where do dinosaurs and cavemen fit into the bible, or does it?

Originally posted by Alliance
Especially because if one of them got eaten....that was it for humans.

I'm sure people will present a lame answer like "God protected them"

Regret will have a good answer for how it could happen.

I just say religion is cr@p.

Lol, no, I do not have a good answer for how that could have happened.

Dinosaurs died out ~65 million years ago. The first hominids appear ~3.6 million years ago.

Given this, dinosaurs were dead well before the appearance of Adam and Eve outside the Garden.

I would state that the dinosaurs died off some time prior to Eve eating the fruit. And there is no evidence for what the Garden was like, they may not have seen or even heard giant dinosaurs moving around outside it.

Originally posted by Regret
Lol, no, I do not have a good answer for how that could have happened.

Dinosaurs died out ~65 million years ago. The first hominids appear ~3.6 million years ago.

Given this, dinosaurs were dead well before the appearance of Adam and Eve outside the Garden.

I would state that the dinosaurs died off some time prior to Eve eating the fruit. And there is no evidence for what the Garden was like, they may not have seen or even heard giant dinosaurs moving around outside it.

You confuse me there.... You state that 1) Dinosaur's existed long before the first human ancestors appeared, but then you speak of the Garden of Eden and that dinosaurs may not of been inside of it.

Not being confrontational, but how do you mix evolution 'hominids evolving into Homo sapiens' and the Garden of Eden 'Humans being created'? Or how do you see the two mixing together and not contradicting each other?

Hello Regret........don't think I have conversed with you on this forum......I pop in and out sparingly these days. Since you seem to be an intelligent fellow, please enlighten me on how you reconsile the following items from the bible with today's knowledge.

- The flood story. I'm fairly positive there have been many great floods in different geographical locations throughout the history of civilization. There are flood stories that predate the bible so I'm fairly certain the original tale was based on a real flood of that area. To ancient man living in that area, that was the world. They had no knowledge of the New World, Antartica or even Australia if memory serves. At the time of the writing of the bible, the author could certainly construe this as the "whole world" being flooded. That said, the bible is said to be written by god or information handed to man by god. Certainly a god would know of the New World even if ancient man had never transversed the oceans. How is it then the author could construe a flood of the entire world he knew of as being the whole world?

If one is to contend that the entire earth was flooded (which is pretty close to being impossible).....how would one account for Noah's ark? If Noah had 2 of every species of animal life on earth.......what did he feed them? In 40 days, 2 tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetah, leopards, etc. would need to feed on much meat. Did he bring 60 of one certain animal to feed the rest? How did Noah collect 2 specimens of every species? Aren't there like over 10 million species of insect alone? What about the animals only indiginous to the New World? How could Noah have collected these animals when he did not even know these continents existed?

- You referenced the Adam and Eve fable earlier. Certainly in those ancient times those people were creating a story to account for the emergence of human beings and had no knowledge of DNA. The story, as told by the bible, is that Adam was created first. To make Adam's companion, Eve, god took Adam's rib to create her. The DNA of Adam's rib was the same DNA in every other cell of his body. If Eve was created from Adam's rib......she too would have had the same DNA in every cell of her body as that of Adam. It's a process we call cloning today......using the cell of one individual to create an entirely new individual, a genetic double. How then was Eve female? Why use a rib in the first place? Adam was made from dirt.......why did god need readily available genetic material to clone another human and not just make another from dirt?

- this is not a flame question. I would seriously like to know this from a person who appears to be intelligent but still boasts, "I believe in the bible".......unfortunately they are few and far between so my question falls to you.

Many things in the bible can be taken as morality tales. Many however claim things that we know today to be flat out impossible. One such occurance is the timeline of our planet. Our earth is just over 4 billion years old, yet the timeline in the bible places it at just over 6,000 years old. Surely there are things in the bible that you recognize that aren't true.......even if only one. If there's one thing in the bible that even a Christian has to admit ," okay, that one's not true...it's a metaphor or a tale not to be taken litterally as it's physically impossible or simply a plain wrong answer to a question we now know the correct answer to"....can they truely say they believe in the bible if they don't believe every single syllable printed therein? If one is to believe one word of the bible is wrong, mis-translated or edited.......why do they believe any other part of it and not hold it to the same standard of being wrong, mis-translated, mis-interpreted or edited?

Originally posted by Robtard
You confuse me there.... You state that 1) Dinosaur's existed long before the first human ancestors appeared, but then you speak of the Garden of Eden and that dinosaurs may not of been inside it.

Not being confrontational, but how do you mix evolution 'hominids evolving into Homo sapiens' and the Garden of Eden 'Humans being created'? Or how do you see the two mixing together and not contradicting each other?

The Bible does not speak in any way as to the method of creation.

The time frame of the Biblical creation is not necessarily a literal six days, as we refer to days, event.

The Garden did not necessarily hold all of God's creations.

Genesis 3:18
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

Not existing in the Garden of Eden.

Even hominids did not exist at the time of the dinosaurs, thus man could not have.

Belief in the Bible does not prohibit the possibility of evolution. It is only a very narrow view that would state such. The Bible itself says man was created from the "dust of the ground"

Genesis 2:7
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

What process was used in creating man from the dust of the ground? Sounds to me like evolution, couldn't evolution claim that man was formed from the dust of the ground and hold its stance, especially if the term day is an arbitrary amount of time?

I do not deny the possibility of evolution, but it is a possible method of creation. I'm sorry, but I don't believe in "poof, there it is"

Originally posted by Regret
The Bible does not speak in any way as to the method of creation.

The time frame of the Biblical creation is not necessarily a literal six days, as we refer to days, event.

The Garden did not necessarily hold all of God's creations.

Not existing in the Garden of Eden.

Even hominids did not exist at the time of the dinosaurs, thus man could not have.

Belief in the Bible does not prohibit the possibility of evolution. It is only a very narrow view that would state such. The Bible itself says man was created from the "dust of the ground"

What process was used in creating man from the dust of the ground? Sounds to me like evolution, couldn't evolution claim that man was formed from the dust of the ground and hold its stance, especially if the term day is an arbitrary amount of time?

I do not deny the possibility of evolution, but it is a possible method of creation. I'm sorry, but I don't believe in "poof, there it is"

I get what you are saying, I believe in evolution but I cannot imagine how it all started, maybe that's where God fits in.

But I do believe the Bible states that Adam was created as we are now, so not sure how you can hold the Bible as truth alongside evolution. Thanks for the input.

Originally posted by Evil Dead
Hello Regret........don't think I have conversed with you on this forum......I pop in and out sparingly these days. Since you seem to be an intelligent fellow, please enlighten me on how you reconsile the following items from the bible with today's knowledge.

- The flood story. I'm fairly positive there have been many great floods in different geographical locations throughout the history of civilization. There are flood stories that predate the bible so I'm fairly certain the original tale was based on a real flood of that area. To ancient man living in that area, that was the world. They had no knowledge of the New World, Antartica or even Australia if memory serves. At the time of the writing of the bible, the author could certainly construe this as the "whole world" being flooded. That said, the bible is said to be written by god or information handed to man by god. Certainly a god would know of the New World even if ancient man had never transversed the oceans. How is it then the author could construe a flood of the entire world he knew of as being the whole world?

If one is to contend that the entire earth was flooded (which is pretty close to being impossible).....how would one account for Noah's ark? If Noah had 2 of every species of animal life on earth.......what did he feed them? In 40 days, 2 tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetah, leopards, etc. would need to feed on much meat. Did he bring 60 of one certain animal to feed the rest? How did Noah collect 2 specimens of every species? Aren't there like over 10 million species of insect alone? What about the animals only indiginous to the New World? How could Noah have collected these animals when he did not even know these continents existed?

The flood was just under 26 feet deep by the measurement provided in Genesis.

Genesis 7:18-20
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

A cubit being ~20.61 inches by the largest recorded measurement.

As far as the animals, imo it was only those that were local to his area, the area being flooded.

Now, aside from the information in the Bible there is no other account of Noah that I am aware of.

As to the Bible, and its authors, the Bible was written around the time of Moses. Prior to that time it was mainly passed through word of mouth. The Bible is basically a journal written by the men that interacted with God, it is their account of their experiences, at times written by someone that heard the story, but did not witness it.

Here is some advice we(Mormons) were given for reading the Bible, "Do you read the scriptures, my brethren and sisters, as though you were writing them a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them?" (Discourses of Brigham Young, pp. 197, 198)

Originally posted by Evil Dead
- You referenced the Adam and Eve fable earlier. Certainly in those ancient times those people were creating a story to account for the emergence of human beings and had no knowledge of DNA. The story, as told by the bible, is that Adam was created first. To make Adam's companion, Eve, god took Adam's rib to create her. The DNA of Adam's rib was the same DNA in every other cell of his body. If Eve was created from Adam's rib......she too would have had the same DNA in every cell of her body as that of Adam. It's a process we call cloning today......using the cell of one individual to create an entirely new individual, a genetic double. How then was Eve female? Why use a rib in the first place? Adam was made from dirt.......why did god need readily available genetic material to clone another human and not just make another from dirt?

My above post describes my view of evolution. If this were the method used it would have been a very long time before a woman would have been made. As to the rib, I don't know. If it were a cloning then God could have manipulated the DNA at that point, but if he used evolution this would be unnecessary.

Originally posted by Evil Dead
- this is not a flame question. I would seriously like to know this from a person who appears to be intelligent but still boasts, "I believe in the bible".......unfortunately they are few and far between so my question falls to you.

Many things in the bible can be taken as morality tales. Many however claim things that we know today to be flat out impossible. One such occurance is the timeline of our planet. Our earth is just over 4 billion years old, yet the timeline in the bible places it at just over 6,000 years old. Surely there are things in the bible that you recognize that aren't true.......even if only one. If there's one thing in the bible that even a Christian has to admit ," okay, that one's not true...it's a metaphor or a tale not to be taken litterally as it's physically impossible or simply a plain wrong answer to a question we now know the correct answer to"....can they truely say they believe in the bible if they don't believe every single syllable printed therein? If one is to believe one word of the bible is wrong, mis-translated or edited.......why do they believe any other part of it and not hold it to the same standard of being wrong, mis-translated, mis-interpreted or edited?

My above post deals somewhat with the issue of time, but it does not address it fully. For instance the stars, moon, and sun were not created in the Bible until the fourth day. Given this, we have no reference to time at this point. Also, if the universe is expanding, and changes did occur, it is entirely possible that one rotation of the earth was not the near 24 hours that it is today. The term "day" is only to separate creative periods, it does not necessitate 24 hours.

The Bible does not eliminate the possibility of events occurring outside the Garden. I would assume evolution could have been the method for the creation of "man" and Adam and Eve were the first people that existed at the point in evolution that God considered to be "man."

The Bible shouldn't be read as limiting, if it is true then it should work with scientific fact. If fact does not coincide with the interpretation then the interpretation is wrong. If fact and Bible cannot be reconciled then the Bible is false. The Bible can be read by a person with an open mind and it does not need to disagree with science.

Being Mormon, we have additional scripture as well as modern prophets. We do not believe the Bible is translated completely accurately. We believe that God speaks to man still, and continues to aid in our understanding. But, we are counseled to study things out, do a personal search, make sure that the counsel is sound, personally pray concerning counsel.

I am fairly open minded, and try to assume people are inherently good and attempting to be good. Given this I try not to be insulted. Many times people do things that offend my views on God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. Given their lack of understanding of my views I let them slide, it isn't my place to be offended. As such, I find that very seldom does a person intentionally insult the things I consider sacred in response to a post of mine or when posting to me. Don't worry about having a post considered "flaming" by me, I try to avoid making the assumption that a post is meant as such.

understood...... but if you do not hold every word of the bible accurate, how can you hold any word of the bible accurate? You stated yourself you believed in mis-translations.....so how do you go about choosing which parts are accurate and which parts aren't? It just sounds like a pick and choose system........take what you like......what you know to be false or don't like is an inaccurate translation. If that be the case.....why use the bible at all? Why not just build your own belief system from the ground up so you know everything is 100% accurate to your beliefs, no mis-translations.

Mormons believe in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible is an account of their dealings with men. Scripture is holy in that it is the record of that interaction. It would be foolhardy to rid oneself of history just because there are a number of errors found in it, why would religious history be any different? The creation, the flood, various things like this are important concepts in Biblical religion, but the important part of a true belief system is not the Scripture that supports it. The important part of a belief system is the basic concept of its teachings. I responded to a post from Urizen in one of these recent threads, in it I stated that Biblical religions should boil down to two key concepts:

1 Love God
2 Love everyone else

These concepts are the only aspect of religion that is wholly important to religion in my eyes. If a religion does not promote these, then it is false. A Biblical religion particularly a Christian Biblical religion is false if these are not encompassed with the religions goals. I provide explanation as to dealing with seemingly contradiction to this in the OT in one of my posts to Urizen.

In summary, the Bible is a history of communication from God as well as general history surrounding that communication. It must be approached as any history would be, with tact and intelligent study. It is kept because the contents are valuable even if some errors have occurred through the passage of time in its text.

Edit: Plus it would seem stupid to ask the same question of God over and over again if the answer in the Bible makes sense.

even in historical context..........why choose the bible over all the other texts of the period? Many of which contradict the stories of the bible.....which is the very reason they were not included in the first place.

One needs no religion to have morality, compasion, etc. ......so I'm not with the whole "love god" thing....

Originally posted by Evil Dead
even in historical context..........why choose the bible over all the other texts of the period? Many of which contradict the stories of the bible.....which is the very reason they were not included in the first place.

One needs no religion to have morality, compasion, etc. ......so I'm not with the whole "love god" thing....

I choose the Bible because of its claim mainly, and because I believe in organization. Nothing that I am aware of acts entirely without order. Chaos theory itself is a description of order, the theory that we term "Chaos" is really the antithesis to Chaotic. I cannot believe in disorder, it does not seem to be a beneficial state of existence. The Bible shows an ordered God, and if God exists he is a being of order. The Bible shows structure, it shows methodology, it shows consistency. Religious texts do not typically provide these things.

Now, I don't choose the Bible "over" other texts. I read the Tao te Ching regularly, and believe that a person adhering its advice would be a better Christian than most Christians are. I have read over the Quran, and believe that much of its text was inspired by God. I have read some of the writings of the Buddhists now (thanks Shaky) and I believe that much of their beliefs are inspired. I have read much of the great philosophers, and much of what they say holds value, and perhaps truth. I have read many other texts. I believe in purpose and order.

Even given the good and truthful aspects of these other texts, their adherents lack order to a degree.

The Tao te Ching provides little order to Taoists as a whole, and it also lacks the claim of divine intervention.

The Buddhists are organized, but there is no need to be Buddhist, only to be disciplined and meditate appropriately.

The Muslims show the same error as mainstream Christianity, in that they lack current direction, and are limited to ancient text, which must not be enough. A Muslim on here stated that the Quran was given because the Biblical people fell away. There are numerous sects of Muslims, that believe various things, it seems that Islam is in the same state that it claims the Biblical peoples were in. Given this, their system is wrong because it lacks sustainability in that no new revelation will be given.

Christians that do not believe in revelation at this time, which I believe is the majority and typically term mainstream Christianity, has the same problem as Islam. There are too many sects, and few claim to be right. Mainstream Christianity is Chaos. Given this Bible alone is lacking. If God exists more instruction is necessary.

My religion is one of few, if any, that claims three things I believe to be important.

1 Divine intervention as impetus
2 Continued Divine intervention as maintenance
3 Thorough organization and Order in its actions

I believe, that given the nature of order in the universe, the third is extremely important and a religion without such is lacking.

I shall not debate your beliefs. whatever works for you, works for you. thank you for actually conversing intelligently with me in this forum, something extremely rare here.

You are welcome

Ahahahahahahah.... Ahahahahahahhaha. Ahahahahahaha.

Just read an article in the paper here - apparently Evangelical Church groups are trying to pressure the Kenyan museum to scrap, or vastly downplay, their world famous display of hominid fossils, including some of the most important evolutionary discoveries of all time. Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, the head of Christ is the Answer Ministries, the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya, had this to say:

Our doctrine is not that we evolved from apes, and we have grave concerns that the museum wants to enhance the prominence of something presented as fact which is just one theory.

Bishop Adoyo said all the country's churches would unite to force the museum to change its focus when it reopens after 18 months of renovations in June next year.

"We will write to them, we will call them, we will make sure our people know about this and we will see what we can do to make our voice known," he said.

This wouldn't be so bad, but apparently this particular Church is receiving support from Churches outside of Kenya. Tch, when will they ever learn? I can only imagine what he wants the museum to put in its place. An empty box perhaps, symbolising the trove of proof for creation?

Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
Ahahahahahahah.... Ahahahahahahhaha. Ahahahahahaha.

Just read an article in the paper here - apparently Evangelical Church groups are trying to pressure the Kenyan museum to scrap, or vastly downplay, their world famous display of hominid fossils, including some of the most important evolutionary discoveries of all time. Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, the head of Christ is the Answer Ministries, the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya, had this to say:

This wouldn't be so bad, but apparently this particular Church is receiving support from Churches outside of Kenya. Tch, when will they ever learn? I can only imagine what he wants the museum to put in its place. An empty box perhaps, symbolising the trove of proof for creation?

The creationists have made up a lot of stuff to go in that box. 😱 Like dinosaurs living with humans.

I have asked this questions many times and have gotten many different responses and it all comes down to the answer "You must have faith", which is a bunch of BS to me.

Originally posted by ThePittman
I have asked this questions many times and have gotten many different responses and it all comes down to the answer "You must have faith", which is a bunch of BS to me.

People are confused about faith. Many Christians have blind faith not true faith. No matter how much evidence you can show them that what they believe is incorrect, they will not change their belief. I have faith in science; I have faith in evolution, but if tomorrow someone finds something that truly and completely states that evolution is wrong, I will no longer believe in evolution.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
The creationists have made up a lot of stuff to go in that box. 😱 Like dinosaurs living with humans.

Last time I lived with a dinosaur it ate me. It's a biotch being dead.

I personally believe that dinosaurs lived and died between the fifth and sixth days of creation. (It should be obvious I see the days of creation as phases. I always found it interesting that the author of Genesis knew that plants preceded water animals and that water animals preceded land animals.)

Originally posted by Nellinator
I personally believe that dinosaurs lived and died between the fifth and sixth days of creation. (It should be obvious I see the days of creation as phases. I always found it interesting that the author of Genesis knew that plants preceded water animals and that water animals preceded land animals.)

Originally posted by ThePittman
I have asked this questions many times and have gotten many different responses and it all comes down to the answer "You must have faith", which is a bunch of BS to me.

Faith... In other words, a lack of proof.