Catholic stance on Dinosaurs

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harmony1988
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I think that maybe on the 6th day when God created beast he created the dinosaurs. Now remember the days were not 24 hour days (The church has taught us that). Though maybe thousands of years later (still the 6th day) God distroyed Dinos and created Humans ^^ šŸ™‚ 🤷
 
I think that maybe on the 6th day when God created beast he created the dinosaurs. Now remember the days were not 24 hour days (The church has taught us that). Though maybe thousands of years later (still the 6th day) God distroyed Dinos and created Humans ^^ šŸ™‚ 🤷
Please quote for me an offical document that shows the Church taken one position or the other on the position of how long the origional 7 days were?

I ask this in love and respect.
 
Read our Catechism. The Church is silent. I don’t think we’ll see a creationist Catholic museum very soon. It would be too absurd.
 

There’s no comparison:​

  1. Science is not only competent to pronounce on dinosaurs - certain branches of it (such as palaeontology) would be remiss not to do so
  2. Science has no competence in matters of Eucharistic theology, because the Eucharistic conversion is not a scientific phenomenon; it is a metaphysical one
…
And what authority determines where the metaphysical ends and science begins (or vice -versa)?

Are you putting science in the driver’s seat?
 
The current Catholic stance is the old-earth scientific model. The 7 days in Genesis were over millions of years, each ā€œdayā€ was a metaphor. Dinosaurs are part of the geological record and does not conflict with anything else.
Do you have any authoratative quotes or documents to prove this claim?
 
… this is special …

I remember seeing a coloring book, that was on an atheist website. It had pictures of Jesus riding T-Rex’s, and feeding Brontosauri. It came from a fundamental creationist website. It was being used to ridicule Christianity as a whole, that means Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans, and all the others.

First, a literal reading of Genesis IS incorrect. It is shown by relativity theory that time is not a constant, it is relative. It is very possible that God our creator operates in another dimension of time, where say, the 9 to 5 work day is more like a couple of centuries. How else can he answer all those prayers at the same time?

Let’s examine the facts:

GOD CREATED ALL. Yes?

Then:
  1. God did create dinosaurs.
  2. God destroyed the dinosaurs.
  3. God did create humans. We are still missing links to explain evolution. We seem to have just ā€œappearedā€.
  4. God chose the best of his creations.
  5. God made deals (covenants) with them, and eventually us.
With that in mind, the Bible only covers from the creation of humans. Why would humans care about how God created dinosaurs? He created us which should be amazing enough. If you were going to create something, wouldn’t you want to practice a little first? We cannot comprehend the mysteries of God. In fact, there are still functions of the human body that are so abstract science just ignores them.

The fact is the Bible is not a history text or a scientific book, it is a record of God’s ongoing covenants with us. First with Adam and Eve, then with Abraham, then with Moses, and finally ending with Jesus, which is the covenant we are under today. A covenant is the agreement with God, the rules if you may. Similar to a legal document, except put in prose form. Would you write about your old dog sparky in your will? Exactly, not relevant. Anyone who treats the Bible as anything otherwise is in serious misunderstanding of their faith, and needs to pray for guidance.

Key point: Bible is the Holy Ghost acting through men who interpret as best they can. It did not fall out of the sky. It is a record of man’s ongoing revelation of the love of God himself, ONGOING. It is NOT a history text or science document. I am an engineer, i can spot a text book from a mile away, the Bible aint one.

So, to end, if you really want to know about Dino’s, and really want to know the RCC’s position, i would say get down on your knees and ask Him yourself…
 
What do you mean ā€œdepictionsā€? Can you give examples?
I think he’s referring to the Ica stones found which depict dinosaurs and humans together. This is also possible. I don’t think that the earth is 6000 years old (although anything is possible with God) but I do knonw that the methods used to ā€œdateā€ fossils are inaccurate to say the least. Radio isotope dating doesn’t work. And the use of this form of dating presupposes the theory of evolution. I think the clergy would do well to stay away from commenting on evolutionas it is a religion invented by aetheists and has no substantial evidence to support it.

Peace and love.
 
To my knowledge St Augustine thougth that the days of Genesis were symbolic. And St Gregory though Moses was prophetizing the past in Genesis. In others words it was a symbolic writting.
While more ECF read Genesis in a literal way, some did not.
And the Church has followed those because their reading did not conflict with science, it actually enhanced the Genesis.
 
And what authority determines where the metaphysical ends and science begins (or vice -versa)?

Are you putting science in the driver’s seat?

The determination between the two comes from the circumstance that, whatever aspects & features they may have in common, they are not identical - which is why it is not a sin to shave, but is a sin to cut one’s throat with the razor ones uses for shaving. IOW, they are irreducibly different in certain aspects, however similar they may otherwise be.​

Things are different from one another - so it is not appropriate to what they are & how they are, to treat them as the same thing. Which is why different approaches to reality can’t be treated as being the same. Science is one kind of approach to reality, theology is another - to confuse them, or to sacrifice either to the other, is destructive to both.

Apples need no authority to fall from trees - they respond to the law of their being apples in doing so, because they are physical objects related to the physical world in a certain manner. So they fall. Human beings need no authority but that of their being the sort of human beings they are, to distinguish between science, & theology, & what each of these requires to be healthy. Unlike apples, we have a very wide freedom, & a far more varied kind & exercise of it, within the bounds of what we are.
 
… this is special …

I remember seeing a coloring book, that was on an atheist website. It had pictures of Jesus riding T-Rex’s, and feeding Brontosauri. It came from a fundamental creationist website. It was being used to ridicule Christianity as a whole, that means Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans, and all the others.

First, a literal reading of Genesis IS incorrect. It is shown by relativity theory that time is not a constant, it is relative. It is very possible that God our creator operates in another dimension of time, where say, the 9 to 5 work day is more like a couple of centuries. How else can he answer all those prayers at the same time?

Because​

    1. ā€œGod is Spiritā€¦ā€ (John 4.24)
    1. He is not man, nor a man
    1. Nor material
    1. Or like us in any other respect, at all.
    1. In fact, God is wholly incomparable to anything that is not God
      If we look at 1 Corinthians 2.9:
  • 1Cr 2:7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.
  • 1Cr 2:8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
  • 1Cr 2:9 But, as it is written, ā€œWhat no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,ā€
  • 1Cr 2:10 God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
    then what must God be, Who is far better than whatever He has ā€œpreparedā€ ? So your question doesn’t arise. šŸ™‚
Let’s examine the facts:

GOD CREATED ALL. Yes?

Then:
  1. God did create dinosaurs.
  2. God destroyed the dinosaurs.
  3. God did create humans. We are still missing links to explain evolution. We seem to have just ā€œappearedā€.
  4. God chose the best of his creations.
  5. God made deals (covenants) with them, and eventually us.
With that in mind, the Bible only covers from the creation of humans. Why would humans care about how God created dinosaurs? He created us which should be amazing enough. If you were going to create something, wouldn’t you want to practice a little first? We cannot comprehend the mysteries of God. In fact, there are still functions of the human body that are so abstract science just ignores them.

The fact is the Bible is not a history text or a scientific book, it is a record of God’s ongoing covenants with us. First with Adam and Eve, then with Abraham, then with Moses, and finally ending with Jesus, which is the covenant we are under today. A covenant is the agreement with God, the rules if you may. Similar to a legal document, except put in prose form. Would you write about your old dog sparky in your will? Exactly, not relevant. Anyone who treats the Bible as anything otherwise is in serious misunderstanding of their faith, and needs to pray for guidance.

Key point: Bible is the Holy Ghost acting through men who interpret as best they can. It did not fall out of the sky. It is a record of man’s ongoing revelation of the love of God himself, ONGOING. It is NOT a history text or science document. I am an engineer, i can spot a text book from a mile away, the Bible aint one.

I’m not sure that we can identify the Bible with the Holy Ghost; & revelation is an act of God, not man - otherwise, šŸ‘ & šŸ™‚

So, to end, if you really want to know about Dino’s, and really want to know the RCC’s position, i would say get down on your knees and ask Him yourself…
 

So is the word ā€œAssyriologyā€ - that is not exactly evidence that Assyria was a power, let alone a major power, in the 19th century AD, when the word was coined. ā€œHittitologyā€ is even more recent - it’s a designation for the study of a kingdom that collapsed in about 1200 BC​

Must Sumer be recent - instead of defunct for over 4,000 years - because the word for the study of it is recent ?

This is bizarre reasoning:​

s8int.com/dinolit2.html

my emphasis]

By that logic, the dragons & beasts drawn for the film of ā€œThe Lord of the Ringsā€ must have been ā€œseen by the artistā€, or by Peter Jackson, or even by Tolkien himself. Saurians in 1950s Oxford ? Somehow, I doubt it. Saurians, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder - those animals need not be saurians (or even Sauron’s, for that matter); they can perfectly well be non-existent & geometrically pleasing animals.

YEC logic would have us treating the fantastic fauna of TLOTR as having really existed - it dissolves the difference between imagination & fact. If an historian claimed that the White House had been whitened to hide damage caused by a fire-breathing dragon, he would not have his job for long. Only in theology is the unfounded & anti-logical nonsense of YECism found tolerable 😦

Does it never occur to YECers that if that cylinder-seal & that motif were even remotely likely to be valid evidence of saurians in Mesopotamia, someone would have said so by now ? The reason that experts in the subject such as Moortgat, Collon, Frankfort, & many others have not said so, is because they know a great deal more about the area & its art than the people who brandish this picture as evidence of saurian life in Mesopotamia in 3300 BC. And that knowledge protects them against drawing daft conclusions about what the motifs on the cylinder-seals mean.

But no - as usual, people who couldn’t even spell ā€œMesopotamiaā€ if their lives depended on it turn out to know more about Mesopotamian art than those who’ve spent their lives on the subject. :eek: :eek:
All legends came from somewhere. Drawing the dragons depicted in movies as grounds for your argument makes no sense because the truth is that radio isotope dating is not accurate over a certain time limit. After that dating fossils is pure guess work. There is evidence in many cultures worldwide of both a great flood and dragon/dinosaur-like creatures existing alongside man.

This along with the fact that the only people who believe the earth is millions of years old are people who were taught this idea by darwinians. The theory of evolution is a religion in and of itself and , i might add, requires more faith than the belief in an intelligent creator who made all living things after their kind - i.e. a horse can give brith to nothing but a horse. Non of the ā€œevidenceā€ for evolution provided by science is conclusive. Rather science has operated in reverse in this instance: Starting out assuming the theory of evolution to be true and working backwards from there to prove it. That is not science…
 
That is absolutely false.

Peace

Tim
The ā€œscienceā€ used to date fossils over 10,000 years old is actually guesswork. They do not read the carbon isotope as this method is only effective for up to around 10,000 years. Rather they need to know what strata layer the fossil was found in then they can pronounce on a date for the fossil.

Now how do they know the age of the strata layers you might ask? Well they date the strata layers by the fossils they find within these strata layers. Do I hear circular reasoning? The reason this method is accepted has to do with the fact that this method presupposes the theory of evolution - i.e. organisms making organisms after some other kind (not their own kind).

Sounds like a nutty religious belief system to me šŸ™‚
 
The ā€œscienceā€ used to date fossils over 10,000 years old is actually guesswork. They do not read the carbon isotope as this method is only effective for up to around 10,000 years. Rather they need to know what strata layer the fossil was found in then they can pronounce on a date for the fossil.

Now how do they know the age of the strata layers you might ask? Well they date the strata layers by the fossils they find within these strata layers. Do I hear circular reasoning? The reason this method is accepted has to do with the fact that this method presupposes the theory of evolution - i.e. organisms making organisms after some other kind (not their own kind).

Sounds like a nutty religious belief system to me šŸ™‚
That is also false. You need to read a bit about radiometric dating. C14 is not the only dating method used.

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

Peace

Tim
 
That is absolutely false.

Peace

Tim
You are correct in saying that it is false to say that dating an object using Radio Isotope does not work. That form of dating can work and be valuable but it is a tool and like all tools it is insufficient by it’s self.

My faith does not rest on if dinosaurs ever existed with or without man. When I was a very young boy in the 1960’s I use to think some of my relatives were dinosaurs if that helps the discussion at all.
 
That is also false. You need to read a bit about radiometric dating. C14 is not the only dating method used.

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

Peace

Tim
No argument is necessary since there is no foolproof way of proving the date of fossils STILL. That is true not false. I read the articles you prescribed and many others and still to use these methods there are presumptions made such as how many radioactive atoms the fossil had in the first place.

The dating of fossils is not even done using these methods but rather using the strata layers to date them. So no matter what methods you say there are, if the institutions dating this material is using the strata layers to date fossils then it cannot be accurate as environment + time forms strata layers and the earths surface can change very quickly *** we see in the case of landslides and floods and earthquakes even today.
 
That is also false. You need to read a bit about radiometric dating. C14 is not the only dating method used.

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

Peace

Tim
I think the trouble is that most people hold scientists in high esteem and believe that scientists know alot more than they do. Scientists actually just make guesses about more things than non-scientists actually do so they are perceived as knowledgeable. I studied chemistry, physics and biology in high school and studied physics in university as well. What I can say about science is that theories change radically in a short time and what was previously a fact can become science fiction in short time. Scientific dating can only be done accurately if what object being dated is observed in a closed system like a lab. In the lab it is possible to speed up radioactive decay so that an object that is a few days old can read hundreds of years old.Furthermore there is no evidence for evolution to date. But some scientists presuppose evolution is true then work backward from there to show evidence of it.

The ā€œevidenceā€ of evolution requires more faith than a belief in a supreme God. The dawn horse has been proven to be a fraud since the fossils of the metatarsils of the creatures were not dated sequentially as was believed to be the case.

By the way talkorigins.com is a very biased source and is usually frequented by evolutionists and atheists not true scientists šŸ™‚
In other words it is a site that tries to prove evolution is true not critically analyze whether or not it is.
 
I think the trouble is that most people hold scientists in high esteem and believe that scientists know alot more than they do. Scientists actually just make guesses about more things than non-scientists actually do so they are perceived as knowledgeable.
Finishing up 5 years of Mechanical Engineering, and all i do is make very educated GUESSES and simplifying assumptions. 😃
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top