Did God create dinosaurs?

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Faith_History

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How would you answer a child who asks how the dinosaurs fit into the Creation?
 
Faith_History said:
How would you answer a child who asks how the dinosaurs fit into the Creation?
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I think Creationists believe that dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, just in different parts of the world. They would have been killed by the great flood of Noah’s time.
 
I would just keep it simple and say “Yes, God created all living things.”
 
The answer is absolutely. God created everything.

Peace

Tim
 
I agree with the other posters. Yes God did create everything. Now how did God create it? As Catholics we are open to believe God created it in six twenty-four hour days or millions of years or the Big Bang theory or we can believe God formed man out of clay and God blew life into man and made women from his rib. Nobody knows and the Church doesn’t really say anything about it. Except is that somewhere along the line God infused a Soul in man. For example look at the Big Bang theory some people say a little atom exploded and here we are. Who created that little atom? Well God did.

When in comes to the creation story in Genesis chapters one and two we have to look at what the Church teaches on the interpretation of Scripture:
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What the Church teaches is that the interpretation of Scripture must be done in a literal sense as opposed to be interpreted in a literalist sense.  What the difference they sound alike they are basically the same word. At first glance you might think they mean the same thing.   But they don’t at least not in the world of theology.  The Church teaches the interpretation in a literal sense and condemns a literalist sense of interpretation of Scared Scripture.  [See paragraph 116 in the Catechism].  I will explain the difference between the two.  Now lets say I emailed you and said, “It’s raining cats & dogs outside.  As Americans in the 21st century you know that if you go outside it’s raining pretty dog gone hard.  That is the literal interpretation of what the author [me] intended for me to say for you to understand.  On the other hand what if you took the literalist interpretation of raining cats & dogs.  That means if you walked outside cats & dogs will be falling from the sky like rain.  After all that’s what the text says so that’s what it means.  The literalist is not taking into account the accepted meaning of that sentence.  Not taking in account of what the author was trying to convey.  “It’s raining cats & dogs by golly that’s what it says that’s what it means.  Not taking into account the time-period, who did the author intend to convey this too, what culture, what is the author’s meaning?  What if this email was read two thousand years from now?  What would be the best way to interpret this the literal sense or the literalist sense?
Sorry I go off into tangents sometimes ahh heck all the time.
 
God created everything. The fact that dinosaurs became extinct…Well, there are other animals that have become extinct, or nearly so, much closer to us in time.
This might actually turn into a good discussion of what we can do to try to preserve this world that God has given to us…
 
stanmaxkolbe said:
For example look at the Big Bang theory some people say a little atom exploded and here we are. Who created that little atom? Well God did.
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Actually, from my understanding, the Big Bang theory doesn’t say that the whole universe originated from a single atom, it says that the “big bang” occurs from a SINGLE point of Singularity, Even a single atom is not singular enough.

Basically, the theory suggests the creation of the whole universe practically out of nothing, Creatio ex nihilo. “Let there be light” sounds familiar? hehe

On related note, I think a Catholic scholar came up with that Big Bang theory scientists today are so fond of.
 
mrS4ntA,

You’re probably right. Myself I just can’t believe it just happened and the earth happened to stop right here and just happened to have life on this planet by accident.

I guess what I’m trying to say is; let’s say someday science proves that the Big Bang thing really did happen. The Church would not have a problem with it. Because somewhere God intervened and made it happen. As Catholics we are not restricted to believe only in the two creations stories in Genesis we’re open to believe other things because nobody knows. The Church is not going to lie and say we know how creation happened by scripture alone.

Now take dinosaurs some scientists say that a large meteor hit the earth and destroyed the dinosaurs. Now if that really happened did the meteor just hit the earth by accident or did God send the meteor to destroy the dinosaurs?

Again the Church would not have a problem with either theory.
 
AquinaSavio said:
I think Creationists believe that dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, just in different parts of the world. They would have been killed by the great flood of Noah’s time.
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Obviously, not all, or even most, Catholics believe this. I consider myself a “creationist” (I believe the theological doctrine that God is the Creator of all things), and hold to the scientific view that life on earth developed through the biological process of evolution. Confusing theology with science is detrimental to both.

As for dinosaurs, I told my own young son exactly what both Christian theology and evolutionary science espouse. Dinosaurs, as with all living things, are the result of God’s creative activity. And, as scientists have discovered from the fossil record and elsewhere, the dinosaurs evolved from prior living forms, dominated the biological world for millennia, then became extinct around 165 million years ago. (This is why we can now drill into the earth and find oil beneath the ground! Quite a gift from God, no?)

Truly,

Don
+T+
 
A correction of my Post #10 above:

A fellow forum member emailed me to point out that, contrary to my mis-typed number, the dinosaurs did not become extinct 165 million years ago, but rather 65 million years ago. A hundred million years just seemed like too great a margin for error, so I thought I should post a correction. Sorry about that!

Don
+T+
 
Faith_History said:
How would you answer a child who asks how the dinosaurs fit into the Creation?
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Science has answers that Faith cannot answer. Faith has answers that Science cannot answer.

Dinosaurs were obviously extinct before Man was created. I mean Man wouldn’t have lasted too long with Raptors and T-Rex around.

The Dual-Story of Creation in Genesis cannot be taken literally as written. God did not create the world in six 24 hour days. However the truth of what was written has to be adhered to-

The story of Creation was revealed to us as it appears in Scripture. The sin of Adam and Eve may not have been eating something from a tree- just made to look that way so that we now know that we are to eat from ANOTHER tree - The cross - the Eucharist - the Tree of Life is the Cross- the fruit we are to eat is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

Ken
 
I guess what I’m trying to say is; let’s say someday science proves that the Big Bang thing really did happen. The Church would not have a problem with it.
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I would hope so, since it was a Catholic priest, Fr. Lemaitre, who came up with “the thing” 😃

Peace and God bless!
 
Dinosaurs were obviously extinct before Man was created. I mean Man wouldn’t have lasted too long with Raptors and T-Rex around.
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Actually, there is a fellow called “Dr. Dino”, who provides some fairly intersting evidences that Dinosaurs were not extinct before the arrival of man. As a matter of fact, there are alot of stories about natives in africa and other places to this day who claim they have acually seen dinosaurs. Now we can laugh about this, but we are aware of things like prehistoric fish being caught in nets near africa (fish that should have been extinct millions of years ago) I personally find some of Dr.Dnos evidence to be very believable. Some seems far fetched, but then again, some of the sources are very credible sources. (ie: respected british army officer who claimed to actually have seen a diplodicus near peru.) Some of the other evidence I find rather convincing is when we see all kinds of artwork from natives in South America that depict peopel living with dinosaurs, and even accurately portraying very unusual skin patterns (which apparently matched recent fossilized skin patterns found about 15 years ago). I mean how could these natives of a couple thousand years ago have known what the skin patterns looked like ? Actually, how could they have known what they dinosaurs looked liek at all if they had never seen one and archeology had not been in practice yet that we know of ? It is reasonable evidence that dinsoaurs had not all become extinct 70 million years ago, but in fact that some did live alongside man. He theorizes that they came along on noahs ark by the way. I suppose it could be possible.

In any event, I just thought I would share it. He is an intersting and funny fellow, and i think he does provide some decent evidence from eyewitness recountings , etc that dinosaurs may indeed still be alive to this day in some remote parts of the world.
I mean what does a person say when they show a picture of a brontosaurus to a bunch of pygmies down in africa, andthey all recognize it and call it by a name, and they all say it is living in the swamps, and they have seen it…that it drives out crocodiles and elephants, and kills and destroys their boats ? Pretty wierd eh ? 🙂

Speakign for myself, I htink it is very possibel that dinosaurs may still be alive today in remote areas, knowing how animals can hide themselves well, and remain unseen. In any event, it is hard to believe that men did not live and see dinosaurs when you have ancient cultures making pictographs of them on their walls and pottery, and they are cquite accurate to what we know and understand dinosaurs to look liek today. Seems a bit to coincidental to me. I don’t think the books that say men never saw dinsoaurs alive, or never dwelt amongst them are correct. While most dinosaurs may have been dstroyed, it seems apparent to me that these ancient cultures must have had exposuire to living dinosaurs. How else can we explain the accuracy of their pictographs including unusual skin patterns that are replicated ?

Anyways, just some food for thought, and let the riducling begin 🙂
I don’t care, I frankly think the fellow has some valid points, even if some others might seem ridiculous to me.
 
A lot of fundie atheist i talk to go on and on about the bible saying theworld is only 5-6,000 yrs old. I don’t knowwhere in the bible it says this…It came up some where and the fundie athiest have latched onto it. Myself i couldn’t say how old the earth is because i Don’t know how long Adam and eve were in the garden for…was it a week, a month ten years, a thousand a million , a billion? I don’t know and even though they have or had imortal life did the animals? maybe they didn’t thats why they evolved because they were open to the enviroment. who knows?
 
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