Why did God create dinosaurs

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Catholics believe that God created the world from nothing and that He created the world through His Word, who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Interpreting Genesis in light of scientific observations may shock some Christians whose churches were founded during the modernist controversies of the 19th and 20th centuries. Surprisingly, insisting on an entirely literal understanding of the creation stories is actually a quite modern concept.
 
StAnastasia said:
Granny, you said in post # 266, “Catholic teaching is that intellect and will are powers of the soul.”

Since some non-human animals demonstrate some degree of intellect and will, it follows that either they must share some similarity of soul, or intellect and will are not in fact powers exclusively of the "soul.’
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I am still interested in those citations you mentioned in post 267 in accord with my reply in post 269. The materials and methods sections can be mind opening as to current prejudices. 🙂

Given your comments above, my guess is that your citations refer to degrees, similarities, and the animating principle of animals. All of which demonstrate commonalities found in the unity of creation.

Pointing to commonalities between species can lead to respect of God’s creation. Love of nature, including the dinosaurs of the past, is a good thing. In one of my closed threads, there is a link to an amazing essay about how animals should be treated. 👍

However, scientific research is limited to the material/physical.

Or you could say that science is based on the philosophy that reality is only that which can be sensed directly or indirectly through technology, that is empirical knowledge. This leads to an assumption which is o.k. for dinosaurs and other kinds of non-human animals. The assumption is that these creatures and critters are born of the material realm, live in the material realm, and stay dead in the material realm.

The truth is that all the degrees and similarities of these delightful animal companions have not, do not, and will not make them equal in nature to the human species.

Those who choose to be blind to spiritual reality risk using flawed research based on a false assumption about human nature. They discreetly, with deft subtleness, promote any percentage or degree of similarity as indication that humans and non-human animals are identical in all things.
This false assumption (prevalent in current research) is an unconscionable slip of the tongue. :mad:

Blessings,
granny

The two sole parents of the human species were specifically blessed by God.
 
StAnastasia said:
Except that we are not the only animals on earth that exhibit intellect and will.
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Can those “other animals” read or write or “act” on their ‘free will’ to choose right from wrong"??? Those other animals act according to the nature and instincts GOD has placed in them. NO comparison between them and Mankind. God Bless, Memaw
 
grannymh said:
Given your comments above, my guess is that your citations refer to degrees, similarities, and the animating principle of animals. All of which demonstrate commonalities found in the unity of creation…The truth is that all the degrees and similarities of these delightful animal companions have not, do not, and will not make them equal in nature to the human species.

Granny, you still make a gratuitous and unfounded claim that humans are the only species on earth to exhibit intellect and will. Of course normal humans are intellectually far more versatile than normal chimps, but chimps are far more versatile than turtles, and turtles than tube worms. Look at the work of Marc Bekoff, Celia Deane Drummond, Gillian Sebestyen and others. If all and only humans have immortal souls, clearly intellect and will are not exclusively “powers of the soul.”

Psychologist Dr Gillian Sebestyen writes: “We shared 23 million years of evolution with great apes and then diverged approximately six million years ago. Gorillas have highly complex forms of non-verbal communication. I think we are looking back at what sort of communications skills we may have once had.” Sebeysten is at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London.

StAnastasia
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StAnastasia said:
Granny, you still make a gratuitous and unfounded claim that humans are the only species on earth to exhibit intellect and will. .

StAnastasia
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There is a slip of the tongue in the referenced post which is not mine.

Furthermore, I do not intend to violate the ban in this forum.

However, since the above and previous comments exhibit a confusion as to what Catholicism, not Descartes, teaches about intellect and will, may I suggest that this poster and other interested posters check CAF resources.

As for this granny, who accepts the doctrines of the Catholic Church regarding the origin of the human species, I am continuing research regarding the scientific reality of Adam and Eve even though it means that some of the results cannot be posted because of the ban. Of course, I will post what I can within limits.

For the best information, please use this handy link
Be sure to scroll down to find the search box for the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Blessings,
granny

These two websites contain TV ads about Catholicism. The first is from one of the Dioceses which is using them. The second is general information.
 
StAnastasia said:
Astrochemist, in keeping with the CAF ban on discussing scientific questions, let me affirm that there certainly are aspects of what it means to be human that fall outside the purview of science.

I am not sure what you mean by MRCA; that has meaning only in reference to two lineal descents, and you don’t specify about which lines you are thinking. What MRCA falling at 5000 BCE do you mean? What is your evidence for this claimed MRCA?

StAnastasia
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In trying to be more responsible with forum rules than I have been, I will decline to respond with much detail.

I am not a biologist, and so don’t understand the details of hominid biology. I have simply taken the arguments and conclusions from some Catholic biologists.

For further details, I suggest looking into the literature.
 
StAnastasia said:
Does this include Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva?
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Of course! See Dobzhansky’s “Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution.”

You could start another thread about “what is the purpose of FOPs?”

My answer would be the same answer as for dinosuars: to glorify God.
 
Schn said:
Doesn’t work unless a soul is a binary value that is either there or not based on at least one of your parents having one.
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It need not be binary, it need simply be restricted to the whole numbers.

I have never met 1/2 of a soul.
Most Recent Common Ancestor doesn’t mean all our DNA and heredity comes from them, it just means that every one has a part of their DNA.
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Indeed. They still suffice for my understanding.
There may be contemporaries of the MRCA which only have their DNA in a portion of the population. I suppose this portion would have diluted souls, and become scientists.
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I like the comment about scientists. Very funny. 😉
 
Memaw said:
Can those “other animals” read or write or “act” on their ‘free will’ to choose right from wrong"??? Those other animals act according to the nature and instincts GOD has placed in them. NO comparison between them and Mankind. God Bless, Memaw
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Memaw, you lump as lot of things together than should not necessarily be lumped together. Reading and writing are specialized forms of communication that reflect greater cognitive development. Not all animals reflect this development; not all humans do either. As for choosing right from wrong, there are interesting studies on animal proto-morality. Due to the ban on posting about science I cannot offer detailed specific references. But you might enjoy reading Marc Bekoff’s The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter. Also good is Jeffrey Masson, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.

Again, note that not all humans can “read or write or “act” on their ‘free will’ to choose right from wrong.” Basing possession of a “soul” on these criteria can be risky.

StAnastasia
 
Astrochemist said:
Of course! See Dobzhansky’s “Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution.” You could start another thread about “what is the purpose of FOPs?” My answer would be the same answer as for dinosuars: to glorify God.
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How does Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva glorify any sort of God other than a sadistic one?
 
StAnastasia said:
I take it you don’t understand what FOP is or does, or else you wouldn’t be so glib about it.
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I believe that everything, everything that exists, insofar as it exists, exists for the glory of God. I believe this is true especially for those things that exist in nature, regardless of what they may happen to do to the human animal.

Stars, botulinum toxin, water molecules floating in space, and even the demons.

That doesn’t mean that everything that exists is doing (moral or physical) good in the world. It’s just that everything that exists was either made by God, or made by something made by God, and exists for His glory.
 
StAnastasia said:
I take it you don’t have much respect for Catholic priests or bishops who are also scientists.
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I have much respect for Catholic priests who are scientists (more because they are Priests than because they are scientists). I myself am a scientist.

I still stand by that I find the comment very funny. Maybe my humor has been skewed by my diluted soul…
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
Yet for the sake of arguing though, how come there aren’t any prehistoric tools made out of dino bones? I’m pretty sure that the likes of Deinonychus (with its big nasty claw) would’ve made a decent source of cutlery at the very least. Ceratopsian horns as well, would’ve been used for spears. I’ve seen no evidence of neither. Furthermore, I believe it was Philippe here who suggested that dinosaurs still existed in Roman times? Humans naturally tend to utilize everything, so wouldn’t that mean that if dinos really survived that long, we’d have more evidence of humans utilizing them? :ehh:
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There are no tools around the Pyramids, on Easter Island, in Tiahuanaco (Bolivia), and in many more places where humans left big constructions, made of blocks weighing tons and we still have no clue as to how they made them or how they move them. Does the lack of these tools mean that man didn’t use tools to cut and move those blocks?

Man made and used tools made of rocks more than any other material prior to the bronze or iron age. There were more rocks than bones out in the open. That’s why they call it the Stone Age, not the Bone Age.

Maybe bone tools from dinos are in the same boat with the missing link, waiting to be found.
 
Astrochemist said:
I That doesn’t mean that everything that exists is doing (moral or physical) good in the world. It’s just that everything that exists was either made by God, or made by something made by God, and exists for His glory.
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OK, how does FOP grlorify God?
 
StAnastasia said:
Memaw, you lump as lot of things together than should not necessarily be lumped together. Reading and writing are specialized forms of communication that reflect greater cognitive development. Not all animals reflect this development; not all humans do either. As for choosing right from wrong, there are interesting studies on animal proto-morality. Due to the ban on posting about science I cannot offer detailed specific references. But you might enjoy reading Marc Bekoff’s The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter. Also good is Jeffrey Masson, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals.

Again, note that not all humans can “read or write or “act” on their ‘free will’ to choose right from wrong.” Basing possession of a “soul” on these criteria can be risky.

StAnastasia
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The real problem is lumping human beings in the same limited category as animals.

Having read a wonderful study on the mathematical similarities between a small group of humans and a small group of animals, I should point out that reading and writing are skills along with basic mathematics.

The question which research avoids is – Are these learned or intuitive skills the same as the human’s inherent tools of reason, self reflection, logical evaluation, and analytical thought? Researchers along with
readers & interpreters of research avoid that question because science avoids the spiritual soul of the human species.

Enjoy the animal stories. I know of a real incident which took place at the Brookfield Zoo. However, just because the animal exhibited human emotions and human altruism, she didn’t move out to the suburbs.

Blessings,
granny

Human life is sacred because it is soul and body.
 
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