I Have A Few Questions That I'm Hoping Can Be Answered

[Steven87]

Ok I have some questions that have been on my mind that have been floating around ever since I became active in my Catholic Faith that have been knawing at me… And I need some answers if you guys could help.

1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans?
2. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?
3. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

Sorry these are so random but many of you know that I am losing faith in God and these are some of the reasons why…
So any help woul be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

Church Millitant hey,I dont mean to highjack the thread but I need to PM you,I couldn’t get a mod sos

 

[Church_Militant]

Steven87:

Ok I have some questions that have been on my mind that have been floating around ever since I became active in my Catholic Faith that have been knawing at me… And I need some answers if you guys could help. Boy! You are just FULL of questions!

1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans? Who are we to question almighty God about what He does? Job did something sort of similar and got about the same response i’m givin’ you. Read Job…it might help some.
2. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven? Okay…this one will hopefully make sense to you. In Revelation 13:8 St. John refers to Jesus as “… the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.”, now if that is true, and it is, (since God is not bound by space and time as we are!) then all those who died as righteous Jews were saved based on the TIMELESS sacrifice of Christ. That’s why today we celebrate the featss of St. King David and the Church recognizes that all the righteous dead are with God in heaven. (at least their souls are…everyone’s bodies come along later…at the resurrection of the dead). This is also why Mary was called “Full of Grace” by Gabriel the archangel, because Jesus’ sacrifice was applied to her at the moment of her conception in order that she could be the holy and pure (sinless) ark of the New Covenant (Jesus!). It’s a lot more “Theological” than that, but that’s the “short course”, okay?
3. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?
   Whoever told you this is wrong…Evolution is NOT proven fact in the scientific world, in fact, it’s just another theory…and far from all the scientific community buy into it.

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk? Dude, doubt is NOT sin. Everyone has doubts sometimes. BUT as to the existence of God…to me it’s really fairly simple…I just look at all the creation all around me…the miracles of life that are our bodies (as frail as they can be…still pretty impressive! Ever see a little guy whose learned karate break a couple of slabs of concrete with his bare hand? That’s very cool…it amazes me that we can do that sort of stuff with part of our body that usually gets all banged up when hit with hard things. Yet it can be done. (I’ve done it myself) So just our bodies are miracle enough to make me believe in God. All creation speaks of the glory of God. Check out the first 2 chapters of the book of Romans. St Paul talks about this very thing. There are other places as well, but paul does a really good job with it there.

Sorry these are so random but many of you know that I am losing faith in God and these are some of the reasons why…
So any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks

I would suggest that you get yourself in to see your favorite priest asap and talk all this over with him. There’s no reason to lose your faith. I’ve been through some really insane stuff over the last 5 years or so, and my faith is stronger now than ever before. there were times when I was crushed and just went into God’s presence in prayer and simply said, “Lord Gord, I am broken and I am weak and I have no clue how to handle all this. I fall on my face here before you and beg you to hold me in your arms and guide me through all this one moment at a time. I worship you, because I know that you are the Lord God of Hosts…and I am just a man. Help me.” The rest, as they say, is history

 

[Church_Militant]

Lisa4Catholics:

Church Millitant hey,I dont mean to highjack the thread but I need to PM you,I couldn’t get a mod sos

okay shoot!

 

[Dr.Colossus]

1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans?

If by “main creation” you mean the most prevalent, Humans are not it. Insects outweigh the population of other animals a hundredfold. Mankind is rather the most elevated creature, and need not be the most proliferate.

We can reason that God created Dinosaurs for the same reason He created everything else: out of love, and as a means to convey His glory. Who is not in awe of His creation when we see a towering Brachiosaur skeleton, or look at the incredible diversity of the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods? More practically, much of the biological mass that existed 65 million years ago in the form of plants and animals (dinos included) has become petroleum, and I don’t need to explain how useful that is to us humans.

1. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?

They did not necessarily go to Hell. The Jewish concept of afterlife (Sheol) was simply an abode of the dead. There were hellish parts and good parts. In the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, we have a description of what the afterlife was like prior to Christ’s Resurrection:

:bible1: “When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, 14 where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.” Luke 16:22-23

When Christ died, He “descended to the dead” and preached the Good News there. Those who died in friendship with God by following the Old Covenant and sacrificing in the Jewish Temple received the same salvation available to Christians in the New Covenant.

1. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?

Darwinian Evolution specifically is not considered the impregnable fortress of reason it once was. New research into genetics suggest that the speed at which genetic mutation occurred throughout history makes it impossible to be solely the result of natural selection. Evolution, defined more generally as the change and advancement of beings over time, is not contrary to Scripture in the least. In Genesis we already have 2 different accounts of creation, which shows that they were not meant to be taken perfectly literally, but were meant to describe certain truths, namely that creation is from God and that there was a primordial event in human history that involved a rejection of God’s love and laws.

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

It depends on what you mean by doubt. If you truly think when you die “I can’t believe that God truly exists” then your soul will be in jeopardy. However, occasional wonderings on how we know everything we believe is true is not doubt, but reflects a deeper need for understanding. Seeking Truth necessitates asking the question “How do we know this is true?”.

 

[Fidelis]

Great answers. Dr. C.

Steven87, if you are having rational doubts about the extinsence of God, here is a good place to start:

peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

If you are having trouble connecting with Him personally, the only path to take is prayer. I suggest you spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament at the nearest Catholic church available to you. You don’t have to to to anything special while you are there; just spend time while you look at Him, and He looks at you.

 

[mercygate]

Steven87:

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

I would not call “trying to find faith and praying” anything near the kind of “doubt” that condemns a soul. The doubt that condems a soul is persistent, willful denial of truth. We are all, to some degree, in a state of doubt, since on this side of Heaven we all see “in a glass darkly.” In your case, the virtue of Hope appears to be very strong. This is a much undersold virtue, and you might thank God for it! Thank him for your desire to believe.

 

[Exporter]

You said Evolution is *almost *a proven fact in the Scientific community. That is just NOT true. You say Evolution “goes against” everything taught in the Bible: that’s not true either. In any college text that treats “evolution” you will see it listed as a THEORY. It is not proven.

The word Evolution actually means to roll out as a rolled up rug is being rolled out. It in simple terms means to “evolve”. It is true that some of the short term changes do seem to support an evolutionary process,i.e., the white moths in Pittsburg became grey moths after the steel mills burned tremendous amounts of coal covering every thing with a grey dust. Birds could then see the white moths and they ate them. In that moth species some few were always hatched a lighter color and they survived. That was a short term change.

What you should ask is this.* How was it that the first moths arrived on the earth? Also you might ask where did the first living things come from. *To push it back farther, where did the atoms that make up the earth, stars and living things come from.

There are four theories for the Origin of Life on Earth:

• Life came from another planet. (Van Allen radiation belt prohibit this.)
• Life was generated spontaneously.
• Special Creation. God created life.
• Life came from primordial “soup”

Which one is most logical? Considering how complex even a Protozoan is, I have to say #3 is the most likely!

 

[1ke]

Steven87:

Ok I have some questions that have been on my mind that have been floating around ever since I became active in my Catholic Faith that have been knawing at me… And I need some answers if you guys could help.

1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans?
2. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?
3. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

Sorry these are so random but many of you know that I am losing faith in God and these are some of the reasons why…
So any help woul be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks

1. Because they are the main ingredient of fossil fuel.
2. No, there was no exclusion of salvation for those who came before Jesus. The details of how salvation might be accomplished for them we do not have, but what God has revealed to us does tell us that each person who is in heaven is there by virtue of Christ’s redeeming blood. Christ’s divinity puts him outside time. How he applies his saving grace temporally prior to his Incarnation is a mystery-- however, we know he did give Mary her Immaculate Conception in time prior to his Incarnation but based on his merits.
3. Evolution is far from fact, however neither is it necessarily contradictory to God’s revealed truth or the existence and action of God in the universe. Evolution explains how existing things evolve not how they came to exist.
4. God is both just **and ** merciful. Pray the prayer, “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief”. All persons have doubts-- we are finite and God is infinite… there will always be things we cannot completely wrap our minds around. Faith requires a leap to accept things that cannot be detected by the senses. God gives those who ask the grace they need.

 

[nobody]

I just wanted to add some thoughts I had on the dinosaur question. Besides fossil fuel, they feed the imagination of children, and give lots of museum employees and scientists jobs.

 

[Lorarose]

<1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans?

1. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?
2. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?>​

I’ll give it my best shot - for what it’s worth.

1. I don’t like to answer a question with a question - but…why does God create ANYTHING?
   I mean really…are we ever really going to figure out God’s motivations for ANYTHING He does?
   It appears His creation occurred in stages - and the dinosaurs were part of an earlier stage - why this is, I don’t even venture to guess.
2. These people were not allowed entry into heaven - nor does it necessarily mean they were condemned to hell.
   We know as catholics that a third possibility exists - meaning our understanding of purgatory. This shows us that heaven and hell are not the only possible destinations.

3.I don’t believe evolution contradicts the bible. Didn’t Genesis describe God creating the universe and the earth in different steps - or stages? If God chose evolution as His tool for creation - how would this contradict the bible?

4.Everyone has doubts. Your “will” and your “feelings” are different entities.
We willfully seek God - and yet we sometimes have doubtful feelings.
You said you ary trying your best - and I’m sure God can read your heart and understand the efforts you are making with your gift of free will.

 

[Darrel]

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

I was a total doubting Thomas in the beginning of my Christian life. I searched high and low for answers.

I even got involved with the Warrens (Amityville Horror People) and went to people’s houses that reported supernatural activities to them in the hope that I would see something happen that would make me see the truth that there actually was a God.

Even when I saw the impossible happen I couldn’t believe without doubt. The only thing that ever made me truly believe in God was God himself.

I don’t presume to know your mind or heart. But if your are looking to remove your doubt by seeking answers to questions about things like Dinosaurs or evolution the doubt will most likely remain even if you find the answers you seek.

I would say go right to the source and ask him to help you to believe. The doubt doesn’t exist because of evolution or dinosaurs etc. The doubts exist in you like an internal roadblock that the Lord can shatter in the blink of an eye. The answers are on the inside where God speaks to the heart. I would recommend looking there verses looking for a cure for doubt in the scientific.

The Gospel of Mark, 9:23 Jesus said unto him,
If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out,
and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

-D

 

[WhatIf]

Steven87:

Ok I have some questions that have been on my mind that have been floating around ever since I became active in my Catholic Faith that have been knawing at me… And I need some answers if you guys could help.

1. Why would God ever create Dinosaurs if his main creation that was to inhabit the world were humans?
2. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?
3. I hear that Evolution is almost a proven fact in the scientific world, but doesn’t this go against everything taught in the bible?

4 If I have doubts in God’s existence but am trying my best to find faith and praying but die in a state of doubt, will my soul be at risk?

Sorry these are so random but many of you know that I am losing faith in God and these are some of the reasons why…
So any help woul be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks

Steven87,

I posted a reply a few minutes ago, but got zapped with an error somehow, so I will try this again and if it doesn’t work, well perhaps its for the best.

I think you said in a post that you were 17 yrs. old. I haven’t been 17 yrs. old for quite sometime now, but I don’t recall thinking of death. At least not my own death very often. I have noticed that many of your posts are asking about it YOU would die in a mortal sin would you go to heaven. I only mention this because it is not uncommon for teenagers (or adults) to suffer from a temporary bout of depression. Is there a problem that is even deeper than these questions that could be the main cause of your losing your faith?

I would like to answer your post, but the questions come from doubt. The doubt may just be a need to learn more about your faith and I think maybe getting into your Parishes RCIA group or some other group that teaches about the CAtholic Beliefs may be helpful.

I think it may be more helpful for you to make an appointment with a Priest that you feel you can discuss the topics that may be causing depression. You know, the really big serious things that are not easy to discuss. I think dealing with those issues may help resolve some of your other questions about God’s existence. Could it be possible that Satan is tempting you to turn away from God. It seems to me that when we a struggling to get a closer relationship with our Lord, the devil steps in to tempt us. We are all in a spiritual war. I would like to suggest to you that you arm yourself with the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Go to confession at least once a month if not weekly. Go to Mass at least weekly and receive communion if you are not in a state of mortal sin. Regular confession will help you to not receive communion in a state of mortal sin.

Do not turn away from the Catholic Church! That would play right into the hands of the devil in my opinion. You have some tough issues right now. Things will get better if you let God help you. The Catholic Church is a guide for you and will also arm you for this battle that you are fighting.

There are groups such as Courage that might be helpful to you. I’m not sure, but you had mentioned bi-sexuality in another post. It is important to get help from the Church on these types of issues. We all commit sexual sin. They are forgiveable, but you need to talk to a Priest that can help you through these things by pointing you in the right direction. Hang in there. Things will get better.

I hope these forums also help you. God Bless You.

 

[RobedWithLight]

2. Did all people who died before Jesus was crucified go to hell because they didn’t have Jesus’s blood to absolve their sins,or have the oportunity to be forgiven?

Actually, for the good that lived before Christ, it isn’t hell, but it isn’t heaven either, since the stain of sin effectively makes one incapable of entering heaven, for nothing impure can. It is clearly not a case of either heaven or hell only. This is precisely why men needed a Redeemer, so that the bliss of heaven would become open once more to men, and become once again the children of God. The parable of Lazarus and the Rich man told by Jesus in the Gospels clearly suggests that the patriarch Abraham, who lived justly long before Christ, is in a place other than hell.

What about Enoch, who was taken by God for having lived righteously, as recounted in the book of Genesis?

Gerry

 

[AmericanAtheist]

Dude, question everything. These are good questions, but think about them deeply. Seriously, I thought about them myself and found my answers. Sure enough, I am a better Atheist for it. Sure, you can join the sheep, or you can stand out and look for answers through science.

 

[Pug]

I agree with nobody (a previous poster). Dinosaurs are for children. Children will read a dinosaur book over and over. And how else do you get some kids into a museum unless they get to stand in the skeletal belly of a whale or dinosaur?

Hmmm. Maybe this means wars are to get all those introverted, odd children interested in something (military history). Well, I suppose they also like those collections of insects on pins.

Steven87,

About your number 4, living for God has never done me wrong. I have had all sort of doubts about his existence, but I don’t doubt that living his commandments is a great way to live life.

I don’t know the level or type of your doubts, but faith is a real gift. I think a person can have it, yet still have a mind capable of thinking up all sorts of whatifs. You don’t have to suddenly be bereft of that whatif ability to have faith.

 

[mercygate]

AmericanAtheist:

Dude, question everything. These are good questions, but think about them deeply. Seriously, I thought about them myself and found my answers. Sure enough, I am a better Atheist for it. Sure, you can join the sheep, or you can stand out and look for answers through science.

If you are an atheist, surely you are not looking for answers to questions about God either in science or anywhere else. But whatever your confusion, you are as likely to find God through science as science through God. Ask Einstein.