How does the church explain dinosaurs?

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Theistic evolution (basically) acknowledges that God created the first man—homo sapiens—by infusing a being with a spiritual/immortal soul. In doing so, God created man in His own image (with free will and intellect), and unlike any other physical creature. Iow, there was ‘divine intervention’ in the natural process of evolution.

Although we cannot know the precise process (as the scientific method is used to measure/observe only the physical universe and not the supernatural), we can believe that God intervenes into the physical world; and the physical world cannot explain the immortal spiritual soul of man.
 
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Not sure about Church - but I read they came from the Fallen Angels tampering with God’s creation & monster size beings came from that & the Flood ( supposedly ) was to clean all that up & restore God’s creation. Have to try to remember what ancient text I found that in.
 
No, but rember that it is a doctrine of the Church that there can never be a conflict between faith and reason. Evolution, at certain levels, is fairly well established by science.
 
Again, the Church does not command one believe evolution and does allow for one to believe in the creation as it is written…
 
Agreed, but I am just saying, that’s hard to do and maintain that faith and reason do not conflict. Perhaps not impossible, but difficult.
 
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It is not difficuolt for me, but your mileage may vary…

I have posted my reading in another thread on evolution and creation if you like you can go read how I view the issue.

It is under Genesis is Literal…
 
ReadTheBible said:
Evolution is a lie conceived from the same lie Satan first tempted mankind with.

{Snip}.

If Catholicism doesn’t believe in the literal 7 day creation it is but one of many of their faults and unbiblical teachings.

{Snip}. The big bang is a lie and a very bad one. {Snip}. good grief what a lie
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Interesting. Not “wrong” or “mistaken” but “a lie.” Well, the Bible teaches us not to lie, that’s certainly true — “A faithful witness will not lie: but a deceitful witness uttereth a lie.” Proverbs 14:5 (Nof to mention Matthew 5).

But the Bible also teaches us not to defame others: “Thou shalt not calumniate thy neighbour.” Leviticus 19:13. So I would be interested in your evidence that people supporting evolution are supporting “a lie” rather than, say, an opinion with which you disagree; or an error you would like to correct. As a Christian publicly speaking in Jesus’ Name, what evidence do you have that they are deliberately spreading a scientific theory they actually know to be false?
To speak evil of no man, not to be litigious, but gentle: shewing all mildness towards all men.
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Titus 3:2.
Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law, and judgeth the law.
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James 4:11.
 
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I went back and found your explanation, it seems to be summed up in the following statement from you post:

“Be it a new earth, an earth created with the appearance of age, or an earth created in which time as we know it in that seven day period may not be quite as linear as we experience now.”

So you give three options, let’s go backwards:
  1. the seven day period is not the same as we see time now:. Very good way of expressing a non-literal interpretation. If those seven days are the billions of years we see as the history of the universe, this corresponds to the interpretation of manyple of faith who see some form of evolution as almost certainly true and yet profess a belief in the the )non-literal) truth of Genisis.
2). Created the earth (universe) with an appearance of age. There is no doubt God could do this, indeed it has been argued if he was to creat a universe, all at once, fully “functioning”, it would be physically necessary that it had a history built into it. But, there is a problem, if one holds this view, it is decidedly at odds with a literal interpretation of Genisis. The two views cannot be reconciled, so what is the purpose of the it? Where does it come from? Certainly not from Genisis.
3) be it a new earth,. I assume this is the literal interpretation of Genisis you hold? But it really doesn’t explain much of your reasoning.
 
Thanks for your kind reply…

I see you sort of cherry picked a few items and left out the most important ones…

Faith is faith…I cannot nor need not try and rationally explain it nor vie for it’s validity.

I allow for each of us to hold to our own belief when it comes to origins and share together in God’s glory.
It really dose not matter one way or the other on the mechanics as long as we strive to serve our Lord.

I live happily day to day with my belief and it hurts absolutely no one.

You nor I were present at the beginning…you and I were neither there for the Resurrection…yet each have their own set of impossibilities in relation to “science” and our “reality” but none the less they happened.

So here it is for continuity…
Well, I too feel that if a person wants to believe in another interpretation, such as billions year old earth and aspects of evolution who am I to argue as long as their faith is in Christ?

Perhaps the places we come from and roads we travel may be varied from one another but as long as we arrive at the cross and our faith is in Him who created this world for us then I am content.

For me personally, I have never been one to argue the point, merely to express by own personal belief.
That being, God created our reality, our concept of time.
He created this earth, and as He is the three big O’s there is nothing that is beyond His ability. Be it a new earth, an earth created with the appearance of age, or an earth created in which time as we know it in that seven day period may not be quite as linear as we experience now.

I find for myself, it is a chance to allow God to be God. It allows me to say, ok God, You said it this way, I will take that on faith.

God created our physical world and all the laws we as mortals are subject to, He however is not subject to them.
I think it would be very prideful of me to say otherwise, to try and express to God the tenants of evolution or how fossils somehow negate scripture lets say.
 
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I did not cherry picker, you said that you followed a literal interpretation of Genesis and did not find that at odds with reason. I simply picked the only sentence that seemed to have direct bearing on that claim. The rest, everyone would agree with.
 
Because people want to believe what they believe rather than the truth.

Or people just like arguing.

Or people want it both ways.
 
The guy that created “the Ark Experience” (a rebuild of Noah’s Ark seems to think so. It is odd that none of these creatures have made an appearance (that I know of) in ancient art. It would be interesting to see how a t rex got on board…
 
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Haven’t you seen Jurassic Park? They lured it on with some goats.

I will say that there are a lot of people that argue that dragons are references to dinosaurs. I tend to believe that dragon myths came about form the discovery of dinosaur fossils.
 
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