D/C I can’t believe you actually said this after the time you have spent on this thread and many others with people who seem to have their own interpretation of “scripture” when translating English to English (much less Hebrew to English)…this is IMHO due to an already biased opinion/belief.
disclaimer: Doesn’t mean you can’t either, just be damned careful. One reason science does blind/double blind studies.
BTW: Isn’t that one of the main problems with the KJV? 
Svt4Him
Yet you believe in miracles and angels.
Uh, ok…
Just why would the Bible mention the damned dinosaurs? Poor Moses would lose precious time explaining them to a bunch of guys who two weeks before had just come out of the stone age. I think God thought “maybe I’ll tell Moses to concentrate on the really important stuff”. Most great books TODAY don’t mention them, and having lost most of my childhood love of them I really don’t care.
It is one of those things Christians should no longebe asked. Not due to any theological problem, but because when you hear it 99% of the time is just trying to make fun of you
And just to correct what someone mentioned. The Catholic Church OFFICIALLY believes that the Bible is free from ALL error, when read as it is supposed to. Genesis 1 and 2 were not intended for Doctoral courses in cosmology. Pope John Paul II talked about evolution in general not Darwinian or Materialistic evolution (A good read of Humani Generis would make many people a lot of good)
Mom, it was already broken when I got there.
To my mind, the problem is not so much that the Bible doesn’t mention them, but that no other contemporary documents mention them, either. IF dinosaurs and man were contemporaneous, as some literalists would have us believe, then someone, somewhere at the time would have made mention of the fact. A Tyrannosaurus rampaging through a marketplace is bound to have merited mention.
What other kind of evolution is there?
The type that many mistaken creationists believe exists. You know the type; “No one has ever witnessed a banana sprout legs and walk off a table, therefore evolution is invalid”.
It’s not done in the spirit of “making fun” of you. You (and other Christians) are asked logical questions which attempt to get at, or better understand, a belief system that can cling to an illogical position even in the face of logical arguments and rational facts, which do not reconcile with biblical accounts.
I’m sure you’d put a great many things on the “do not ask” list, because of the discomfort caused by the realization that something is wrong with your scripture.
That you suffer from cognitive dissonance is not the problem of the people pointing out facts to you, though – it springs from what you do with that information within your own mind.
Translation: when read as the church says it’s supposed to be read
For example Lanmarckianism (SP?) I know it is outdates and very few believe in it (Although many Darwinians some Lanmarckians when they say the environment CAUSED the evolution).
You haven’t read Humani Generis have you? We Cahtolics can acknolwdge that animals (including humans) evolved biologically but not that the human soul could evolve.
ammo 52 said
“It’s not done in the spirit of “making fun” of you.” (Yeah, right, I’ve seen those smart ass faces too many times)
" You (and other Christians) are asked logical questions which attempt to get at, or better understand, a belief system that can cling to an illogical position even in the face of logical arguments and rational facts, which do not reconcile with biblical accounts. ( **And you became a Bible expert when? And no, the question is "Hey why doesn’t your belief system work with MINE?
(this is for you)Can you PROVE your “logical” system 100% of the time? (of course you know you can’t say “I know my system works because my system proves it”, that’s circular reasoning** )
I’m sure you’d put a great many things on the “do not ask” list, because of the discomfort caused by the realization that something is wrong with your scripture I feel no discomfort (thanks for reading my mind…) it’s just that one gets tired of those questions when asked by people who can’t tell the difference between RNA and M&M’s. Everyday I answer questions about religion
And I guess you figured the whole world all by yourself, no-one influenced you. You figured the speed of light AND Pi AND the list of Byzantine emperors AND the Carbon content of Wootz steel AND the effect of cow-fart in global warming.
Or…you like everyone else submit to someone else’s authority (even if using your intelligence to determine some of the stuff)
…but I digress
I notice you did not disagree with my “translation”.
Of course I am influenced. But I do not take something as truth just because someone, or some institution, tells me to. I investigate it for myself.
Only when absolutely necessary, and certainly not based on what a “church” says.
That is patently obvious.
Actually, I have read the Humani Generis. Basically it claims the the Church has no official position on evolution except that to state that it does not necessarily conflict with Church doctrine as long as it is acknowledged that God is the ultimate creator and that (as you said) the human soul is a result of divine creation, not evolution. It does not address the science of evolution or attempt to take a position on the relative merits of Darwinian selection vs. Lamarckism (and those are merely mechanistic theories of evolution, btw. They both accept the fact of common descent but hypothesize different mechanisms for how it occurs. Lamarckism has now been discredited and Darwin’s Natural Selection has won out).
I was confused by tyour statement that the HG does not necessarily address Darwinian or “materialistic” evolution. I don’t know what you mean by “materialistic” evolution. If you mean common descent or if possibly you’re saying that it could have been talking about ID I have to say that while the document does not endorse any particular model of evolution it doesn’t exclude any either.
Evolutionary science makes no attempt to say anything at all about the human soul, btw. There are no scientists who are trying to say that the human soul “evolved.” This would be a foolish claim from a scientific standpoint since it can’t be proven that a human soul even exists in the first place.
Finally, although Lamarckism is now defunct as a mechanistic model, I think it can be said that figuratively, the environment causes, or at least contributes to evolution in the sense that species adapt over time to their environments. They just don’t do it the way that Lamarck thought they did.
I love dipping into threads as a complete outsider. Gives you an interesting perspective.
My impression, as an outsider is that:
I can’t actually tell if anyone is enjoying this debate. For sure, one side seems to enjoy it when members of that side’s team “scores a point”. But to me it seems that a debate that resolves into point scoring does little to progress the debate and much to generate heat, pride and pointless puffing of chests.
The original point to this thread seemed to be, “Why doesn’t the Bible mention dinosaurs.”
Answer: some people interpret the Bible as mentioning a dinosaur like creature. Academics more educated (if that were possible) than those represented in this thread eloquently argue for and against this interpretation. That argument appears to be inconclusive. (And no I can’t be bothered to cite references. I don’t mind if you wish to say “Blink is making this up”, if that makes your precarious position appear more tenable.)
The Bible says nothing explicitly about dinosaurs, in a language that 21st Century man understands. This should not surprise us. I am sure that none of the many writers of scripture ever intended the book to be a biology treatise. Furthermore, on virtually any view (bar the most odd fundamentalist view) none of the writers can ever have seen a tyrannosaur or a pterodon.
If NightUK’s representation of his conversation with the priest is complete and accurate, and if the priest’s sole reason for expelling him from the church was the question referred to, then that priest must have been an insecure, unsettled man. How would expelling from the church someone without faith achieve the aims of scripture? Sounds like a “members only” kind of mentality, which isn’t IMHO what the Bible’s about, whether or not you choose to follow it/believe in it.
Blink
PS I have posted on many other message boards before. Enough to know that you will probably immedaitely wonder why a newbie would post such a long, windy post. I assure you that this is my first post here, and I am not a returning former member under an alias. I am also not going to prove that to you. (Some of you would doubtless refuse to accept my proof.)
PPS Someone please now dazzle me with your superior knowledge and highly developed reasoning skills.
A) OK with that
B) At least for now (for those who believe it’s true). Science is always improving.
C) By “materialistic” I meant without God’s intervention in any way at all, in any moment, even at creation an setting up the rules.
D) I know, you’re right. But aren’t scientists supposed NOT be be figurative and only factual?. (I still think many Darwinians are closet Lamarckians)
RoundGuy said:
Only when absolutely necessary, and certainly not based on what a “church” says.
Yes, you do it according to what a “school of thought” says. Don’t tell me you figured out the Scientific Method or Logic by yourself. We all have a “church” we believe.
Hey, Blink, you’re on the money.
I don’t think the position “the large majority of educated people believe that dinosaurs died out millions of years before the appearance of man” is a precarious position at all. You have asserted the claim; until you provide some citation to support it, I have no reason to think other than that “you’re making this up.”
Er… no I didn’t. I suggest you re-read. 
The fact that some people tenaciously cling to a position does not mean that the argument is inconclusive.
If I maintain that the earth is flat does that mean there is still an argument? Whether the earth is round or flat remains inconclusive?
Oh, dear. I fear you are correct – that was not your point. My apologies.
On some issues they do.
Some have, some haven’t.
This is a debate forum. You’re supposed to use logic in a debate. What else would you use?
Example?
Example?
**
Of course we enjoy it. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. What would be the difference between “point scoring” and p"progressing the debate" in your opinion?
Incorrect. Educated academics argue only against it. There is virtually no scholarly argument for it at all, even among the majority of purely religious scholarship. The only argument for this kind of nonsense comes from unaccredited Bible colleges and the like. You will not find any serious Biblical criticism gives even a second’s thought to interpreting “behemoth” as a dinosaur.
There is no argument. The Bible does not mention dinosaurs and no serious scholarship argues that it does. You can’t cite references because they don’t exist.
It says nothing about dinosaurs, period. Language has nothing to do with it.
Dinosaurs would have been pretty hard to ignore. We’re not talking about some obscure species of butterfly here.
Which is exactly why the Bible can’t say anything about dinosaurs.
No argument here.
Board rules forbid us to accuse anybody of puppetry.