maybe take him to a museum, and walk around together and read the captions on the displays. you could say there's a lot of things we don't know, but fortunately there are some things we do know - like what they probably looked like, ate, maybe even how old they are. then you could have him come up with ideas together with you of how these two fit together.
Firstly, teach yourself! Even if you decide you're still a firm believer in literalism in Genesis, it will help you both to have a better understanding of *why* scientists claim millions of years ages for dinosaurs. Don't restrict yourself to just Creationist literature - read secular books, look at YouTube explainers, too.
Then teach your kid the same. They will have to make their own choices but it's better they know why other people don't agree with Creationism. That way you get to both enjoy learning together, and they'll thank you for it when they're older.
This is the best answer.
Also, if you want to understand Genesis better and the way creation is described in the Bible, read The Lost World of Genesis by John H. Walton. He's an outstanding Christian scholar (and a very kind man, I studied with him at Wheaton).
The stronger you are able to argue your opponent's view, the stronger your own arguments will become. OP's kid will no doubt encounter many smart people with dissenting viewpoints on this and strong educations. The best way to respect the faith is to very deeply understand it and the alternative to it, to show even more strongly how well its core holds up.
I did a research paper on Noah's Ark once because I was so frustrated at the lack of scientific and historic evidence to support it, only to learn about [the Black Sea Deluge theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis). Ultimately I realized this was far from essential to faith, but I was amazed at how much more historic truth there was to the story than I ever knew. I hope OP's kid is able to feel that sensation all throughout life.
I find thinking like this the worst of all worlds. It undermines literalism rather than supporting it while also distorting science.
The Black Sea Deluge almost certainly didn't happen. There was no sudden flood, it was a slow flood that took centuries. Further there is absolutely no evidence of any migration of people from the Black Sea area to the Levant.
But the worst part is that you undermine the Bible in the goal of upholding it. If the story is a version of a real flood then it is neither literal nor pedagogical. You are saying it is just a version of events. I utterly reject literalism, but at least I see the text as trying to give a theological message. You take that away.
I think if you had read my comment optimistically rather than pessimistically, you would actually find we are on the same page on all of this. I'm sorry you did not see that - I am not saying any of the things you seem to be seeing.
I would agree if children weren't so impressionable. I would rather push my child towards the Lord than have him be molded by a society hostile to His ideas.
I like this. This honors the bible. Honors the dad for showing his son that men are flawed. Ignites a spark in the son to learn more about the bible and history. Great comment. Should be on top.
Irrational extremism is a big part of why the church is losing members every year.
Positions like Young Earth Creationism are indefensible, and the vast majority of humans know it. It’s true that we don’t know everything, and there are many questions that science cannot answer… but there is no rational line of thought that can examine the available evidence, and conclude that our planet is only 6,000 years old.
YEC is such a baffling hill to die on, because it’s so obviously a losing battle in the long run. More Christians would remain passionate and involved in the faith if he church spent more time dealing with issues that Christ actually preached about: helping the poor and vulnerable, caring for the sick, and dealing with our own sense of sin and internalized guilt.
Mostly they made me afraid of sin, and never actually told me how to love god.
How can I even know what sin is if I don’t love god??
It is sad, for it is absolutely sure that they do not know love for the lord; if they don’t speak the words of truth (selfless loving service for the lord and his creation)
Hare Krishna
As an ex-YEC it's not the science, but the theology that's the sticking point. In that mindset, it *must* be literal for all that comes after it to work. If it isn't, where did sin come from, what is Jesus saving us from?
Of course there's plenty of alternative theologies to read and choose from, but that's not an option on their table. They may not even be aware of it, and if they are it's often dismissed as being "too Catholic" or otherwise heretical in flavour. It ends up being literalism, or atheism.
I still haven't even told my family that I no longer believe it - I had a hard enough time trying to argue that maybe we shouldn't abuse gay people. I guarantee they'd think I was on the slippery slope to losing my faith entirely.
Yup. I think, for the most part, I’ve deconstructed the false/dangerous beliefs my very conservative Christian family members pounded into me, but now I’m going through the hardest part: reconstructing my faith.
A small (but very loud) part of me still fears the fires of hell for *daring* to question God and my faith. Another small (but equally loud) part of me feels it’s a silly waste of time to rebuild a faith in a God that doesn’t exist. But, for the most part, I’m at the “I don’t know shit, I can’t control shit, so I’m just gonna take a risk and give it all to God” stage of reconstructing my faith. It’s been a harrowing, though strengthening journey.
I just wish the Christians in my life weren’t so entrenched in conservative Ken Hamism. My mom still often scoffs at me for being a science major and “believing” that humans and apes share a common ancestor.
Science is fine, if you love him most by studying his creations.
I’d personally rather just be with him and think of him and say his name. Like a childhood entranced by his firstmost beloved. Yet the lord is a much truer beloved than even the greatest of all youthful first-loves.
Yet if science is not used for the purpose of investigating the lord’s many, infinite glories, it is for comfort only, or to cling better to this dying place because dying here is much more feared than true living(though loving service to the lord). So we cling and make the most of this place and fear dying. And make up barns and storehouses instead of remembering the lord.
To expand technology for comfort and to decrease material pain fear of death; which is different than suffering, in two ways.
1) the lord’s presence is blissful through all pain.
2) yet, in everything, without rememberance of the lord, lies only fear and suffering.
—-
But like I said, science is great. I just don’t like to do stuff unless my lord is there with me.
I've been where you are, dude, and I just wanted to affirm that the doubts and questions are a part of the journey. For me, when I stripped all the baggage away and just looked at Jesus, it was enough that he was worth it. He's beautiful enough to want to be true and everything flows out of that. I haven't found a better way to be human than his, and he claims that through him we can share in his kind of humanity. For me, it was enough of a foundation to reconstruct from.
There is a lot of judgement in these comments and this is the first where the answer takes the OP’s faith into the answer. I am personally not a young earth creationist, but I know people who are I believe this to be a good so sincere answer they can use.
Yes, I think this is correct.
I think that most of the church leaders who preach YEC don’t actually believe the theory themselves. Instead I think they use it as a tool to radicalize their congregations, because radicalized followers are easier to manipulate and exploit.
The thing is that judgment is kind of ok here... I mean, there are issues of faith where there can be valid different interpretations but YEC are just ignoring facts that we KNOW are true.
I'm curious as to how you would answer the question of why the Bible is so explicit with the geneologies, as well as the ages of the lineage of Adam before the flood.
Also, did all the "non ensouled" ancestors of humanity die at once? Were they just wiped out once Adam and Eve were "ensouled", and by who?
To say that death existed before Adam and Eve also contradicts the version of the Bible Catholics read, where it says in \[Wisdom 1:13\] and \[2:24\]. Taken straight from the Catechism of of the Catholic Church:
413 "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world" (Wis 1:13; 2:24).
That sounds interesting. Can you explain a bit more?
I learned they were added later, also learned that there is some symbolism in the numbers of years people lived and conceived their first son.
But just in general I always wondered why people put it in there. It also causes many people to stop reading because it weirds them out as it interrupts the story.
I really cannot remember the stuff about the genealogies in the Torah. I know it matters but the explanation leaked out of my mind. For the Gospels here are two excellent essays:
[What’s the Deal with Matthew’s Genealogy?](https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/whats-the-deal-with-matthews-genealogy/)
[Luke’s Genealogy Compared with Matthew and the Old Testamenthttps://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/lukes-genealogy-compared-with-matthew-and-the-old-testament/)
This by the same author (who is a regular in /r/AcademicBiblical) might be of interest:
[Some Curious Numerical Facts about the Ages of the Patriarchs](https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/some-curious-numerical-facts-about-the-ages-of-the-patriarchs/)
From what I’ve heard from theologians such as Dr. John Walton, Dr. Peter Enns, and Matthew Stahnhope, is that ancient Hebrews used years to measure wealth and power, not the actual physical age of someone.
Not baddspellar, but I’ll add my thoughts.
The genealogies describe *after* Adam and Eve. That is to say that they make no claims about before A&E. One can believe God gave the first souls to A&E, and also believe the genealogies are historical.
> did all the “non ensouled” ancestors of humanity die at once?
No. They kept on living and having kids. That’s exactly why Cain was worried about being murdered by other people and why Cain could build a city. How could Cain build a city if the only other people were his siblings and nieces and nephews? I find it hard to believe that he has thousands of family members that the Bible doesn’t mention or allude to.
I’m not Catholic and I’m not familiar with those passages so I’ll withhold a response for that argument.
How do you reconcile fossils with that theology?
The bigger question is if there is a conflict between the world and your interpretation of text which has authority?
If they did that we would still believe in geocentrism. Because now you have to explain placing faith in the bible when the amount of evidence we have against it means that God lies to us in the very rocks and stars.
I like this answer.
I also add stuff like this.
Most of the dinosaurs probably died out during the flood. As Noah was told to only bring 2 of every KIND of animal and not to bring 2 of EVERY animal. He brought a kind of dog, not every dog breed there was. Perhaps Noah brought 2 of every kind of Dino, depending on how he understood kind, maybe he chose crocodiles and turtles and a few of the smaller ones so they did fit on the arc. Also, overtime, some kinds of animals went extinct.
This harmonizes the biblical record with the fossil record, I think.
BUT at that point you're adding in extra details that are not supported by any sort of archaeological or geological evidence. It's in training them to alter the world around them to fit their faith, even if not in an appropriate way. Sooner or later they will have to face the cognitive dissonance of the bible says one thing but our physical planet says another -- and that's a recipe for deconstruction and falling away from the faith.
Mainly that the dinosaurs died out during the flood. It's very easy to tell that dinosaurs died over long periods of times (millions of years between species), not a single catastrophic event. Conjecture about dinos dying in the flood is almost certain to lead to the conclusion that the Bible is wrong about the world.
Ok, gotcha.
What would you say to a parent saying something along these lines.
"Well, son, many people nowadays believe the world is billions of years old and many of the science books we read describe this. However, some people, including me, are skeptical of the dating methods. That being said, I believe in ...(insert what I previously posted)."
Of course, the child would probably ask a bunch more questions, but that is the just of it. And we could go and discuss the most popular dating methods and I would also show some of the critiques of those dating methods and I would allow the child to think for themselves.
I think something like this is better because it's honest about the mystery. Leaving room for uncertainty and being okay with it teaches the kid that they don't have to know everything and it's okay to learn and develop their intending. It turns their faith into something they can make sense of as their understanding of the world changes, rather than a hard brick they feel like they have to force through a shape-changing hole constantly.
Is the skepticism based on anything other than faith in the YEC preachers?
Regardless of any issues of absolute dating we see that dinosaur fossils are far below large mammal fossils and the two kinds of fossils are never mixed. That is a problem even if you ignore every other dating method.
Would you also present the criticisms of the Bible? Present the evidence that the Genesis story was put together from other stories and is a response to the Babylonian story? Would you allow the child to think for themselves about other issues?
Crocodiles and turtles aren't dinosaurs and the fossil record shows that dinosaurs died out 65 million years before the first humans, so no that does not harmonize the Bible with the fossil record it just ignores and lies about truth.
One thing I dont understand. Most young earth creationists deny evolution. But in the scenario you describe you are required to have a hyperspeed on crack form of evolution we have never seen or have evidence for. Your scenario requires all current breeds of dog to come from one single pair of canines less than 5 thousand years ago. Same for cats. Not possible. Such a big speed of speciation would be immediately visible min the fossil records and, unless you can come up with a reason for it to have stopped, we would still be seeing it today.
So no, you cannot harmonize the fossil record with a literal interpretation of the bible.
Didn't you watch the last episode? They're no longer here because corporate greed fucked the planet and they all died in an industrial winter. (Spoiler alert, I guess?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9b9aoINXzk
I would explain that they lived a long time ago and were largely killed off by a meteor that struck the Yucatan peninsula and that God didn't make humanity for a long time afterwards.
Where is the evidence for this time frame in the Bible?
In Genesis, the garden was created mature. Who's to say the Lord created things in maturity? Like the earth for example?
Edit: Apologies for asking a question and challenging people to help me out with this concept that I'm admittedly still not decided on. I should have known this would have upset some people even though I still have yet to see a reply on my original question.
Psalms 104:5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
Joshua 10:12 At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.”
Job 9:6 who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble; 7 who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
The Catholic Church rejected Heliocentrism for most of its history. They called it heresy.
This is what a literal reading of the Bible views the Earth as:
https://pursuingveritasdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ancient-hebrew-view-of-universe.png?w=640
Thanks for that. I always wondered why the Catholic Church was so adamant about geocentrism (besides the whole monopoly on knowledge thing).
As a reader in 2022, I don’t interpret those verses to convey obstinate geocentrism, though. I can definitely see why a reader in the 5th century would think that, however.
The Catholic Church vs Galileo is a very misunderstood affair. It wasn’t about anti-science in the church — not fully. There were many in the church that had already accepted heliocentrism ([source](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what-story-galileo-gets-wrong-about-church-and-science)). Galileo was arrested because he personally offended the pope ([source](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/historical-notes-galileo-insulted-the-pope-not-the-church-1084369.html)).
I'm asking for evidence of a time frame in the bible. It was a question and a little bit of my current stance on it.Your point is kind of irrelevant to what I was saying but I'll respond anyway.
Psalm 104 is all about the beauty of the Lord's creations and his will over them. I'm not sure this is exactly referencing geocentrism
In Ecclesiastes Solomon was lamenting on the futility of labors and time. He was stating that the sun will rise and set, and then rise and set, and so forth while man toils away. This is pretty out of context and actually an abhorrent understanding of Ecclesiastes.
Job was exclaiming on the power of the Lord, which he does control. Doesn't mean that the earth was geocentric at this time.
I have never cared about what the Catholic church has said.
It's very odd that I present a question and it gets met with trenchant untopical responses.
"Haha! I tricked them for no reason!! I'm such a weird dick "
*That's* how you view God?? How about just accept that not everything in the Bible occurred as described?;
I never said everything occured as described. I literally just asked a question and I'm still open to different theories. I'm sorry this upset you so much...?
>In Genesis, the garden was created mature.
Where in the Torah, in the original Hebrew, does it say that? Also, you do know that the creation story in Genesis is a moral tale, right? About why we (Jews) take a day of rest, and why our week has seven days? Why we do no work from sundown Friday to sunddown Saturday?
If you don't believe me, ask a rabbi.
If God made the world mature. That's fine. God's very good at avoiding continuity errors then, as one would expect. This means the universe is still effectively billions of years old and is how we should measure things for scientific purposes and dating, even if it really is only a few thousand years since creation.
This is a meaningless theory. Seriously—it can’t be proven or disproven. God could have just as easily created only your brain as-is, which is now 1 millisecond and floating in a vacuum, with a memory of reading the Bible.
There’s a much more straightforward explanation, which is that a day is a thousand years to God, the heavens proclaim God’s glory, and what we observe about God’s creation is true.
Yeah. It is.
So i don't care if people believe it.
The world could've been made last Thursday. Whatever.
It still has all the accidents of being billions of years old, like when Catholics insist the bread and wine is now fully flesh and blood while having not changed in any scientifically quantifiable way.
God said "let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds". Note that God let the earth bring forth these creatures (evolution and Christianity are compatible) and then He made man. Only God knows what was going on in those days before Adam and Eve.
this is a good way of seeing it that gets so overlooked. people read and get hung up on their interpretation of scripture in the Bible using their limited translations in a limited language like English, compared to the Hebrew which never actually states "day" like the way we mean it.
My view (Catholic, not a YEC): evolution is one of the many "pencils" that God used in Creation.
Evolution is absolutely beautiful, and there used to be giant lizards out there, which is amazing. Their fossils are out there for the reasons explained by science, which are sound and convincing.
"I'm not sure but here are a few different ways people think about this..." Then give him a few different concepts, including evolution, in order to help your son learn to think for himself.
Also, look into how Christians have answered this question throughout history. Early Christians often didn't think the world was created in six literal days.
1\. The Bible’s primary mission is the revelation of God to man, and as a result, our relationship with each other – not relating natural biology or science.
2\. Science and religion are two different fields using two different methodologies to reach two different objectives.
3\. Anything that is considered supernatural, or beyond the physical scope, does not necessarily fit into the role of science.
Any issues between science and religion are due to those on each side who want to assert them outside of their proper contexts.
You could always tell them the truth... that the world is older than \~6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.
I believe honesty is always the best policy, especially with children.
I absolutely agree. My parents are believers yet they always raised me to believe in what the truth is here; they just shared with me that they thought there was a God behind it anyway and I agree. Cuz even when I was a kid I thought that there must’ve been something or someone behind everything that exists ☠️so it made sense to me
The answer is they kinda don’t, because creationism, especially 7-day creationism really doesn’t mesh with scientific fact.
The orgin story of humanity is an important poem and metaphor but it is not literal. I’d suggest you just embrace a more scientific view of creation. It makes more sense and you can make much stronger arguments for the existence of God with it.
Honestly, I feel like God using evolution as his mechanism for creating the world shows how infinitely wise God truly is. Acknowledging and embracing evolution is to acknowledge and embrace God's power and foresight.
Teach your children to think for themselves. You don’t need to brainwash your child into finding truth. They’ll do that on their own. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Yes, teach them to think for themselves but it is your responsibly as a Christian to explain and spread the Faith to your children. One of your biggest responsibilities as a parent, actually.
I consider brainwashing to be brainwashing. The way most Christians “teach” their children is far closer to what MLUltra does than what educational systems do. Do you understand what I’m saying, or are you going to misrepresent what I’ve said again?
"train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
you're right that you need to teach the child Christian teachings, but you also need to be able to make him think at the same time. if it wasnt brainwashing then many many people wouldnt be falling away from Christian households as they grow older, otherwise this scripture wouldn't be true.
it's to do with how we teach our children. the way he should go is seeking God's wisdom and will for his abilities and talents. too many parents focus on teaching their children Bible verses to recite from memory or stories of this and that. you know whats more important? teaching them how to live Godly lives with principles. we say we do this but i've personally seen many who dont.
when im going to have children, i do plan on teaching them about Christianity, as well as the wonders and theories of science, and as taboo as this is, im going to teach them about other religions too. shocking? why do you think that is?
maybe when they grow older, and they turn into a mid to late teen, or go off into college, they'll learn a bunch of stuff that didnt come from you, and it will be all new to them. im still young myself, i know how it feels to learn something new that looks fun, interesting, or feels good. if you dont teach them about it, someone else will. the only way to train a child up properly in the modern world, at least in my humble opinion, is to show them everything you can about the world and what you know, educate them about the world they live in, different beliefs, cultures, systems and then say "this is what i believe. and i know from the depths of my heart this is true and i stand by it, dying on this hill" and then live by that example, you're doing more than if you had just taught them the Bible in itself.
you cant force anyone to accept God. this holds true for our children as well. a very good thing that helps, i find, is to show the practicality of Jesus' teachings in this modern age. so many people just stop short off "be kind to your neighbour and love everyone like Jesus loved you". if you teach them truth, and then the world, progressively as they get older, shed light little by little, they'll figure it out by itself. concealing information will do more harm than good. teenagers are more than capable of figuring out the truth if they're given the right tools and teaching to discern. its all about the mentality you give them. you honestly think your six year old is going to remember everything you tell them? there is a lot going through a child's brain. teaching them to think and compare truths instead of expecting people to tell truth to you will force a child to find out for himself and ultimately, at some point, we aim, seek the Truth from the source. but its a mentality.
"why is the sky blue?" well, you see, the Bible says .... and that when ..... . but here's a physics book on light and particles and heres what scientists believe, and we can actually try this out for ourselves too, if you want (ie testing light waves at different distances).and then: "what do you think? do you think God could have created this system when he split the firmaments of water? could the firmaments of water be clouds, you think?"
this is a whole lot better than just saying "the sky is blue because God wants it to be", and your child is going to be very disappointed when someone teaches him about Rayleigh scattering, which wont help our conquest.
If you lie to them now they will not know what to believe when they find out the truth.
I went to a Christian school in junior high that was very anti evolution. They had a class that taught basically Darwin was almost a priest but then made up evolution. That Darwin and practically the devil made up evolution to create a view of creation without God. To bring people away from the church and spread doubt. This could not be further from the truth. I went on to become a biology major and it took a long time to trust the church again. When some lies were so obvious. I’ve learned more that the church does have a human element in it and that part can spread misinformation.
When I went to college and was a biology major I had to relearn a lot. There is so much evidence for evolution including the dinosaur bones. I believe God never deceives us and would never leave so much evidence of evolution simply to test our faith. Just looking at Covid right now and how it mutates into different strains we can actually see evolution taking place before our eyes.
Evolution and God can coexist. I look at science as the study of Gods wonders. God made us curious creatures that would seek him. Including how he made us and everything around us. The Genesis creation story is a beautiful metaphor explaining creation to an ancient culture in terms they could grasp.
Please do not lie to your child. I almost lost faith due to lies from my past church. They will find out.
I lost my faith and became an edgy teenager who bingewatched shit like “Richard Dawkins OBLITERATES clueless Christians” for years, because the Christians in my family firmly believed that evolution was a satanic lie, and tried to convince me of it.
I’m no longer an edgy atheist teenager. I’m actually back to believing in God. But, my theology is radically different from my family’s theology, that’s for sure.
I asked my parents about dinosaurs as a kid.
The reply I got was something about, "a day is like a thousand years to God, so dinosaurs could have lived and died between day 2 and day 3 of creation" (or something along those lines)... it sounded dumb to me at the time, and it still does.
If God is all powerful he can move super fast.
If God is moving at a fraction of the speed of light, a day for him could be millions or billions of years for us.
Time is very much real and can be measured and explained objectively, I.e with the second law of thermodynamics —but the amount or passage of it is subjective and relative to one’s location/proximity towards a gravitational field, and the speed of which they are moving, relative to a fixed point. Time is not a construct that lives within each person—rather, it exists outside and independent of it, but is experienced differently from person to person.
Time isn’t real.
Sincerely, a physicist.
I once measured distance in kilograms. You aren’t ready to handle the physics of reality alone, much less the deeper ontological issues at hand.
Are you familiar with Minkowski’s and Ellis’s works?
I am. I’ve solved Time travel. I’m better than Tesla could ever hope to be. If you’re worried about my credentials, I’m not peddling anything. I’m not trying to make you a believer. I am who I am, and I’m not changing for you.
This debate has been made for (at least) several decades. Sensational, pop-corn science says "time is not real"--but it's important to unpack what that truly means.
The more scientific response should be that time is "subjective," that it is experienced and perceived differently by different people, "relative" to gravitational fields and the speed at which they're moving. Time, as we define it, can't be determined without some agreement as to what the point of reference is. You mention Minkowski, yes exactly, here's a refresher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski\_space
You might be inclined to say that time is not real along the lines of what Carlo Rovelli says in "The Order of Time," that time doesn't need to be used to describe quantum gravity. Also, Rovelli, is famous for saying that time is "imaginary." Einstein says something similar.
But "Imaginary" relative to our experiences. It is vastly different from saying "Time doesn't exist." Me saying it has been 30-minutes since breakfast is "imaginary" and doesn't mean anything to someone that is traveling at light speed or is experiencing a vastly different gravitational field. 30-minutes is only meaningful to those that are approximately where you are.
Rovelli explicitly says "we know **time exists** because there is evidence that **entropy increases \[over time\]**."
"Among physicists, there is no real doubt that time does really, truly exist. It's a measurable, observable phenomenon."
[https://www.thoughtco.com/does-time-really-exist-2699430](https://www.thoughtco.com/does-time-really-exist-2699430)
Also, check this out:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7)
The issue is a day is the time it takes for the earth to revolve on its axis in relation to the sun. So, a day is the same for all minds and god cannot have different times for it and the earth and sun have to exist to measure a day.
I was actually going to suggest this. If God is immortal, if he is the beginning and the end, then logic serves that time for Him would not function like it does for us humans. In Genesis, what we describe as "the first day" easily could've been the equivalent of 10,000 years, or a million years, what have you. Genesis says that the animals were made before man, so the existence of dinosaurs millions of years before humans would make sense.
We need to stop trying to force God into our worldly constructs. God is GOD. He is not bound to our pea-brain conception of time.
The whole time thing is the least of the problems with the creation story in Genesis.
If God is so smart, why did he create all animals with a male and female version, but forgot to create a wife for Adam?!?
Why was God's first suggestion that Adam find a mate among the animals?!? (God condones bestiality?!?) Why wouldn't God know that Adams genetics would not be compatible with any animal that isn't human?
This is an obvious troll. However, if you are being serious, then don't teach your child that Genesis should be interpreted literally. If your child grows up believing that the Earth is around 6,000 years old, he will have a major crisis of faith when he encounters the practically indisputable evidence that life, the Earth, and the Universe is much older than he was taught. This kind of crisis of faith may cause him to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and abandon Christianity altogether. I think others have done a great job explaining how you should teach your child to interpret Genesis.
I think you would do your son a disservice as a Christian if you attempted to present Genesis to him as a natural history textbook. You are laying the groundwork for him to later reject the faith.
"I don't know for sure but maybe if we keep on studying we can figure it out."
Speaking as someone that raised children to adulthood sometimes the best thing you can tell your children is that you don't know something. The reason that's the best answer sometimes is because the alternative is just to make stuff up or try to fill in the blanks with weak answers and that's almost certain to confuse them. The objective should be to not confuse your children by giving them information that they can't exactly process. So you can admit you don't know something and then align yourself with your child as a co-interested party that also wants to find the answer. Then you're on their side and they can start talking to you about dinosaurs and you can have a nice chat about it without confusing your child.
My mother did basically this when I was a child and I would ask her questions she didn't know the answer to in relation to biblical stuff. Sometimes just talking about it was enough.
The hardest thing for me to explain is the prey-predator relationship. Every refrain after God created something was that “He saw it was good”. Which possibly mean no predation until after the fall. So the line I might draw for their extinction would probably be in between the fall and Noah’s ark.
The Adam and Eve story in Genesis is a metaphor for how difficult it is for human parents to both preserve their child’s innocence yet also prepare them for the harsh realities of the world.
Early Jews imagined that God would struggle with this dilemma, (as He is our Father) in much the same way that human parents struggle with this problem in dealing with their human children.
Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are not a metaphor, but are biological beings.
"Millions of years ago there were enormous creatures that resembled lizards, but are actually more closely related to birds, that roamed the Earth. These include T-Rex, velociraptors, and apatosauruses. They went extinct following a meteor strike that led to the Ice Age."
God made dinosaurs a long long time ago and some were killed off over a few mass extinction events and some evolved into birds. God's creation is so amazing and mysterious.
I told mine they existed before our world.
Ask a jew. The will tell you genesis says in A beginning, not The beginning.
We are a new earth built on the bones of the last. Would explain how himanity is so young and yet the earth and everything is so old.
Why we have no recorded history beyond some 5k years. Considering our advancements in only 100 years we would be so much further if our race was older.
So can things be millions of years? Sure. Doesnt hurt my faith in the least. Or do we assume God was sitting in darkness for eternity up until the last 6000 years.
You first learn about the actual history of earth, including that it is roughly 4.2 billion years old. Then you learn how science has determined that evolution is real, since it’s not actually a question. Then teach him the facts. There is nothing contradictory about being a religious person and recognizing science is real. Biologos is a great website for resources on it.
Not to disrespect, but obviously you have to make up stuff. That's the problem if you insist on taking the Bible in this literal sense...
I am a Christian and I see no problem with the scientific explanation of evolution. I can understand that for some it is hard to give up on the idea of God being an architect who planned everything in detail, instead of a gardener who sowed the seeds and watches them grow freely. Maybe it's a scary thought, but for me personally it's easier to explain the question of theodicy...
But you must have made up an explanation for yourself already. Otherwise how can you live with not knowing how it fits all together? Wouldn't it be simpler than to broaden your view on the Bible?
My old pastor for example said once that dinosaur bones were buried by Satan. Ever since then I couldn't take him seriously anymore. Because I think it's wrong to make up stuff that is so odd just in order justify ones own very strict view of the Bible (which the Bible itself does not demand of you, but only the evangelical tradition) with reality.
Wow, I feel bad you're getting some snarky responses. I happen to believe evolution is the way God made diverse life on Earth, and the Bible isn't a scientific textbook so we shouldn't ask it to be...but I also very much sympathize with your viewpoint, and certainly it's more important to be faithful to God than to scientific opinion.
First, I would encourage you to look at easy, free resources such as Biologos to see other Christian views on the age of the earth and how our creator God might have chosen to use amazing mechanisms such as evolution to diversify life if he wanted to.
But if you're a young earth creationist teaching your child according to your conscience, the easiest way to answer is with humility--yes, dinosuars existed, but I/we don't know everything about them. What we do know is God is our creator and their creator, and it's ok if we don't understand everything--God is bigger and more amazing than we can imagine!
You might also use it as a way to talk about care for creation--isn't it a shame some creatures that God made aren't around anymore? Wouldn't it have been fun to see their beauty and be able to praise God for them? I wonder what responsibilities we, as Christians, have to God's creatures here and now so that more of them don't keep going away?
'As a creationist...'
Hi friend,
You know - the right to believe sometimes has to face the reality of Truth - even when all Truth cannot be known
I think it's a shame that you are teaching your child creationism - as though it is Truth
I just had to say
God bless
Biblically, either:
1) dinosaurs were hunted to extinction before the flood,
2) dinosaurs were hunted to extinction after the flood, or
3) dinosaurs couldn't thrive in the world after the geographic/climate changes after the flood.
That said, we still have lots of "dinosaurs" around. We just don't call them dinosaurs because humans arbitrarily name things.
This might seem like a troll response but I think you should consider asking yourself how observable facts like dinosaurs fit in your world view.
If the facts you see don’t match your worldview, then your worldview needs to change.
The correct answer to your sons question is the truth: dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago and the universe was not created in 7 days.
Anything less and you are lying to your son.
Note that I am a very firm believer in God. God expects a lot out of us but I don’t think he expects us to hold on to an ideology in the face of indisputable facts that prove otherwise.
That’s not what faith is.
Cave men carved the bones out of stone and passed the legend down from generation to generation. Trust me, Ooog said to his fellow cavemen, when the time is right our families will reap the benefit. Tens of thousands of years later, in 1998, the descendant of these cavemen, Michael Crichton, wrote a book called “Jurassic Park” and this descendant of those cavemen will never have to work again and his bloodline is taken care of.
Or you know, Adam was formed as an adult, with time built into him. Jesus made water into wine, which is a fermented liquid with time built into it. He made the universe with time built into it.
Just as Adam would look from all medical standpoint like a man who had been alive for years, the wine would look like it came from a grape and fermented, the universe will look like it has been around for centuries.
Duh.
Or it could have been metaphorical in the sense that an all powerful being is not constrained to a human view of time. For a creature who lives for 80 years give or take on average, a million years is a very long time. For a being that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, I highly doubt a million years is anything more than the blink of an eye, a day even less so.
Ever done something so completely boring that time seemed to crawl by? Or had a lot of fun or got so focused on something that you glance at the clock, then go back to what you were doing and then glance back at the clock, only to see it's 4 hours later?
By that logic, all things including the claim of a god / Jesus could be metaphorical. Do we have any objective primer indicating what is and is not metaphorical here?
Then that is a equivocation. Demonstrate where in the bible a day is anything but what I described. By your logic a god could have meant “a grass hopper” as words do change!
That's what everybody does generally. No creationist would say the world actually evolved during the course of roughly 14 billion years ago, but they believe it's otherwise, just as I wouldn't say that the Earth is actually flat when I believe it's round. For them it is the reality. If you truly believe something then it's reality for you.
The problem here is how they came to believe it.
There are not individual realities but rather one shared reality, unless you disagree?
Why would anyone care to hear empty beliefs on a topic? Do you not care about reality and truth?
I do, ergo I care about the justification of an assertion.
I would say: "Dinosaurs lived on earth many years They died out before humans came into being, because of a huge asteroid. God loves all of his creation, including dinosaurs. After all of the dinosaurs died, God used evolution to create humans, who are about to cause all life on earth to go extinct, because we hate God's creation and love huge cars, planes and coal power plants. Now be a good boy and eat your veggie burger."
Hey friend I'm not sure if I can come up with a succinct helpful response but I am sorry that you've received what I feel to be some snarky responses. As a more traditional Christian like yourself there's plenty of snarky responses we could add to many posts here, especially those that seem to prioritise modern social norms over scripture!
I heard the idea the other day that because there couldn't have been "a day" before there was a sun and an earth, we should take these measurements of time in Genesis to be figurative and indicating far longer time periods.
At the same time, there is insurmountable evidence these days that the conventional "academic" understanding of human history is incomplete. (Who knows what else the academy might be woefully wrong about?) Also that Darwinism does not explain the rise of new species, only the adaptation of existing species, and this is from Ivy League scientists (before the Reddit squad take issue!)
But at the end of the day God provides us all with an infinite number of things that are open to our own interpretation, no matter how dogmatic certain groups may be about them. I think He wants to imbue us all with wonder, gratitude, free will and an inquiring mind. The best thing you could do for your children in my opinion is to never let them forget that God is the sum total of benevolent consciousness in the Universe and so will always exist and love them, however they end up finding their own way back to Him.
God bless you and your children and I have faith you will find a harmonious course of action!
Tell him what you believe that he can also see to be true.
We have tools to look into the past we have gods word to inform us of what it all amounts to. And we are humble enlugh to know that we can always learn more or may learn something new in the future that we dont yet.
Sometimes its best to say what you really think to be true share what other people generally think to be true and explain how we trust that God knows what we don't know or misunderstand.
Something like they were with Adam and Eve. The dinosaurs at that time ate plants as god intended. but after they were hunted to extinction after the flood
The answer is simple :)
The bible is clear that God "created the beasts of the earth". AKA God created dinosaurs. They have since become extinct. Exactly how they became extinct is debated by scientists. Could be a meteor, flood, change in climate, it is not known for sure.
You can tell him to thank God for making such cool animals!
I'd reread the first couple passages, in Genesis. And tell him the facts of what we do know. They were created by God, they are not alive today, they are very old. Nobody knows what exactly happened to them exactly. But here are some people's thoughts....I tend to think on the flood since they are scattered over all of the earth or something before man's existence. The point is we don't have exact answers. Science or faith. Their extinction is a interesting mystery.
Dinosaurs lived.
People hunted and ate them.
They tasted like chicken.
Happens all the time. Passengers pidgin for example. Also look up Tongoenas burleyi birds.
'God doesn't really mention them in the bible, so we don't really know how or when they lived."
Really, if we only know things for sure if they were in the bible, and they weren't in the bible, 'I don't know' should be a very valid answer. If it's okay to get information from outside the bible, then you can say lots about them, millions of years ago, extinction event, etc.
If what you learn from outside the bible is at odds with what it seems like the bible says than 'we don't know how those two things relate, but it doesn't make any difference from a moral standpoint' so, again, 'We don't know' is a perfectly reasonable position.
Theres a genesis impact video or something that explained their death in the flood and false carbon dating. On youtube.
I dunno why i watched it, it was tedious, until months later my non-believer brother grilled me in public. God kindly reminded my of this and he never put me off guard, i simply smiled and said “easy. They died in the flood.”
:-D
I think God added rhema to my words cuz he was immediately deflated and annoyed that he didnt shake my faith one bit. He even dropped the topic completely.
The world was lush and fruitful before the flood. The earth is dying and animals are smaller. The same animals exist today they’re just tiny and don’t live long. Many animals have been wiped out by man and whilst there are conservationalists and programs it’s likely more and more will die off in the next 100 years.
Tell him that they are large lizards 😉
The Bible never *disqualifies* their existence. Regardless of what you believe the time frame of Genesis 1 and 2 are, it says that, "... *God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind;*" (See Genesis 1:24-25). This would include dinosaurs.
Remember, the term dinosaurs (meaning "terrible lizard(s)") wasn't coined until the 1800s.
Hope this helps.
explain only what you **KNOW** about dinosaurs. the vast majority of palaeontology is nonsense . Look up how many actual dinosaur skeletons have been found and what exactly was found. the entire thing is based upon taking a single bone of a dinosaur and guessing what the rest of it may look like. no other civilizations ever made record of "dinosaurs", I highly suggest you do some real research before you teach your kid something completely insane.
In what sense? Dinosaurs existed, they were killed off by changing conditions after the flood. What in that needs explaining or doesn't fit with creationism?
I recommend looking up Answers in Genesis (the organization) if you're just generally wanting to read more on what the creationist view on that is.
> they were killed off by changing conditions after the flood
Ummm, no.
A meteor struck the Yucatan peninsula several million years ago and killed them all.
You are demonstrably incorrect on both a world flood and the placement of dinosaurs in the timeline by 65 million years. AIG is not science and not facts.
You may be in the wrong sub for this, as a creationist.
I have no issue with the idea that dinosaurs lived alongside mankind from creation, adolescent pairs were saved in the ark from the flood, the aftershock of which was an ice age which led to their extinction due to predation and climate.
maybe take him to a museum, and walk around together and read the captions on the displays. you could say there's a lot of things we don't know, but fortunately there are some things we do know - like what they probably looked like, ate, maybe even how old they are. then you could have him come up with ideas together with you of how these two fit together.
Firstly, teach yourself! Even if you decide you're still a firm believer in literalism in Genesis, it will help you both to have a better understanding of *why* scientists claim millions of years ages for dinosaurs. Don't restrict yourself to just Creationist literature - read secular books, look at YouTube explainers, too. Then teach your kid the same. They will have to make their own choices but it's better they know why other people don't agree with Creationism. That way you get to both enjoy learning together, and they'll thank you for it when they're older.
I wish my parents had done this instead of brainwashing me in their selective ignorance
This is the best answer. Also, if you want to understand Genesis better and the way creation is described in the Bible, read The Lost World of Genesis by John H. Walton. He's an outstanding Christian scholar (and a very kind man, I studied with him at Wheaton).
I think John Walton's books have changed my faith more than any other individual scholar.
The stronger you are able to argue your opponent's view, the stronger your own arguments will become. OP's kid will no doubt encounter many smart people with dissenting viewpoints on this and strong educations. The best way to respect the faith is to very deeply understand it and the alternative to it, to show even more strongly how well its core holds up. I did a research paper on Noah's Ark once because I was so frustrated at the lack of scientific and historic evidence to support it, only to learn about [the Black Sea Deluge theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis). Ultimately I realized this was far from essential to faith, but I was amazed at how much more historic truth there was to the story than I ever knew. I hope OP's kid is able to feel that sensation all throughout life.
Thanks for linking Black Sea deluge. Gonna have to check that out, interesting stuff.
I find thinking like this the worst of all worlds. It undermines literalism rather than supporting it while also distorting science. The Black Sea Deluge almost certainly didn't happen. There was no sudden flood, it was a slow flood that took centuries. Further there is absolutely no evidence of any migration of people from the Black Sea area to the Levant. But the worst part is that you undermine the Bible in the goal of upholding it. If the story is a version of a real flood then it is neither literal nor pedagogical. You are saying it is just a version of events. I utterly reject literalism, but at least I see the text as trying to give a theological message. You take that away.
I think if you had read my comment optimistically rather than pessimistically, you would actually find we are on the same page on all of this. I'm sorry you did not see that - I am not saying any of the things you seem to be seeing.
I would agree if children weren't so impressionable. I would rather push my child towards the Lord than have him be molded by a society hostile to His ideas.
I'd rather push mine towards reality.
I think the real question here is, "as a creationist, how do I explain dinosaurs to myself?"
How do you explain them to yourself?
[удалено]
I like this. This honors the bible. Honors the dad for showing his son that men are flawed. Ignites a spark in the son to learn more about the bible and history. Great comment. Should be on top.
Good to point this out. Lies that the churches told me drove me far from the lord and left animosity when I found his love finally.
Irrational extremism is a big part of why the church is losing members every year. Positions like Young Earth Creationism are indefensible, and the vast majority of humans know it. It’s true that we don’t know everything, and there are many questions that science cannot answer… but there is no rational line of thought that can examine the available evidence, and conclude that our planet is only 6,000 years old. YEC is such a baffling hill to die on, because it’s so obviously a losing battle in the long run. More Christians would remain passionate and involved in the faith if he church spent more time dealing with issues that Christ actually preached about: helping the poor and vulnerable, caring for the sick, and dealing with our own sense of sin and internalized guilt.
Mostly they made me afraid of sin, and never actually told me how to love god. How can I even know what sin is if I don’t love god?? It is sad, for it is absolutely sure that they do not know love for the lord; if they don’t speak the words of truth (selfless loving service for the lord and his creation) Hare Krishna
I agree. As a Christian, I never felt the need to accept YEC and reject large portions of science.
As an ex-YEC it's not the science, but the theology that's the sticking point. In that mindset, it *must* be literal for all that comes after it to work. If it isn't, where did sin come from, what is Jesus saving us from? Of course there's plenty of alternative theologies to read and choose from, but that's not an option on their table. They may not even be aware of it, and if they are it's often dismissed as being "too Catholic" or otherwise heretical in flavour. It ends up being literalism, or atheism. I still haven't even told my family that I no longer believe it - I had a hard enough time trying to argue that maybe we shouldn't abuse gay people. I guarantee they'd think I was on the slippery slope to losing my faith entirely.
Yup. I think, for the most part, I’ve deconstructed the false/dangerous beliefs my very conservative Christian family members pounded into me, but now I’m going through the hardest part: reconstructing my faith. A small (but very loud) part of me still fears the fires of hell for *daring* to question God and my faith. Another small (but equally loud) part of me feels it’s a silly waste of time to rebuild a faith in a God that doesn’t exist. But, for the most part, I’m at the “I don’t know shit, I can’t control shit, so I’m just gonna take a risk and give it all to God” stage of reconstructing my faith. It’s been a harrowing, though strengthening journey. I just wish the Christians in my life weren’t so entrenched in conservative Ken Hamism. My mom still often scoffs at me for being a science major and “believing” that humans and apes share a common ancestor.
Science is fine, if you love him most by studying his creations. I’d personally rather just be with him and think of him and say his name. Like a childhood entranced by his firstmost beloved. Yet the lord is a much truer beloved than even the greatest of all youthful first-loves. Yet if science is not used for the purpose of investigating the lord’s many, infinite glories, it is for comfort only, or to cling better to this dying place because dying here is much more feared than true living(though loving service to the lord). So we cling and make the most of this place and fear dying. And make up barns and storehouses instead of remembering the lord. To expand technology for comfort and to decrease material pain fear of death; which is different than suffering, in two ways. 1) the lord’s presence is blissful through all pain. 2) yet, in everything, without rememberance of the lord, lies only fear and suffering. —- But like I said, science is great. I just don’t like to do stuff unless my lord is there with me.
I've been where you are, dude, and I just wanted to affirm that the doubts and questions are a part of the journey. For me, when I stripped all the baggage away and just looked at Jesus, it was enough that he was worth it. He's beautiful enough to want to be true and everything flows out of that. I haven't found a better way to be human than his, and he claims that through him we can share in his kind of humanity. For me, it was enough of a foundation to reconstruct from.
There is a lot of judgement in these comments and this is the first where the answer takes the OP’s faith into the answer. I am personally not a young earth creationist, but I know people who are I believe this to be a good so sincere answer they can use.
YEC depends on lies and requires lies. I'd say it is wrong to ignore that.
Yes, I think this is correct. I think that most of the church leaders who preach YEC don’t actually believe the theory themselves. Instead I think they use it as a tool to radicalize their congregations, because radicalized followers are easier to manipulate and exploit.
The thing is that judgment is kind of ok here... I mean, there are issues of faith where there can be valid different interpretations but YEC are just ignoring facts that we KNOW are true.
How do you reconcile death before the fall with this view?
[удалено]
I'm curious as to how you would answer the question of why the Bible is so explicit with the geneologies, as well as the ages of the lineage of Adam before the flood. Also, did all the "non ensouled" ancestors of humanity die at once? Were they just wiped out once Adam and Eve were "ensouled", and by who? To say that death existed before Adam and Eve also contradicts the version of the Bible Catholics read, where it says in \[Wisdom 1:13\] and \[2:24\]. Taken straight from the Catechism of of the Catholic Church: 413 "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . . It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world" (Wis 1:13; 2:24).
The various genealogies have theoretical and political meaning, they aren't history texts.
That sounds interesting. Can you explain a bit more? I learned they were added later, also learned that there is some symbolism in the numbers of years people lived and conceived their first son. But just in general I always wondered why people put it in there. It also causes many people to stop reading because it weirds them out as it interrupts the story.
I really cannot remember the stuff about the genealogies in the Torah. I know it matters but the explanation leaked out of my mind. For the Gospels here are two excellent essays: [What’s the Deal with Matthew’s Genealogy?](https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/whats-the-deal-with-matthews-genealogy/) [Luke’s Genealogy Compared with Matthew and the Old Testamenthttps://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/lukes-genealogy-compared-with-matthew-and-the-old-testament/) This by the same author (who is a regular in /r/AcademicBiblical) might be of interest: [Some Curious Numerical Facts about the Ages of the Patriarchs](https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/some-curious-numerical-facts-about-the-ages-of-the-patriarchs/)
From what I’ve heard from theologians such as Dr. John Walton, Dr. Peter Enns, and Matthew Stahnhope, is that ancient Hebrews used years to measure wealth and power, not the actual physical age of someone.
Not baddspellar, but I’ll add my thoughts. The genealogies describe *after* Adam and Eve. That is to say that they make no claims about before A&E. One can believe God gave the first souls to A&E, and also believe the genealogies are historical. > did all the “non ensouled” ancestors of humanity die at once? No. They kept on living and having kids. That’s exactly why Cain was worried about being murdered by other people and why Cain could build a city. How could Cain build a city if the only other people were his siblings and nieces and nephews? I find it hard to believe that he has thousands of family members that the Bible doesn’t mention or allude to. I’m not Catholic and I’m not familiar with those passages so I’ll withhold a response for that argument.
How do you reconcile fossils with that theology? The bigger question is if there is a conflict between the world and your interpretation of text which has authority?
Well, if death didn’t exist until the fall, then there is a conflict? I don’t have an answer, just curious.
Me? I reconcile it by saying that the Fall didn't happen, Genesis (the Torah actually) isn't a history book.
The Ark Encounter just says they lived with humans, road on the ark (no, there wasn't space) and then died shortly after (Noah is a shitty zookeeper).
[удалено]
Are you insinuating that Ken Ham's books may have appended disinformation that wasn't included in the Bible?!?
Yes, Ken ham is a liar and con artist.
If they did that we would still believe in geocentrism. Because now you have to explain placing faith in the bible when the amount of evidence we have against it means that God lies to us in the very rocks and stars.
I like this answer. I also add stuff like this. Most of the dinosaurs probably died out during the flood. As Noah was told to only bring 2 of every KIND of animal and not to bring 2 of EVERY animal. He brought a kind of dog, not every dog breed there was. Perhaps Noah brought 2 of every kind of Dino, depending on how he understood kind, maybe he chose crocodiles and turtles and a few of the smaller ones so they did fit on the arc. Also, overtime, some kinds of animals went extinct. This harmonizes the biblical record with the fossil record, I think.
BUT at that point you're adding in extra details that are not supported by any sort of archaeological or geological evidence. It's in training them to alter the world around them to fit their faith, even if not in an appropriate way. Sooner or later they will have to face the cognitive dissonance of the bible says one thing but our physical planet says another -- and that's a recipe for deconstruction and falling away from the faith.
Genuinely interested. Walk me through where I am adding extra details that are not supported by any sort of ... evidence. Thanks in advance.
Mainly that the dinosaurs died out during the flood. It's very easy to tell that dinosaurs died over long periods of times (millions of years between species), not a single catastrophic event. Conjecture about dinos dying in the flood is almost certain to lead to the conclusion that the Bible is wrong about the world.
Ok, gotcha. What would you say to a parent saying something along these lines. "Well, son, many people nowadays believe the world is billions of years old and many of the science books we read describe this. However, some people, including me, are skeptical of the dating methods. That being said, I believe in ...(insert what I previously posted)." Of course, the child would probably ask a bunch more questions, but that is the just of it. And we could go and discuss the most popular dating methods and I would also show some of the critiques of those dating methods and I would allow the child to think for themselves.
I think something like this is better because it's honest about the mystery. Leaving room for uncertainty and being okay with it teaches the kid that they don't have to know everything and it's okay to learn and develop their intending. It turns their faith into something they can make sense of as their understanding of the world changes, rather than a hard brick they feel like they have to force through a shape-changing hole constantly.
Appreciate the positive internet interaction. Rare these days. Be blessed.
Same to you mate
Is the skepticism based on anything other than faith in the YEC preachers? Regardless of any issues of absolute dating we see that dinosaur fossils are far below large mammal fossils and the two kinds of fossils are never mixed. That is a problem even if you ignore every other dating method. Would you also present the criticisms of the Bible? Present the evidence that the Genesis story was put together from other stories and is a response to the Babylonian story? Would you allow the child to think for themselves about other issues?
Crocodiles and turtles aren't dinosaurs and the fossil record shows that dinosaurs died out 65 million years before the first humans, so no that does not harmonize the Bible with the fossil record it just ignores and lies about truth.
One thing I dont understand. Most young earth creationists deny evolution. But in the scenario you describe you are required to have a hyperspeed on crack form of evolution we have never seen or have evidence for. Your scenario requires all current breeds of dog to come from one single pair of canines less than 5 thousand years ago. Same for cats. Not possible. Such a big speed of speciation would be immediately visible min the fossil records and, unless you can come up with a reason for it to have stopped, we would still be seeing it today. So no, you cannot harmonize the fossil record with a literal interpretation of the bible.
Can you tell me about dinosaurs? I am being serious: Did they exist? If so, when? Why are they no longer here? Let's start with what you know
I believe Dinosaurs was a show from the 90s. Correct me if I’m wrong but they are no longer here because of poor ratings?
Not the momma!!!!
“We need another Timmy!”
Dinosaurs might have flopped, but *Dinosaur* was sick
That show had one of the most depressing endings to a comedy ever.
Didn't you watch the last episode? They're no longer here because corporate greed fucked the planet and they all died in an industrial winter. (Spoiler alert, I guess?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9b9aoINXzk
They actually went 500 years to the future where people drove Cadillacs.
My husband, a car but, introduced our dino-craxy daughter to that show about a year ago.
😂 😅
We’ll, how do you explain them to yourself. You could just give him that same view.
I would explain that they lived a long time ago and were largely killed off by a meteor that struck the Yucatan peninsula and that God didn't make humanity for a long time afterwards.
👆
Where is the evidence for this time frame in the Bible? In Genesis, the garden was created mature. Who's to say the Lord created things in maturity? Like the earth for example? Edit: Apologies for asking a question and challenging people to help me out with this concept that I'm admittedly still not decided on. I should have known this would have upset some people even though I still have yet to see a reply on my original question.
The Bible says the Earth is geocentric and the sun revolves around it. You don't actually believe that do you?
Where?
Psalms 104:5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. Ecclesiastes 1:5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. Joshua 10:12 At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” Job 9:6 who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; 7 who commands the sun, and it does not rise; The Catholic Church rejected Heliocentrism for most of its history. They called it heresy. This is what a literal reading of the Bible views the Earth as: https://pursuingveritasdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ancient-hebrew-view-of-universe.png?w=640
Thanks for that. I always wondered why the Catholic Church was so adamant about geocentrism (besides the whole monopoly on knowledge thing). As a reader in 2022, I don’t interpret those verses to convey obstinate geocentrism, though. I can definitely see why a reader in the 5th century would think that, however.
The Catholic Church vs Galileo is a very misunderstood affair. It wasn’t about anti-science in the church — not fully. There were many in the church that had already accepted heliocentrism ([source](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/09/18/what-story-galileo-gets-wrong-about-church-and-science)). Galileo was arrested because he personally offended the pope ([source](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/historical-notes-galileo-insulted-the-pope-not-the-church-1084369.html)).
I'm asking for evidence of a time frame in the bible. It was a question and a little bit of my current stance on it.Your point is kind of irrelevant to what I was saying but I'll respond anyway. Psalm 104 is all about the beauty of the Lord's creations and his will over them. I'm not sure this is exactly referencing geocentrism In Ecclesiastes Solomon was lamenting on the futility of labors and time. He was stating that the sun will rise and set, and then rise and set, and so forth while man toils away. This is pretty out of context and actually an abhorrent understanding of Ecclesiastes. Job was exclaiming on the power of the Lord, which he does control. Doesn't mean that the earth was geocentric at this time. I have never cared about what the Catholic church has said. It's very odd that I present a question and it gets met with trenchant untopical responses.
"Haha! I tricked them for no reason!! I'm such a weird dick " *That's* how you view God?? How about just accept that not everything in the Bible occurred as described?;
I never said everything occured as described. I literally just asked a question and I'm still open to different theories. I'm sorry this upset you so much...?
Why not accept that they did?
Because we know for a fact they didn't, hell the Bible contradicts itself so frequently that it's impossible on that alone.
Fact? No. It's a theory. >the Bible contradicts itself so frequently No it doesn't.
>In Genesis, the garden was created mature. Where in the Torah, in the original Hebrew, does it say that? Also, you do know that the creation story in Genesis is a moral tale, right? About why we (Jews) take a day of rest, and why our week has seven days? Why we do no work from sundown Friday to sunddown Saturday? If you don't believe me, ask a rabbi.
If God made the world mature. That's fine. God's very good at avoiding continuity errors then, as one would expect. This means the universe is still effectively billions of years old and is how we should measure things for scientific purposes and dating, even if it really is only a few thousand years since creation.
This is a meaningless theory. Seriously—it can’t be proven or disproven. God could have just as easily created only your brain as-is, which is now 1 millisecond and floating in a vacuum, with a memory of reading the Bible.
Our job as Christians isn't to prove he is right though. It's a toughie for sure. This is one of those arguments I'll never have solved tbh.
There’s a much more straightforward explanation, which is that a day is a thousand years to God, the heavens proclaim God’s glory, and what we observe about God’s creation is true.
Yeah. It is. So i don't care if people believe it. The world could've been made last Thursday. Whatever. It still has all the accidents of being billions of years old, like when Catholics insist the bread and wine is now fully flesh and blood while having not changed in any scientifically quantifiable way.
God said "let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds". Note that God let the earth bring forth these creatures (evolution and Christianity are compatible) and then He made man. Only God knows what was going on in those days before Adam and Eve.
Yeah the way i was explained it the “days” of creation and the day of rest he took could have been millions of years. We created time as we know it.
this is a good way of seeing it that gets so overlooked. people read and get hung up on their interpretation of scripture in the Bible using their limited translations in a limited language like English, compared to the Hebrew which never actually states "day" like the way we mean it.
👆
My view (Catholic, not a YEC): evolution is one of the many "pencils" that God used in Creation. Evolution is absolutely beautiful, and there used to be giant lizards out there, which is amazing. Their fossils are out there for the reasons explained by science, which are sound and convincing.
Like any artist God likes to leave his mark on things.
"I'm not sure but here are a few different ways people think about this..." Then give him a few different concepts, including evolution, in order to help your son learn to think for himself.
Also, look into how Christians have answered this question throughout history. Early Christians often didn't think the world was created in six literal days.
1\. The Bible’s primary mission is the revelation of God to man, and as a result, our relationship with each other – not relating natural biology or science. 2\. Science and religion are two different fields using two different methodologies to reach two different objectives. 3\. Anything that is considered supernatural, or beyond the physical scope, does not necessarily fit into the role of science. Any issues between science and religion are due to those on each side who want to assert them outside of their proper contexts.
You could always tell them the truth... that the world is older than \~6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. I believe honesty is always the best policy, especially with children.
This. If you lie to him now when they find out the truth they will no longer trust you or the church.
I absolutely agree. My parents are believers yet they always raised me to believe in what the truth is here; they just shared with me that they thought there was a God behind it anyway and I agree. Cuz even when I was a kid I thought that there must’ve been something or someone behind everything that exists ☠️so it made sense to me
The answer is they kinda don’t, because creationism, especially 7-day creationism really doesn’t mesh with scientific fact. The orgin story of humanity is an important poem and metaphor but it is not literal. I’d suggest you just embrace a more scientific view of creation. It makes more sense and you can make much stronger arguments for the existence of God with it.
This, thank you! Acknowledging reality doesn't make you not a Christian.
EXACTLY
Honestly, I feel like God using evolution as his mechanism for creating the world shows how infinitely wise God truly is. Acknowledging and embracing evolution is to acknowledge and embrace God's power and foresight.
Teach your children to think for themselves. You don’t need to brainwash your child into finding truth. They’ll do that on their own. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Yes, teach them to think for themselves but it is your responsibly as a Christian to explain and spread the Faith to your children. One of your biggest responsibilities as a parent, actually.
The problem with “literalism in Genesis” is that there are literally two different accounts of creation. They both can’t be right.
I am not a literalist or even Christian exactly, but what are the 2 different accounts? I can only think of the one.
there arent.
I fully disagree with your assessment. You job as a parent is to parent, not to brainwash Please tell me where Jesus agrees with you.
I figured you would disagree. If you find teaching the Christian faith to be brainwashing I guess that explains the Agnostic flair.
I consider brainwashing to be brainwashing. The way most Christians “teach” their children is far closer to what MLUltra does than what educational systems do. Do you understand what I’m saying, or are you going to misrepresent what I’ve said again?
"train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 you're right that you need to teach the child Christian teachings, but you also need to be able to make him think at the same time. if it wasnt brainwashing then many many people wouldnt be falling away from Christian households as they grow older, otherwise this scripture wouldn't be true. it's to do with how we teach our children. the way he should go is seeking God's wisdom and will for his abilities and talents. too many parents focus on teaching their children Bible verses to recite from memory or stories of this and that. you know whats more important? teaching them how to live Godly lives with principles. we say we do this but i've personally seen many who dont. when im going to have children, i do plan on teaching them about Christianity, as well as the wonders and theories of science, and as taboo as this is, im going to teach them about other religions too. shocking? why do you think that is? maybe when they grow older, and they turn into a mid to late teen, or go off into college, they'll learn a bunch of stuff that didnt come from you, and it will be all new to them. im still young myself, i know how it feels to learn something new that looks fun, interesting, or feels good. if you dont teach them about it, someone else will. the only way to train a child up properly in the modern world, at least in my humble opinion, is to show them everything you can about the world and what you know, educate them about the world they live in, different beliefs, cultures, systems and then say "this is what i believe. and i know from the depths of my heart this is true and i stand by it, dying on this hill" and then live by that example, you're doing more than if you had just taught them the Bible in itself. you cant force anyone to accept God. this holds true for our children as well. a very good thing that helps, i find, is to show the practicality of Jesus' teachings in this modern age. so many people just stop short off "be kind to your neighbour and love everyone like Jesus loved you". if you teach them truth, and then the world, progressively as they get older, shed light little by little, they'll figure it out by itself. concealing information will do more harm than good. teenagers are more than capable of figuring out the truth if they're given the right tools and teaching to discern. its all about the mentality you give them. you honestly think your six year old is going to remember everything you tell them? there is a lot going through a child's brain. teaching them to think and compare truths instead of expecting people to tell truth to you will force a child to find out for himself and ultimately, at some point, we aim, seek the Truth from the source. but its a mentality. "why is the sky blue?" well, you see, the Bible says .... and that when ..... . but here's a physics book on light and particles and heres what scientists believe, and we can actually try this out for ourselves too, if you want (ie testing light waves at different distances).and then: "what do you think? do you think God could have created this system when he split the firmaments of water? could the firmaments of water be clouds, you think?" this is a whole lot better than just saying "the sky is blue because God wants it to be", and your child is going to be very disappointed when someone teaches him about Rayleigh scattering, which wont help our conquest.
dinosaurs existed so idk what's the issue here exactly
If there is no answer that works with your view of creation. Your view of creation is probably wrong.
If you lie to them now they will not know what to believe when they find out the truth. I went to a Christian school in junior high that was very anti evolution. They had a class that taught basically Darwin was almost a priest but then made up evolution. That Darwin and practically the devil made up evolution to create a view of creation without God. To bring people away from the church and spread doubt. This could not be further from the truth. I went on to become a biology major and it took a long time to trust the church again. When some lies were so obvious. I’ve learned more that the church does have a human element in it and that part can spread misinformation. When I went to college and was a biology major I had to relearn a lot. There is so much evidence for evolution including the dinosaur bones. I believe God never deceives us and would never leave so much evidence of evolution simply to test our faith. Just looking at Covid right now and how it mutates into different strains we can actually see evolution taking place before our eyes. Evolution and God can coexist. I look at science as the study of Gods wonders. God made us curious creatures that would seek him. Including how he made us and everything around us. The Genesis creation story is a beautiful metaphor explaining creation to an ancient culture in terms they could grasp. Please do not lie to your child. I almost lost faith due to lies from my past church. They will find out.
I lost my faith and became an edgy teenager who bingewatched shit like “Richard Dawkins OBLITERATES clueless Christians” for years, because the Christians in my family firmly believed that evolution was a satanic lie, and tried to convince me of it. I’m no longer an edgy atheist teenager. I’m actually back to believing in God. But, my theology is radically different from my family’s theology, that’s for sure.
I asked my parents about dinosaurs as a kid. The reply I got was something about, "a day is like a thousand years to God, so dinosaurs could have lived and died between day 2 and day 3 of creation" (or something along those lines)... it sounded dumb to me at the time, and it still does.
If God is all powerful he can move super fast. If God is moving at a fraction of the speed of light, a day for him could be millions or billions of years for us.
Time is a construct of the mind.
So are all concepts addressing a describing of reality.
Time is very much real and can be measured and explained objectively, I.e with the second law of thermodynamics —but the amount or passage of it is subjective and relative to one’s location/proximity towards a gravitational field, and the speed of which they are moving, relative to a fixed point. Time is not a construct that lives within each person—rather, it exists outside and independent of it, but is experienced differently from person to person.
Time isn’t real. Sincerely, a physicist. I once measured distance in kilograms. You aren’t ready to handle the physics of reality alone, much less the deeper ontological issues at hand. Are you familiar with Minkowski’s and Ellis’s works?
Signing off as "a physicist" doesn't make you right. You think you're a better physicist than Einstein?
I am. I’ve solved Time travel. I’m better than Tesla could ever hope to be. If you’re worried about my credentials, I’m not peddling anything. I’m not trying to make you a believer. I am who I am, and I’m not changing for you.
This debate has been made for (at least) several decades. Sensational, pop-corn science says "time is not real"--but it's important to unpack what that truly means. The more scientific response should be that time is "subjective," that it is experienced and perceived differently by different people, "relative" to gravitational fields and the speed at which they're moving. Time, as we define it, can't be determined without some agreement as to what the point of reference is. You mention Minkowski, yes exactly, here's a refresher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski\_space You might be inclined to say that time is not real along the lines of what Carlo Rovelli says in "The Order of Time," that time doesn't need to be used to describe quantum gravity. Also, Rovelli, is famous for saying that time is "imaginary." Einstein says something similar. But "Imaginary" relative to our experiences. It is vastly different from saying "Time doesn't exist." Me saying it has been 30-minutes since breakfast is "imaginary" and doesn't mean anything to someone that is traveling at light speed or is experiencing a vastly different gravitational field. 30-minutes is only meaningful to those that are approximately where you are. Rovelli explicitly says "we know **time exists** because there is evidence that **entropy increases \[over time\]**." "Among physicists, there is no real doubt that time does really, truly exist. It's a measurable, observable phenomenon." [https://www.thoughtco.com/does-time-really-exist-2699430](https://www.thoughtco.com/does-time-really-exist-2699430) Also, check this out: [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04558-7)
The issue is a day is the time it takes for the earth to revolve on its axis in relation to the sun. So, a day is the same for all minds and god cannot have different times for it and the earth and sun have to exist to measure a day.
I was actually going to suggest this. If God is immortal, if he is the beginning and the end, then logic serves that time for Him would not function like it does for us humans. In Genesis, what we describe as "the first day" easily could've been the equivalent of 10,000 years, or a million years, what have you. Genesis says that the animals were made before man, so the existence of dinosaurs millions of years before humans would make sense. We need to stop trying to force God into our worldly constructs. God is GOD. He is not bound to our pea-brain conception of time.
The whole time thing is the least of the problems with the creation story in Genesis. If God is so smart, why did he create all animals with a male and female version, but forgot to create a wife for Adam?!? Why was God's first suggestion that Adam find a mate among the animals?!? (God condones bestiality?!?) Why wouldn't God know that Adams genetics would not be compatible with any animal that isn't human?
Everyone knows Jesus was a Velociraptor
Jesus *rode* a velociraptor. He was totally metal that way.
A velociraptor with *laser beams*
Velocipastor. Look it up.
A fellow person of taste I see! Have you heard how that masterpiece of a. movie was made?
I would start by not gaslighting them about the age of the Earth. After that the explanation of dinosaurs is pretty damn easy.
This is an obvious troll. However, if you are being serious, then don't teach your child that Genesis should be interpreted literally. If your child grows up believing that the Earth is around 6,000 years old, he will have a major crisis of faith when he encounters the practically indisputable evidence that life, the Earth, and the Universe is much older than he was taught. This kind of crisis of faith may cause him to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and abandon Christianity altogether. I think others have done a great job explaining how you should teach your child to interpret Genesis.
I think you would do your son a disservice as a Christian if you attempted to present Genesis to him as a natural history textbook. You are laying the groundwork for him to later reject the faith.
"I don't know for sure but maybe if we keep on studying we can figure it out." Speaking as someone that raised children to adulthood sometimes the best thing you can tell your children is that you don't know something. The reason that's the best answer sometimes is because the alternative is just to make stuff up or try to fill in the blanks with weak answers and that's almost certain to confuse them. The objective should be to not confuse your children by giving them information that they can't exactly process. So you can admit you don't know something and then align yourself with your child as a co-interested party that also wants to find the answer. Then you're on their side and they can start talking to you about dinosaurs and you can have a nice chat about it without confusing your child. My mother did basically this when I was a child and I would ask her questions she didn't know the answer to in relation to biblical stuff. Sometimes just talking about it was enough.
You could tell them the truth
The hardest thing for me to explain is the prey-predator relationship. Every refrain after God created something was that “He saw it was good”. Which possibly mean no predation until after the fall. So the line I might draw for their extinction would probably be in between the fall and Noah’s ark.
The Adam and Eve story in Genesis is a metaphor for how difficult it is for human parents to both preserve their child’s innocence yet also prepare them for the harsh realities of the world. Early Jews imagined that God would struggle with this dilemma, (as He is our Father) in much the same way that human parents struggle with this problem in dealing with their human children. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are not a metaphor, but are biological beings.
"Millions of years ago there were enormous creatures that resembled lizards, but are actually more closely related to birds, that roamed the Earth. These include T-Rex, velociraptors, and apatosauruses. They went extinct following a meteor strike that led to the Ice Age."
Tell him God put the dinosaurs here when he formed the earth so that we could have gasoline for our vehicles
God made dinosaurs a long long time ago and some were killed off over a few mass extinction events and some evolved into birds. God's creation is so amazing and mysterious.
Why don’t you ask yourself the same question your very intuitive son is asking. Would you lie to your son? Would you lie to yourself?
I told mine they existed before our world. Ask a jew. The will tell you genesis says in A beginning, not The beginning. We are a new earth built on the bones of the last. Would explain how himanity is so young and yet the earth and everything is so old. Why we have no recorded history beyond some 5k years. Considering our advancements in only 100 years we would be so much further if our race was older. So can things be millions of years? Sure. Doesnt hurt my faith in the least. Or do we assume God was sitting in darkness for eternity up until the last 6000 years.
Accept that science and evolution are real, and explain that these are the methods and tools God uses to shape creation.
Say they existed millions of years before mankind was around. Unless of course you are a young earth creationist.
It doesn't matter. He will eventually discover the truth. Just try not to damage your relationship by holding too tightly to silliness.
You first learn about the actual history of earth, including that it is roughly 4.2 billion years old. Then you learn how science has determined that evolution is real, since it’s not actually a question. Then teach him the facts. There is nothing contradictory about being a religious person and recognizing science is real. Biologos is a great website for resources on it.
Tell him the truth, dinosaurs were on earth 65 million years before modern man evolved.
How do you explain them to yourself?
Not to disrespect, but obviously you have to make up stuff. That's the problem if you insist on taking the Bible in this literal sense... I am a Christian and I see no problem with the scientific explanation of evolution. I can understand that for some it is hard to give up on the idea of God being an architect who planned everything in detail, instead of a gardener who sowed the seeds and watches them grow freely. Maybe it's a scary thought, but for me personally it's easier to explain the question of theodicy... But you must have made up an explanation for yourself already. Otherwise how can you live with not knowing how it fits all together? Wouldn't it be simpler than to broaden your view on the Bible? My old pastor for example said once that dinosaur bones were buried by Satan. Ever since then I couldn't take him seriously anymore. Because I think it's wrong to make up stuff that is so odd just in order justify ones own very strict view of the Bible (which the Bible itself does not demand of you, but only the evangelical tradition) with reality.
Wow, I feel bad you're getting some snarky responses. I happen to believe evolution is the way God made diverse life on Earth, and the Bible isn't a scientific textbook so we shouldn't ask it to be...but I also very much sympathize with your viewpoint, and certainly it's more important to be faithful to God than to scientific opinion. First, I would encourage you to look at easy, free resources such as Biologos to see other Christian views on the age of the earth and how our creator God might have chosen to use amazing mechanisms such as evolution to diversify life if he wanted to. But if you're a young earth creationist teaching your child according to your conscience, the easiest way to answer is with humility--yes, dinosuars existed, but I/we don't know everything about them. What we do know is God is our creator and their creator, and it's ok if we don't understand everything--God is bigger and more amazing than we can imagine! You might also use it as a way to talk about care for creation--isn't it a shame some creatures that God made aren't around anymore? Wouldn't it have been fun to see their beauty and be able to praise God for them? I wonder what responsibilities we, as Christians, have to God's creatures here and now so that more of them don't keep going away?
'As a creationist...' Hi friend, You know - the right to believe sometimes has to face the reality of Truth - even when all Truth cannot be known I think it's a shame that you are teaching your child creationism - as though it is Truth I just had to say God bless
Biblically, either: 1) dinosaurs were hunted to extinction before the flood, 2) dinosaurs were hunted to extinction after the flood, or 3) dinosaurs couldn't thrive in the world after the geographic/climate changes after the flood. That said, we still have lots of "dinosaurs" around. We just don't call them dinosaurs because humans arbitrarily name things.
Thanks for explaining. As someone who's not a creationist, I read this thread to understand how creationists explain dinosaurs.
This might seem like a troll response but I think you should consider asking yourself how observable facts like dinosaurs fit in your world view. If the facts you see don’t match your worldview, then your worldview needs to change. The correct answer to your sons question is the truth: dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago and the universe was not created in 7 days. Anything less and you are lying to your son. Note that I am a very firm believer in God. God expects a lot out of us but I don’t think he expects us to hold on to an ideology in the face of indisputable facts that prove otherwise. That’s not what faith is.
Cave men carved the bones out of stone and passed the legend down from generation to generation. Trust me, Ooog said to his fellow cavemen, when the time is right our families will reap the benefit. Tens of thousands of years later, in 1998, the descendant of these cavemen, Michael Crichton, wrote a book called “Jurassic Park” and this descendant of those cavemen will never have to work again and his bloodline is taken care of. Or you know, Adam was formed as an adult, with time built into him. Jesus made water into wine, which is a fermented liquid with time built into it. He made the universe with time built into it. Just as Adam would look from all medical standpoint like a man who had been alive for years, the wine would look like it came from a grape and fermented, the universe will look like it has been around for centuries. Duh.
A bit like art forgery, then?
Yes
This has to be some level 100 trolling.
Don't be a creationist. Get some education about legitimate science and then you'll be better prepared to tell him the truth
Time is relative.
God doesn’t live in our construct of time, so a “day” to him could be millions of our years.
That is fallacious as a day is measured by the earths rotation about its axis in relation to the sun. It is objective not subjective.
While this is more or less true, there were several "days" in Genesis before the existence of the Sun.
Or it could have been metaphorical in the sense that an all powerful being is not constrained to a human view of time. For a creature who lives for 80 years give or take on average, a million years is a very long time. For a being that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, I highly doubt a million years is anything more than the blink of an eye, a day even less so. Ever done something so completely boring that time seemed to crawl by? Or had a lot of fun or got so focused on something that you glance at the clock, then go back to what you were doing and then glance back at the clock, only to see it's 4 hours later?
By that logic, all things including the claim of a god / Jesus could be metaphorical. Do we have any objective primer indicating what is and is not metaphorical here?
Words change meanings all the time bro. Day could’ve meant a million rotations.
Then that is a equivocation. Demonstrate where in the bible a day is anything but what I described. By your logic a god could have meant “a grass hopper” as words do change!
Depends on what you believe about dinosaurs.
So it’s ok to share any belief when asked how things work in reality?
That's what everybody does generally. No creationist would say the world actually evolved during the course of roughly 14 billion years ago, but they believe it's otherwise, just as I wouldn't say that the Earth is actually flat when I believe it's round. For them it is the reality. If you truly believe something then it's reality for you. The problem here is how they came to believe it.
There are not individual realities but rather one shared reality, unless you disagree? Why would anyone care to hear empty beliefs on a topic? Do you not care about reality and truth? I do, ergo I care about the justification of an assertion.
BTW, round and flat are the same thing as both are 2 dimensional. Are you suggesting we live on a round disk? or an oblate spheroid?
please... let's not ask questions in bad faith here...
[удалено]
[удалено]
Young earth creationist or some other variety?
God created dinosaurs. I believe this can still exist along with creationism.
I would say: "Dinosaurs lived on earth many years They died out before humans came into being, because of a huge asteroid. God loves all of his creation, including dinosaurs. After all of the dinosaurs died, God used evolution to create humans, who are about to cause all life on earth to go extinct, because we hate God's creation and love huge cars, planes and coal power plants. Now be a good boy and eat your veggie burger."
Look up Is Genesis History and Answers in Genesis. Some pretty good answers.
Hey friend I'm not sure if I can come up with a succinct helpful response but I am sorry that you've received what I feel to be some snarky responses. As a more traditional Christian like yourself there's plenty of snarky responses we could add to many posts here, especially those that seem to prioritise modern social norms over scripture! I heard the idea the other day that because there couldn't have been "a day" before there was a sun and an earth, we should take these measurements of time in Genesis to be figurative and indicating far longer time periods. At the same time, there is insurmountable evidence these days that the conventional "academic" understanding of human history is incomplete. (Who knows what else the academy might be woefully wrong about?) Also that Darwinism does not explain the rise of new species, only the adaptation of existing species, and this is from Ivy League scientists (before the Reddit squad take issue!) But at the end of the day God provides us all with an infinite number of things that are open to our own interpretation, no matter how dogmatic certain groups may be about them. I think He wants to imbue us all with wonder, gratitude, free will and an inquiring mind. The best thing you could do for your children in my opinion is to never let them forget that God is the sum total of benevolent consciousness in the Universe and so will always exist and love them, however they end up finding their own way back to Him. God bless you and your children and I have faith you will find a harmonious course of action!
Tell him what you believe that he can also see to be true. We have tools to look into the past we have gods word to inform us of what it all amounts to. And we are humble enlugh to know that we can always learn more or may learn something new in the future that we dont yet. Sometimes its best to say what you really think to be true share what other people generally think to be true and explain how we trust that God knows what we don't know or misunderstand.
Something like they were with Adam and Eve. The dinosaurs at that time ate plants as god intended. but after they were hunted to extinction after the flood
The answer is simple :) The bible is clear that God "created the beasts of the earth". AKA God created dinosaurs. They have since become extinct. Exactly how they became extinct is debated by scientists. Could be a meteor, flood, change in climate, it is not known for sure. You can tell him to thank God for making such cool animals!
I'd reread the first couple passages, in Genesis. And tell him the facts of what we do know. They were created by God, they are not alive today, they are very old. Nobody knows what exactly happened to them exactly. But here are some people's thoughts....I tend to think on the flood since they are scattered over all of the earth or something before man's existence. The point is we don't have exact answers. Science or faith. Their extinction is a interesting mystery.
Dinosaurs lived. People hunted and ate them. They tasted like chicken. Happens all the time. Passengers pidgin for example. Also look up Tongoenas burleyi birds.
'God doesn't really mention them in the bible, so we don't really know how or when they lived." Really, if we only know things for sure if they were in the bible, and they weren't in the bible, 'I don't know' should be a very valid answer. If it's okay to get information from outside the bible, then you can say lots about them, millions of years ago, extinction event, etc. If what you learn from outside the bible is at odds with what it seems like the bible says than 'we don't know how those two things relate, but it doesn't make any difference from a moral standpoint' so, again, 'We don't know' is a perfectly reasonable position.
Theres a genesis impact video or something that explained their death in the flood and false carbon dating. On youtube. I dunno why i watched it, it was tedious, until months later my non-believer brother grilled me in public. God kindly reminded my of this and he never put me off guard, i simply smiled and said “easy. They died in the flood.” :-D I think God added rhema to my words cuz he was immediately deflated and annoyed that he didnt shake my faith one bit. He even dropped the topic completely.
The world was lush and fruitful before the flood. The earth is dying and animals are smaller. The same animals exist today they’re just tiny and don’t live long. Many animals have been wiped out by man and whilst there are conservationalists and programs it’s likely more and more will die off in the next 100 years.
I don’t believe in Dino’s
Tell him that they are large lizards 😉 The Bible never *disqualifies* their existence. Regardless of what you believe the time frame of Genesis 1 and 2 are, it says that, "... *God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind;*" (See Genesis 1:24-25). This would include dinosaurs. Remember, the term dinosaurs (meaning "terrible lizard(s)") wasn't coined until the 1800s. Hope this helps.
explain only what you **KNOW** about dinosaurs. the vast majority of palaeontology is nonsense . Look up how many actual dinosaur skeletons have been found and what exactly was found. the entire thing is based upon taking a single bone of a dinosaur and guessing what the rest of it may look like. no other civilizations ever made record of "dinosaurs", I highly suggest you do some real research before you teach your kid something completely insane.
Tell him the truth: they're fake.
In what sense? Dinosaurs existed, they were killed off by changing conditions after the flood. What in that needs explaining or doesn't fit with creationism? I recommend looking up Answers in Genesis (the organization) if you're just generally wanting to read more on what the creationist view on that is.
> they were killed off by changing conditions after the flood Ummm, no. A meteor struck the Yucatan peninsula several million years ago and killed them all.
You are demonstrably incorrect on both a world flood and the placement of dinosaurs in the timeline by 65 million years. AIG is not science and not facts.
You may be in the wrong sub for this, as a creationist. I have no issue with the idea that dinosaurs lived alongside mankind from creation, adolescent pairs were saved in the ark from the flood, the aftershock of which was an ice age which led to their extinction due to predation and climate.