheran LCMS and WELS explicitly reject evolution in their doctrine). Other mainline Protestants are lower but still common. Support for evolution is low among evangelicals and Pentecostals (with some exceptions, like Nazarenes apparently) and the absolute lowest among Jehovah’s Witnesses. Which in simple terms equates to what I said, politely noting as I did not to sidetrack the discussion that theological movements within Islam to commit violence are the much bigger concern from the POV of Americans or Westerners, not what the small Muslim population thinks about evolution. As a practical matter the rejection by some Protestants of evolution is 99% of the issue in the US, and rejection of evolution basically isn’t a contentious issue in any other developed country. Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses are Protestants in the overall taxonomy of Christian sects (Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t Christians at all according to some other major Christian sects, but under the broad umbrella of Protestantism if they are, ie they aren’t Catholic, Orthodox, or other ‘Eastern’ churches). So I still believe the most important simple aspect of a lot of discussion about ‘Christians’ is not to adopt the habit of some non-mainline Protestants to just refer to themselves as Christians and the corresponding anti-religious tendency to characterize all of Christianity as what some Protestants believe. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/39 "2016-10-18T21:45:21Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > As a practical matter the rejection by some Protestants of evolution is 99% of the issue in the US, and rejection of evolution basically isn’t a contentious issue in any other developed country. Creationism is starting to pick up some steam in [Europe.](http://sciencenordic.com/scientists-warn-creationism-rise-europe) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/40 "2016-10-18T22:13:25Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > As a practical matter the rejection by some Protestants of evolution is 99% of the issue in the US, and rejection of evolution basically isn’t a contentious issue in any other developed country. . Cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923.md?page=3)