Is it possible to draw a good and Godly conclusion on the literal nature of the first few chapters of Genesis? There are some people who are very literal, to the point of reading far too much into Genesis, and there are some people who insist that 7 day creation didn't happen at all, to the point that God didn't even have a hand in it. I don't want to go either way. I looked at a website earlier that was quite scary in it's representation, to the point of being scientifically inaccurate in the extreme and very badly researched, relying upon little more than cultural rumours (such as the kangaroo being the "Aboriginese" word for "I don't know"). How can I possibly take that seriously!?
I don't like dinosaurs. I think primarily because I don't know what to do with them. Where do they fit in the Bible? Literalists would have me believe that they walked with humans and were washed away in the Flood. Non literalists want me to believe that they happened sometime in between God creating the animals and God creating humans, and as a day doesn't equal day, that is possible.
I don't know what to do with dinosaurs! Even if I took the evolutionary side, I still wouldn't know what to do with them! Why did God (or evolution) create such massive beasts, so alien from what's around us now, only to be destroyed (and if you're an evolutionist, why didn't life now evolve into such large animals in the same way?)?
Dinosaurs make no sense!! I don't know where to put them or what to do with them. When I become a teacher, I will rely on other teachers to do dinosaurs. I will do other themes, such as the ocean, space, etc. But not dinosaurs!
7 comments:
This is from Louis. Sorry about the bad e-mail adress, I was a teenager...
I've often wondered about my (and almost everyone else's) childhood fantasy with dinosaurs. My wondering is more about why they're fascinating. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they can't be easily explained.
I can explain why evolution would favour (and then eventually destroy) such large beasts though: In a world very different to the one today animals were very susceptible to predators, so the ones with some advantage over the majority of predators were more likely to survive. For most dinosaurs it was their sheer size, or their speed, or both. As time went on, the bigger and faster alluded their predators better, and lived longer in order to reproduce, and in turn the bigger and faster predators survived longer as they were less likely to die from starvation and more like to live to reproduce and pass their genes on. This much makes a lot of sense to me, and has a lot of empirical evidence to support it, going back to the experiments of Gregor Mendel , whose work formed the basis of a lot of the science of Darwin's work. The harder to thing to explain is exactly why they're not here anymore, this presents a problem for both science and religion. If god created everything and it all has a reason, then why are their dinosaur bones? And why did the dinosaurs and other megafauna die out, not all at once, but over several extinction events we know little about.
If you saw a badly researched website you have to remember that there is a lot of emotion and opinions on both sides, and not as much in the way of factual evidence. Richard Dawkins, for instance, may have a point, but it is lost in what is essentially preaching against preachers. Bad arguing can hurt your case and turn people against your opinion.
A lot of what the world knows about dinosaurs is fiction and extrapolation. You could teach only the fiction, the folklore, but that's probably not good teaching. What level are you planning on teaching?
-Louis
Who knew dinosaurs were so literate, alluding to their predators!
I obviously meant elude. I'm sorry, I rely too heavily on spellcheck. It's my attention defecate disorder.
That, of course, was a joke.
In a world very different to the one today animals were very susceptible to predators
Sorry Louis, explain to me how that's different from today's world? While the bigger and faster dinosaurs were evolving to become bigger and faster, who were their predators? The ones who were bigger and faster before them? How did they get bigger and faster first? By having bigger and faster predators before them? My mind is going in circles here!
Yet another reasons why I don't like dinosaurs.
I don't know what God was thinking when he created them and killed them off! I thought I explained my inability to explain the dinosaurs in my OP.
The bad website was a Christian one, and it made me groan. It was horrible. Please don't make me go back! I DON'T WANNA! *kicks and screams*
Hey, you don't know that they didn't allude to their predators. They could have been the forerunners of modern literacy!
Hopefully upper primary. About the age when they start learning about evolution (which I refuse to teach, except as an explicit theory and not fact).
Funny story time! In Sunday School the other day (ya know, the church thing I do), I was asking my kids what they know about God and creation. We had a visitor there who responded that:
1) God doesn't exist
2) man came from monkeys
Hah, "well, actually, we're here today to learn about what the Bible says about that, so the Bible says that God exists and loves us, so that's what we're going to learn about."
"The Bible says that God created humans. He could have done that by going through monkeys first, no one was there so we don't quite know, but however it happened, we know that God did it."
Whew! Keeps me on my toes!
/funny story
They all evolved simultaneously. The predators were mainly other dinosaurs. The predators and the prey that were able to survive were more able to pass their advantageous genes on.
It's different to today because human intervention on a massive scale since the industrial revolution has seen some protection of threatened species, and massive extinction due to habitat loss, pollution and killing. Humans have done massive action to change the environment, whether or not you believe global warming is happening. A city, a road, a house is a massive change in the environment, which means we are far less susceptible to predators and other evolutionary phenomena.
I think when you refer to god as 'thinking' you're making in a mistake in assuming that god is exactly like human. The bible says god was created in man's image...
oops, that was a typo but I'm leaving it...
Anyway as I was saying, man was created in god's image, but to assume god is a thinking being exactly like a human is difficult for me to believe. I do believe a god like being has intentions in their actions, but not that they sit down and think things over. Thinking is a human action, prone to error.
Kids do say some interesting things. During lunch one day one of my first grade teachers was getting all of her kids to say English words they knew, and one kids said 'timeslip' he explained it (in Japanese) as when you're at one time and then suddenly BAM you're at another time.
hmmm... I think therefore God thinks...? *shrug*
As Jesus was a man, I'm sure he went through the thinking process and had thoughts. I don't know how Jesus thought or what about, but I'm quite certain he would have done it!
that timeslip word is great! *chuckles* Where did they get it from?
Birds.
birds?
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