# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/41 "2016-10-18T22:15:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > How much/little is “small?” I would put it as the _majority_. > > Even in the United States, a country of many religions and also many atheists as well, [over 40% of Americans are creationists.](http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx) So I would guess that among the subset of Americans who are Christians, creationism is the \*majority \*belief. You don’t have to be Christian to be a creationist. Lots of Jews and Muslims believe in the Old Testament, too. And, of course, every non-Abrahamic religion also has its own creation myth, with some percentage of the followers of those faiths preferring their religious beliefs over objectively verifiable scientific fact. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/42 "2016-10-18T23:21:30Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You don’t have to be Christian to be a creationist. Lots of Jews and Muslims believe in the Old Testament, too. And, of course, every non-Abrahamic religion also has its own creation myth, with some percentage of the followers of those faiths preferring their religious beliefs over objectively verifiable scientific fact. You don’t even have to be religious at all to profess a belief in Young Earth Creationism. That is why I said earlier that I am always skeptical of the claim that 40 something percent of Americans believe in it. If you look at the detailed results, it isn’t just centered in the Bible Belt nor just among evangelicals or fundamentalists. It is all over the place including a significant number of _atheists_ that claim they also believe in Young Earth Creationism. Yes, I am fully aware how dumb that sounds because it doesn’t make any sense. That is why I truly believe the surveys are deeply flawed. Only about 11% of Americans belong to denominations that have Young Earth Creationism as an official stance and, even then, not all members believe in it either. It is certainly a real position but it is a lot more fringe in terms of doctrinal position than most people assume. I have no idea why so many other people of all different stripes say they believe in it because the numbers don’t match my experiences at all. Maybe they are just so scientifically illiterate that they can’t even understand what the survey is asking or the multiple types of creationist choices (Young Earth, Old Earth, Intelligent Design etc.) lead people to pick an option that they don’t truly believe. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/43 "2016-10-18T23:27:02Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > Creationism is starting to pick up some steam in [Europe.](http://sciencenordic.com/scientists-warn-creationism-rise-europe) Living in Europe, I don’t think I have ever actually met a Creationist. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/44 "2016-10-18T23:57:24Z")
Here is an older thread on this topic. I don’t think we came to any firm conclusions about why so many people that aren’t affiliated with churches that teach creationism still claim that they believe in it on surveys. > **[Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=728328)** > > Do they get it from the pulpit or is it just a general impression? Data from Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evolution-Creationism-Intelligent-Design.aspx 31 + 19 = 50 percent believe in evolution, possibly with God’s guidance. 42% believe... ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/45 "2016-10-19T00:07:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Where do questions like this come from? The vast majority of Americans are Christians. The vast majority of Americans love dinosaurs. Therefore, it’s simple to conclude that most Christians believe in dinosaurs. How could it be otherwise? He’s just asking a simple question of why are Christians so stupid. > [@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: Yeah, I’d like a cite on this. You do realize that for the first JP they built “real” dinosaurs out of rubber and wood or whatever. Perhaps said “stupid” starlet meant that? Nah couldn’t be. She’s just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/46 "2016-10-19T00:18:01Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Here is an older thread on this topic. I don’t think we came to any firm conclusions about why so many people that aren’t affiliated with churches that teach creationism still claim that they believe in it on surveys. > > [Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=728328) Not even that 29% of people enjoy screwing with poll-takers? According to a survey that we were promised would have anonymous results that our parents would never see - yet got written up in the local paper! - 40% of kids in my high school had engaged in anal sex, 15% were addicted to heroin, 30% were regularly taking at least 3 types of illegal drugs and had 10 or more sex partners… all things kids joked about answering in the affirmative to screw with people. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/47 "2016-10-19T00:28:56Z")
> [@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. I went to Catholic school and we learned about evolution in science class, (when I was in fourth grade, our teacher even had someone come in from the museum to talk about dinosaurs and how the earth developed). Biblical literalism is a fairly recent movement in Christianity, and it’s a minority one as well. (A rather vocal one, but a minority nonetheless). The oldest denominations in Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, have never taught Biblical literalism – indeed, quite the opposite. (I didn’t even know there were people who took the Bible that literally until I read _Inherit the Wind_. It seemed so freaking bizarre to me – completely alien to everything I had everything I had ever been taught) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/48 "2016-10-19T00:33:14Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Not even that 29% of people enjoy screwing with poll-takers? According to a survey that we were promised would have anonymous results that our parents would never see - yet got written up in the local paper! - 40% of kids in my high school had engaged in anal sex, 15% were addicted to heroin, 30% were regularly taking at least 3 types of illegal drugs and had 10 or more sex partners… all things kids joked about answering in the affirmative to screw with people. You probably have a great point. People generally don’t like to be asked about their private beliefs, especially religious ones in multiple-choice survey form. I would probably become a transgendered Islamic fundamentalist that strongly believes in Young Earth Creationism myself if someone ever asked me to take one. It is none of their damned business. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/49 "2016-10-19T03:26:58Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You don’t even have to be religious at all to profess a belief in Young Earth Creationism. That is why I said earlier that I am always skeptical of the claim that 40 something percent of Americans believe in it. If you look at the detailed results, it isn’t just centered in the Bible Belt nor just among evangelicals or fundamentalists. It is all over the place **including a significant number of _atheists_ that claim they also believe in Young Earth Creationism**. Yes, I am fully aware how dumb that sounds because it doesn’t make any sense. That is why I truly believe the surveys are deeply flawed. Bolding mine, and would you please provide a cite for that? I find it very difficult to believe that more than 1% of sane atheists are YECs, and I doubt it’s that high. Unless I missed it, the Gallup poll you cited doesn’t mention atheists; the closest it comes is “Seldom/never attend church,” which describes many, if not most, of the Christians I know. I would bet my house that virtually everyone (except pranksters) who said they were YECs was raised in an Abrahamic faith, whether or not they now attend regular services. And to your broader point, of course some surveys may be flawed, but if you have surveys from an outfit as credible as Gallup, which show consistent results since 1982, then you have very good grounds for believing that the numbers are accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/50 "2016-10-19T03:33:30Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Only about 11% of Americans belong to denominations that have Young Earth Creationism as an official stance and, even then, not all members believe in it either. It is certainly a real position but it is a lot more fringe in terms of doctrinal position than most people assume. I have no idea why so many other people of all different stripes say they believe in it because the numbers don’t match my experiences at all. Maybe they are just so scientifically illiterate that they can’t even understand what the survey is asking or the multiple types of creationist choices (Young Earth, Old Earth, Intelligent Design etc.) lead people to pick an option that they don’t truly believe. My own theory is that evolution has become politicized, hence my perception of the growing number of evolution deniers. Evolution denial has become part of the Conservative platform and politicians and conservative groups lobby for legislation that will allow the teaching of “intelligent design” - this is a thinly disguised attempt to introduce religion into the classroom and the anti-evolution crowd has become inexorably tangled up with the religious freedom crowd, causing the likes of Rick Santorum to call for science to stay out of politics. > **[Nonreligious Questions](https://www.patheos.com/nonreligious-questions/)** > > Whether you’ve been turned off by religion in the past or have a question about one of the world’s religions, check out what Patheos has to offer. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > I went to Catholic school and we learned about evolution in science class, (when I was in fourth grade, our teacher even had someone come in from the museum to talk about dinosaurs and how the earth developed). > > Biblical literalism is a fairly recent movement in Christianity, and it’s a minority one as well. (A rather vocal one, but a minority nonetheless). The oldest denominations in Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, have never taught Biblical literalism – indeed, quite the opposite. > (I didn’t even know there were people who took the Bible that literally until I read _Inherit the Wind_. It seemed so freaking bizarre to me – completely alien to everything I had everything I had ever been taught) Just as an aside, Inherit the Wind is a very fictionalized account of the Scopes trial. In reality, the trial was conceived mostly as an entertainment and tourism booster for the town of Dayton,Tennessee. [http://www.themonkeytrial.com/](http://www.themonkeytrial.com/) At the time, touring speakers were a popular form of entertainment and Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan were the second and third most popular- first place went to Helen Keller and her teacher Ann Sullivan. HL Mencken provided the print coverage and a young teacher, John Scopes, admitted that he had probably taught evolution ( because it was in the curriculum) although he didn’t specifically remember. But he was well liked and a good choice for defendant. He never went to jail or anything, after the trial he was ordered to pay a fine but WJ Bryan paid it for him. It was actually a much less serious trial than the 2005 Kitzmiller vs the Dover Area School District, > **[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District)** > > Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005) was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design (ID), ultimately found by the court to not be science. In October 2004, the Dover Area School District of York County, Pennsylvania, changed its biology teaching curriculum to require that intelligent design be presented as an alternative to evolutio Eleven... in which a breathtakingly idiotic Board of Education tried to slip intelligent design into the curriculum and the Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Center decided to hitch their agenda to this bunch of morons, a decision they would come to regret… They lost BIG - my earlier description of the defendants as breathtakingly idiotic - that comes from the official written opinion on the case. And the judge was a Republican and a GW Bush appointee. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/51 "2016-10-19T03:46:37Z")
Christian jumping in here - I currently attend a Lutheran church and have been for the last 30+ years. Prior to that I was raised Catholic. I’ll say that I do not believe in YEC. The evidence points to the universe being 13.8 B years old, and the earth being 4.5 B years old. As for the creation accounts in Genesis, well, from creation in Genesis to the call of Abraham is such a small portion of the bible. I don’t think Genesis is meant to be interpreted literally. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/52 "2016-10-19T03:49:21Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > You do realize that for the first JP they built “real” dinosaurs out of rubber and wood or whatever. Perhaps said “stupid” starlet meant that? Nah couldn’t be. She’s just stupid. She is stupid. But the alien jumping out of the chest on _Alien_, now that was real. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/53 "2016-10-19T04:10:35Z")
> [@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. 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. Just curious but are you an Old Earther or a Young Earther? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/54 "2016-10-19T04:36:48Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Just as an aside, Inherit the Wind is a very fictionalized account of the Scopes trial. In reality, the trial was conceived mostly as an entertainment and tourism booster for the town of Dayton,Tennessee. Perhaps, but I had just never really heard of the actual concept before then. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/55 "2016-10-19T05:00:08Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I went to Catholic school and we learned about evolution in science class, (when I was in fourth grade, our teacher even had someone come in from the museum to talk about dinosaurs and how the earth developed). > > Biblical literalism is a fairly recent movement in Christianity, and it’s a minority one as well. (A rather vocal one, but a minority nonetheless). The oldest denominations in Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, have never taught Biblical literalism – indeed, quite the opposite. > (I didn’t even know there were people who took the Bible that literally until I read _Inherit the Wind_. It seemed so freaking bizarre to me – completely alien to everything I had everything I had ever been taught) That’s kind of like saying you never heard of WWII until you saw Ben Affleck in _Pearl Harbor_, so it couldn’t have been that big a deal. Actually, Biblical literalism as defined by liberal, sophisticated Christians who don’t want to look foolish, has never existed. The Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and Evangelical Protestants have always allowed for figures of speech, such as the sun rising and setting, but it’s much easier for sophisticated Christians to argue against a straw man of literalism so strict that even that much leeway is not allowed. As we have seen upthread. Conversely, Biblical literalism sufficient to say that God created the world in seven days has always existed, and continues to exist. It did not originate in the 19th century, nor with the Enlightenment. The reason it wasn’t an issue before then is because nobody questioned it, because there was no science to contradict it. But advances in geology made a young earth more and more questionable, and the dam broke with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Once science challenged the literal truth of Genesis, believers rose to defend it – that’s why literalism became an important issue in the 19th century. But other than a handful of theologians who had nothing better to do than dispute the number of angels on the head of a pin, or the various meanings of the word “day,” virtually every Christian had believed in the literal truth of the Bible for the previous 1800 years. It was only in the last 100 years or so that the Vatican and other ruling bodies were forced to either accept science, or be completely left behind by intelligent and educated people. This was swiftly followed by spin doctors writing that of course, we knew all along that Genesis was allegorical, and only those stupid Midwest farmers ever took it literally. A campaign that succeeded brilliantly, judging by this thread. But it’s a lie. For nearly 2000 years, it was Church Doctrine to believe the literal truth of the Bible. It’s now fashionable to say that Galileo was convicted because of politics, rather than religion, but that is not true; his writings were declared heretical, because saying that the earth revolved around the sun contradicted the literal truth of the Bible. [QUOTE=The Vatican] ``` Assessment made at the Holy Office, Rome, Wednesday, 24 February 1616, in the presence of the Father Theologians signed below. Proposition to be assessed: (1) The sun is the center of the world and completely devoid of local motion. Assessement: All said that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture, **according to the literal meaning of the words** and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology. ``` [/QUOTE] Bolding mine. [http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/galileo/library/1616docs.htm](http://www.tc.umn.edu/~allch001/galileo/library/1616docs.htm) Note that the Bible is much less explicit about the sun revolving around the earth than it is about the seven-day creation. And before someone invokes Augustine, be aware that he, too, was a Young Earth Creationist, and believed every word of Genesis. Again, he allowed for figures of speech to the point that “day” could mean “period,” as it clearly does elsewhere in the Bible, but not millions or billions of years: [QUOTE=St Augustine, 5th Century] _City of God_, Chapter 10 – “Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past”: They [claimants of an ancient earth] are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/56 "2016-10-19T05:11:59Z")
Okay but the more we know as time goes on, the more rich our understanding is of what actually happened. Now that we are pretty sure the earth is 4.5B years old, many Christians realize you don’t interpret Genesis literally. Just like this finding, that adjusted when scientists thought humans inhabited the southeastern USA: [New evidence that humans settled in southeastern US far earlier than previously believed](http://phys.org/news/2016-05-evidence-humans-southeastern-earlier-previously.html) Was Adam really 930 years old when he died? I don’t believe so, but I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/57 "2016-10-19T05:18:39Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > . . . Conversely, Biblical literalism sufficient to say that God created the world in seven days has always existed, and continues to exist. It did not originate in the 19th century, nor with the Enlightenment. The reason it wasn’t an issue before then is because nobody questioned it, because there was no science to contradict it. But advances in geology made a young earth more and more questionable, and the dam broke with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Once science challenged the literal truth of Genesis, believers rose to defend it – that’s why literalism became an important issue in the 19th century. But other than a handful of theologians who had nothing better to do than dispute the number of angels on the head of a pin, or the various meanings of the word “day,” virtually every Christian had believed in the literal truth of the Bible for the previous 1800 years. It was only in the last 100 years or so that the Vatican and other ruling bodies were forced to either accept science, or be completely left behind by intelligent and educated people. This was swiftly followed by spin doctors writing that of course, we knew all along that Genesis was allegorical, and only those stupid Midwest farmers ever took it literally. A campaign that succeeded brilliantly, judging by this thread. This is nonsense. From the early days, Christians generally accepted biblical history, cosmology, etc as accurate where it wasn’t contradicted by other evidence. But if it there was better evidence from extra-biblical sources, they accepted that. The Hebrew scriptures, famously, present the earth as flat (and indeed as a plane with four corners). But the roundness of the earth has been known to educated people since pre-Christian days, and there are no records at all of anyone being excommunicated, burned at the stake, persecuted or denounced for accepting or promoting the idea of a round earth. If I recall rightly, Augustine in fact point out how stupid it would be to insist on a flat earth on the authority of the scriptures. Uneducated people may well have believed in a flat earth but, if they did, that was not on the authority of the scriptures (which they could not read) so much as on the evidence of their own eyes and common experience. (At least superficially, the earth appears and is experienced as more or less flat to those on its surface.) The phenomenon of people insisting on the literal truth of scripture _in the teeth of contrary scientific evidence_ is indeed a modern (as in, post-Reformation) one. Yes, Augustine accepted the Genesis account of creation. That’s because he had no better evidence than Genesis, not because he was a literalist fundamentalist of the kind we see today. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/58 "2016-10-19T07:36:04Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > This is nonsense. > > From the early days, Christians generally accepted biblical history, cosmology, etc as accurate where it wasn’t contradicted by other evidence. But if it there was better evidence from extra-biblical sources, they accepted that. No, they didn’t. If there was _overwhelming_ evidence, then they started teaching that the passage in question was allegorical. But there could be better evidence for centuries, and you were still in mortal danger if you accepted it before the Church did. > [@](#): > > The Hebrew scriptures, famously, present the earth as flat (and indeed as a plane with four corners). But the roundness of the earth has been known to educated people since pre-Christian days, The Hebrew scriptures, famously, describe the earth as round or circular in several places (e.g. Isa 40:22), and as you say, it was known by educated people long before Jesus lived that the earth was spherical, so phrases like “the four corners of the earth” were treated as a figure of speech. > [@](#): > > and there are no records at all of anyone being excommunicated, burned at the stake, persecuted or denounced for accepting or promoting the idea of a round earth. Who said there were? Oh, I see, you don’t want to talk about Galileo being condemned as a heretic for presenting better evidence, which for some reason the Church didn’t accept, even though you assured us above that they would. But you see, the shape of the earth is not an important theological point, while its position of centrality in the universe is. So there _are_ records of people being persecuted for accepting or promoting the idea of a heliocentric universe. Your argument is analogous to finding a woman that Trump didn’t hit on, and concluding that he never hit on any woman. > [@](#): > > If I recall rightly, Augustine in fact point out how stupid it would be to insist on a flat earth on the authority of the scriptures. Uneducated people may well have believed in a flat earth but, if they did, that was not on the authority of the scriptures (which they could not read) so much as on the evidence of their own eyes and common experience. (At least superficially, the earth appears and is experienced as more or less flat to those on its surface.) Augustine didn’t want people who knew nothing BUT scripture arguing with experts in secular fields, because they would come away looking foolish, and damage the credibility of the scriptures. Which he thought were inerrant. > [@](#): > > The phenomenon of people insisting on the literal truth of scripture _in the teeth of contrary scientific evidence_ is indeed a modern (as in, post-Reformation) one. Well, they couldn’t very well do it before modern science was established. > [@](#): > > Yes, Augustine accepted the Genesis account of creation. That’s because he had no better evidence than Genesis, not because he was a literalist fundamentalist of the kind we see today. The passage I quoted shows that he had access to better evidence, but rejected it. As I said at the beginning of this post, it has been the policy of the Church to consider a passage literal, in the face of mounting evidence against it, until that position becomes completely untenable, rather than just until the contrary evidence is better. If you read some of his works, you will see that he takes even parts of the Bible that I would freely concede are poetic, to be literally true, and uses them as evidence that other parts are literally true. But since you have defined a literalist in such a way that one could not have existed before the 17th century or so, then I agree he fails to meet your requirements. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/59 "2016-10-19T08:33:15Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > No, they didn’t. If there was _overwhelming_ evidence, then they started teaching that the passage in question was allegorical. But there could be better evidence for centuries, and you were still in mortal danger if you accepted it before the Church did. Got any pre-modern examples? > [@TonySinclair](#): > > The Hebrew scriptures, famously, describe the earth as round or circular in several places (e.g. Isa 40:22), and as you say, it was known by educated people long before Jesus lived that the earth was spherical, so phrases like “the four corners of the earth” were treated as a figure of speech. Yes. That’s pretty much my point. You seem to be agreeing with me here. The factuality of scripture wasn’t insisted on in opposition to empirical evidence prior to the modern era. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > Who said there were? Oh, I see, you don’t want to talk about Galileo being condemned as a heretic for presenting better evidence, which for some reason the Church didn’t accept, even though you assured us above that they would . . . . I’m happy to talk about Galileo, and the first point I’ll make is that he’s post-Reformation, and therefore fits exactly into the position I am stating. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > Your argument is analogous to finding a woman that Trump didn’t hit on, and concluding that he never hit on any woman. That’s funny. My argument points out that there was a change in the way people thought at around the time of the Reformation, and that how they behaved after the Reformation was different from how they behaved before. You insist that this is not the case, but you have so far failed to produce a single instance of the behaviour you complain of from that occurred before the Reformation. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > Augustine didn’t want people who knew nothing BUT scripture arguing with experts in secular fields, because they would come away looking foolish, and damage the credibility of the scriptures. Which he thought were inerrant. He believed that the scriptures were inerrant. He _didn’t_ believe that this meant they were literally true in the way that modern fundamentalists insist, as is evidenced by the fact that he had no difficulty accepting that the world is spherical. Well, they couldn’t very well do it before modern science was established. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > The passage I quoted shows that he had access to better evidence, but rejected it. As I said at the beginning of this post, it has been the policy of the Church to consider a passage literal, in the face of mounting evidence against it, until that position becomes completely untenable, rather than just until the contrary evidence is better. Well, hold on. Did Augustine have access to “better evidence”? He had access to alternative histories, and _we_ have access to evidence which shows those alternative histories were marginally more correct - or, at least, not quite as incorrect - as the Genesis history. But I don’t think Augustine had access to that. Augustine preferred one largely mythic history over other largely mythic histories, but you’ll have to work very hard to persuade me that this translates into a rejection of science or evidence. That, I’m afraid, is a largely mythic history of your own. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923/60 "2016-10-19T08:43:40Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I’m happy to talk about Galileo, and the first point I’ll make is that he’s post-Reformation, and therefore fits exactly into the position I am stating. > > . Yes. You can start by pointing out that Galileo was not imprisoned for heresy, he was imprisoned for insulting the Pope (at a very politically precarious time for the Church) and basically contempt of Court. Also for peddling a theory which was against the scientific view of the day (scientists many if them no friends of the RCC, also vehemently opposed Galileo) and for which he could not get sufficient evidence; and what he touted as evidence ('the tides") was very obviously wrong. The Church was following scientific majority at the time, not Galileo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-in-dinosaurs/768923.md?page=4)