I was asked by my priest to leave my church when I was 13 because I asked a question he could not answer (I’d also been caught falling asleep, but never mind). The question was this:
How come in the bible, when it talks of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden and then move’s onto man, it mentions nothing of Dinosaurs? My priest said to me, “If you have to ask such questions, then you’ve lost your faith”.
How come it mentions nothing of horseshoe crabs, dingoes, cockroaches, yaks, or naked mole rats?
Are you asking why the word ‘dinosaur’ isn’t specifically mentioned?
yeah your right Andros cos they were the rulers of the world at one stage werent they?
Dinosaurs were “rulers of the world?”
Look, what do you want to debate here? How some Christians wave away or try to justify the fossil record? Whether or not the Bible is inerrant? Why your priest was a jerk? Why you were a snot to him?
Clarify, please.
Well, on the third day, God created the plants, and on the fifth day, animals appeared, (with “livestock according to their kinds”, whatever that means, showing up on the sixth day, along with man) at least in the first story. This assumes that you, as I do, subscribe to the “two creations” interpretation of the first couple of chapters of Genesis, i.e., that since the two chapters describe the creation in different orders, they are in fact the Creation stories from two different traditions, concatenated in Genesis by the original collector of writings.
If you buy the idea that the first story used some connotation of the word “day” that does not directly imply a 24-hour period between sunrises (especially since the sun wasn’t created until the fourth “day”), you could conceivably conclude that the ages of Fishes, Insects, Amphibians, Reptiles, and the early part of the Age of Mammals all took place between the third and fifth days.
The sixth day marks the appearance of the creatures familiar to us, and man’s emergence as well. So not much inconsistency there, as long as you are VERY broad in your interpretation.
All of the above, of course, assumes that you have a deep need to have the Bible consistently and completely describe the world as it has been observed since it was written.
If you believe, again as I do, that the Bible is simply yet another culture’s mythology, fit to sit on the shelf next to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Norse sagas, and other such works, then it doesn’t really matter.
And there is also a middle ground in interpretation.
Dogface,
Such as…?
Yeah Andros, they haven’t just been in museum’s forever your know?
Scotandrsn - you’ve quite perfectly put my thoughts into better words, gracias.
Basically its a book of man’s interpretation of whats the meaning of life…
Personally, I don’t think Genesis can be looked at literally, it has to be looked at allegorically. I mean, if you look at it literally you’ll have to explain a whole mess of contradictions and oddities (IMO).
Are you sure?
“And on the Fourth Day, around 9:30 in the evening, after a full bottle of wine, God created Naked Mole Rats. And he looked, and he saw they were pink and squirmy and kinda oogy in a vaguely indefinable way, so he put 'em underground and went back to the pretty stuff like eagles and persimmons and angel fish.”
I think you’re right about the yaks, though. Devil beasts, they are.
Contact nearly any Episcopal priest and arrange an hour or two chat on the subject.
The basic gist is that the fundamental principles and major details are sound, but there was a great deal of metaphor and poetry going on.
It does mention dinosaurs. But to ask that question has nothing to do with faith.
a one M.J. Agee on her web page, mentions that dinosaurs exsisted long ago.
Then the earth went through an upheaval.
Then, millions of years later, God cleaned it off, and did the whole Genesis thing( no stupid music refernces here please)
Where? Behemoth (sp?) and Leviathon (IIRC) aren’t dinosaurs, if that’s what you were referring to.
Really? Have you seen the description of them? They are not an alligator and hippo, like some say.
Alright, Svt4Him, let’s hear your reasoning for believing that dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible.
I am all ears…
Reasoning?
toddles off to have a really long and hearty laugh at the thought of reasoning by Svt4Him…
I agree that the question has nothing to do with faith. So why would the “priest” kick him out for showing a lack of faith? God forbid someone asking directions to the restroom.
I don’t know of any church that has a priest (as opposed to a minister) who can decide for herself or himself who can stay in the church and who has to go. There are church laws about that sort of thing.
If NightUK really got the boot, I’ll bet there was more to it than what was described.
This one is off the scale on the sniff-o-meter.