7th grade questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sugar_Ray
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Sugar_Ray

Guest
All:

I have begun teaching Religous Ed to 7th graders. I need to say a quick thank you to many of you who provided some good advice before I started and thanks to all for helping me prepare for this for the last two years.

I didn’t know I was preparing to be a Catechist, but in looking back it’s clear the Holy Spirit has been leading me here all along and this forum was an important part of my education.

I am enjoying it more than I could have hoped.

I received two questions that I wanted to check with you all on. I believe I know the answers for both but want to be 100% certain.
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
  2. How could Jesus have no descendants?
Thanks in advance for your help

I’m sure I’ll be posting many more of these questions in the future.
 
Sugar_Ray said:
All:

I have begun teaching Religous Ed to 7th graders. I need to say a quick thank you to many of you who provided some good advice before I started and thanks to all for helping me prepare for this for the last two years.

I didn’t know I was preparing to be a Catechist, but in looking back it’s clear the Holy Spirit has been leading me here all along and this forum was an important part of my education.

I am enjoying it more than I could have hoped.

I received two questions that I wanted to check with you all on. I believe I know the answers for both but want to be 100% certain.
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
  2. How could Jesus have no descendants?
Thanks in advance for your help

I’m sure I’ll be posting many more of these questions in the future.
Click to expand...
  1. Dinosaurs? God made them too… (ok, there’s got to be someone out there who can do better than that…)
2.) Jesus didn’t have kids.
 
Sugar_Ray said:
All:

I have begun teaching Religous Ed to 7th graders. I need to say a quick thank you to many of you who provided some good advice before I started and thanks to all for helping me prepare for this for the last two years.

I didn’t know I was preparing to be a Catechist, but in looking back it’s clear the Holy Spirit has been leading me here all along and this forum was an important part of my education.

I am enjoying it more than I could have hoped.

I received two questions that I wanted to check with you all on. I believe I know the answers for both but want to be 100% certain.
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
  2. How could Jesus have no descendants?
Thanks in advance for your help

I’m sure I’ll be posting many more of these questions in the future.
Click to expand...
Regarding the first question, scientists have unearth fossils of the dinosaurs which have been alive before the dawn of man. They wre extinct for 65 million years, ever since a meteorite struck the Earth, causing a lack of food for organisms at the trophic levels of the food chain. This was caused because the meteor caused a cloud of dust, which blocked the sun, so plants cannot use the solar energy to make food. In photosynthesis, solar energy provides the energy to reduce nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, and provides a chemosmotic gradient for the production of ATP from ADP and phosphate. NADPH and ATP are used in the organic synthesis of biomolecules.

Also tell them that scientists do not believe that man and dinosaurs co-existed. Dinosaurs were not created, of course, but evolved from reptiles.
 
Sugar_Ray said:
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
Click to expand...
The first thing I would emphasize is the God is the author of all Creation. Therefore, all things that have ever been, are, or will be are through His divine will and purpose.

When we read about Creation in the bible, we as Catholics understand that it has two levels of meaning-- literal and symbolic. God created all things, and there was an order and purpose to Creation. However, the language of the “7 days” is symbolic. I would discuss the term “7” having a meaning of “perfection” in biblical symbolism. Therefore, when the bible talks about the “day” that animals were brought forth, this is not a literal day and we can see that there were many kinds of animals through many years until the earth was ready for human inhabitants. In all, the 7 days of creation tells us that God created all that is from nothing through his will alone. God ordered Creation toward his ultimate Creation: Man. God gives each person a unique, specially created soul.

So, how do the dinosaurs fit into creation? They were some of God’s first creatures, and they lived during the time when the earth had an atmosphere and types of life that were necessary to prepare the earth for Man to live.
Sugar_Ray said:
  1. How could Jesus have no descendants?
Click to expand...
Jesus had a singular mission for which he became Incarnate: Our Salvation. Remember, Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus did not marry and have children. We are all his children because God created us. (Read them John Chapter 1). Jesus was not only a man, but he was God.
 
Dinosaurs were created by God to fill whatever purpose he intended Millions of years ago. I wouldn’t get into detail as people get rather touchy over this subject.

The Virgin Mary had family(but not children), so her bloodline could continue through them. Jesus remained without children.
 
God provides us with many mysteries, it is man’s ignorance which creates the illusion we should or could know all. For example God told us he created us and our earth but he did not say we are is only creation. So dinosaurs were a creation which for reasons we do not know do not exist today. Dinosaurs may have been eliminated by God directly, by bad luck, or means which we can not even imagine. Evaluation is a tool in God’s tool box. Evolution may have been the tool which both created and eliminated the dinosaurs. We do not know. May be we will find out may be it will forever be a mystery.

Many humans have no descendents this is very common. Given the issues children of Jesus would have created it is not surprising he choose not have children.
 
Texas_Roofer said:
. Evolution may have been the tool which both created and eliminated the dinosaurs. We do not know. May be we will find out may be it will forever be a mystery.

.
Click to expand...
Nope, we do know. They evolve because the vast majority of the evidence supports that conclusion. Does anyone have any evidence to the contrary?
 
ribozyme said:
Nope, we do know. They evolve because the vast majority of the evidence supports that conclusion. Does anyone have any evidence to the contrary?
Click to expand...
This was addressed in the opening sentence
 
Texas_Roofer said:
This was addressed in the opening sentence
Click to expand...
I thought you implied that it is possible that they were created de novo, i.e. not evolved from a lower lifeform. Nope, the evidence rules out that possiblity, and to say that dinosaurs were the result of special creation is disingenious to an inquistive mind, which actively seeks knowledge.
 
Evolution is still only a theory. I told my kids they were wiped out in the Flood because Noah wasn’t able to get them on the Ark.
 
Eileen_T said:
Evolution is still only a theory. I told my kids they were wiped out in the Flood because Noah wasn’t able to get them on the Ark.
Click to expand...
Sigh, do you know what a “theory” is in science?

Read this to find out: stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

and this:
newton.nap.edu/html/creationism/introduction.html

I hope your children will be able critically analyze the evidence for evolution and “evidence” for a global Flood. One should not rely on dogma to arrive at truth… we should indeed use our senses and reason. That is why I am a staunch empiricist
 
I can think of three possibilities for the creation and extinction of dinosaurs.

God made them for our delight in discovery.

They were a necessity for preparing the earth for man.

God made them for His own pleasure.

But, I would probably just say to the kids, God did not reveal this information to the Church, so it isn’t important. You are free to come up with your own ideas about it.

Maybe He created them to make kids ask good questions!
 
Sugar_Ray said:
I received two questions that I wanted to check with you all on. I believe I know the answers for both but want to be 100% certain.
Click to expand...
HEY, you must be teaching the same curriculum as me - I had the same two questions (among others) last week. 🙂
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
Click to expand...
God made them, too. They may have died out at the time of the Fall, when death came into the world because of Adam’s sin. Of course, it is also possible that there are still some dinosaurs around, today. Some people believe that the Ogopogo is a kind of dinosaur (no one who lived to tell of it has ever gotten a good look at the Ogopogo, though), and there have been many creatures, once thought to be extinct, that were rediscovered, and are still around today. Even though we have mapped the whole world, there are still lots and lots of places where no scientist has ever been, and probably many creatures who have never been catalogued in nature books.
  1. How could Jesus have no descendants?
Click to expand...
He never married, and thus, had no physical children. We are His spiritual descendants - in fact, our Church traces its history in an unbroken succession all the way back to the Apostle Peter, whom Jesus appointed to be the leader of His Church.
 
Sugar_Ray said:
All:

.
  1. Where do the dinasours fit into the creation scheme? (remember these are 7th graders!)
.
Click to expand...
I always ask my CCD Kids how many of you have been taught that dinasours lived millions and millions of years before Man and died out before man ever came on the scene. Most all hands go up. Then I ask how many of you aware that there are dinasours in the Bible.-(contrary to the dogmatic evolutionists). No hand ever goes up on this question. The following is one of a number of examples of dinasours in the Bible.

Dinosaurs
The word Dinosaur did not exist prior to the 1800’s. So one must bear this in mind that other words would have been used as names for these creatures of creation. There are numerous drawings of dragons througout the world on rocks and in caves etc… China is noted for such drawings. St George of England slew a dragon living in a cave. There are pictures showing fossilized human prints next to and inside of fossilized dinosaur prints.

Dinosaurs In The Bible

Job 41:
15 " Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. 16 See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles.
17 He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. 18 His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. 19 He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can bring near His sword. 20 Surely the mountains yield food for him, And all the beasts of the field play there.
21 He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh. 22 The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the brook surround him. 23 Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed;

Contrary to the opinion of some, there are no modern day animals that fit the description of this behemoth. It is not an elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. None of these have the tail like a cedar. In fact there is not any known animal other than a dinosaur which would have a tail like that of a cedar. Whenever
 
Michael_G said:
There are pictures showing fossilized human prints next to and inside of fossilized dinosaur prints.
Click to expand...
And yet there are no such bonafide fossils, Carl Baugh and the Creation Evidences Museum notwithstanding.
talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/retrack.html

I guess this is the source of your quoted material?
exchangedlife.com/Creation/dinosaurs.shtml
from the above source:
In 1945, Waldemar Julsrud discovered carvings that depicted dinosaurs at El Toro Mnt near Acambaro, Mexico. Over the next few decades, over 30,000 of these carvings have been unearthed. The carvings date between 800BC and 200AD. These findings have been challenged and tested by researchers on multiple occasions and have remained as authentic artifacts. One is believed to be an Iguanodon which was unknown until over 30 years after these carvings were discovered.
Click to expand...
However,
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH710_2.html
from the above source:
This African artifact closely resembles a sauropod that local legends say still roams remote areas of Africa today. Several expeditions have been launched to validate these sightings but none have been successful.
Click to expand...
(emphasis mine)
Indeed!

It would be interesting if someone could find some incontrovertible evidence. I have yet to see any. All any of this demonstrates is that ancient peoples also had imaginations as active as those of people in modern times.
 
Eileen_T said:
Evolution is still only a theory. I told my kids they were wiped out in the Flood because Noah wasn’t able to get them on the Ark.
Click to expand...
Genesis 7:1-5
1 The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven [a] of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

Noah disobeyed God?

Kids are smart and they learn about evolution in school. Silly explanations of our faith do a lot to drive people away when they are older, and free to choose. I have worked with kids this age, and they would have a problem with this explanation. I would tell them nothing that contradicts evolution while not encouraging it.

Stay neutral, leave the option open.
Tell them God created dinosaurs, but we don’t know when or why. It could be through evolution or out of thin air. They are not in the bible becouse no one was there at the time. (A bad Joke, but kids wont hold you to it.)
 
EBSSTF4 said:
Genesis 7:1-5
1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven [a] of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

Noah disobeyed God?

Kids are smart and they learn about evolution in school. Silly explanations of our faith do a lot to drive people away when they are older, and free to choose. I have worked with kids this age, and they would have a problem with this explanation. I would tell them nothing that contradicts evolution while not encouraging it.

Stay neutral, leave the option open.
Tell them God created dinosaurs, but we don’t know when or why. It could be through evolution or out of thin air. They are not in the bible becouse no one was there at the time. (A bad Joke, but kids wont hold you to it.)
Click to expand...
So by your insinuation Noah Ark and the flood account are basic fairy tale which drive people away from the faith when they are older?? Well then you would have to say the same about the NT and Christ and Peter ah. No wonder people are driven away from the faith by those who claim certain passages must be tale of some type.

Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

2 Pet 3:1-9
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. **For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: **

Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top