Should Christians Believe in Dinosaurs? Is This Belief Consistent with Scripture?

Theology
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Should Christians Believe in Dinosaurs? Is This Belief Consistent with Scripture?

Dinosaurs present an interesting discussion for Christians, as they are well-documented in science but not explicitly mentioned in Scripture. Some believe creatures like Behemoth (Job 40:15-19) could refer to dinosaurs, while others see them as part of God’s creation that existed long before humanity. The question ultimately challenges how believers reconcile biblical accounts with scientific discoveries, prompting discussions on young-earth vs. old-earth perspectives. How do you see dinosaurs fitting into the biblical narrative?

#BiblicalCreation #DinosaursAndFaith #ScienceAndTheBible #ChristianForums #CrosswalkForums #FaithCommunity

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The existence of dinosaurs is a widely accepted scientific fact, supported by fossil evidence and extensive research. However, some Christians struggle with how to reconcile this with Scripture. The Bible does not explicitly mention dinosaurs, but passages like Job 40:15-19 describe creatures that some believe could align with dinosaurs. Others view them as extinct animals that existed before or alongside early humanity.

This raises important questions: How do we interpret dinosaurs within a biblical worldview? Does their existence challenge or complement Scripture? Should Christians accept mainstream scientific explanations, or is there room for alternative perspectives?

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I once had a brief discussion with an older gentleman who was very much in the ‘young earth’ camp and when I asked him about dinosaurs, and their ancient skeletal remains he told me that he didn’t believe in dinosaurs.

oookay— so what about their bones?

I grew up in Alberta, and anyone can drive up to a little town called Drumheller, Alberta and see the dinosaur bones both inside and outside the Royal Tyrell Museum. Every school kid visits. So I don’t understand this question of “believing” in dinosaurs (or not). It’s a matter of understanding what it is we are seeing.

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Genesis 1:21. Read the original!

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Understand the difference in allegory and fact.

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Yes, Christians should believe in dinosaurs. Because the bones are sitting for all to see.

The problem is that Christians don’t study the scriptures. They don’t study the ancient languages in which the book was written, or the cultures where events played out, or basic history, or anything to enrich the words they hold as truth. What good is a map if you don’t know the key to understand what the symbols mean, or how many miles are covered by an inch? Most don’t even try to understand. They just quote something and run with it. No matter how much damage it may cause.

There is a great book written by Gregory Boyd called God At War. There is an essay in there where he talks about Genisis 1:2:

*Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Mr. Boyd talks about the word FORMLESS as being misunderstood or lacking context. Misunderstood because the original word here in the language that has been translated… That word has a large association with a location that has come under judgement, or that has been destroyed.

Meaning something may have existed here before this world was created. Which could have included what we call dinosaurs.

We run with the creation story and think the ground itself was pulled together magically, and God just zapped it all into material form in those seven days. We think that when God destroys this Earth everything will blink away… But the flood that filled Noah’s world was an end time for those times. Life continued from one world into the next. Something ceased to be while something remained.

Something is left to grow back.

Now there is another discussion about Genesis being only part of the story. Other ancient cultures talk of a war that occured, a culmination before that old world was destroyed before God’s Spirit hovered over the water. There are clues that hint that Genesis is related to those myths. Maybe taken from. But who can say?

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When I brought this up to someone, and made the mistake of asking this 'believer" why he didn’t believe the science that says these bones are very, very, very old (i.e. more than 6000 years old) - he actually said, that IF the bones are old, maybe God hid the bones to test our faith.

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…This is why God trreats us like sheep.
And maybe why Jesus was done in 3 or so years…
You can save a sinner. But you can’t fix stupid.

Seriously though, ever heard of the Milgram experiment? It was a social experiment in the 60s where subjects were divided into students and teachers with an overseer ensuring the experiment continued. (Its been outlawed since then btw)

Teachers were testing students, wrong answers received electrical shocks. The electricity was ramped up over time until it was torture, even potentially deadly. Teachers would begin to question whether they should keep shocking the students. And then be ordered to continue by the overseer.

When told to continue, even seeing the results of students writhing in pain and begging for it to stop, and hearing the sound of the electricity with each jolt, most teachers would continue despite voicing reservations.

It was revealed that the students were actors, the sounds were recordings . and the people playing teacher were the ones being tested.

Statistically most people, a high percentage, obey what they are told to do by an authority figure, such as a preacher who tells his flock that science is fake, dinosaurs are a lie, and you are going to hell if you walk away from him, the preacher. This is one reason very intelligent people find themselves in cults. Intelligence does not equal the ability to think for one’s self.

Being self actualized means being able to choose different from what you are told to do by someone in power over you. You have both the ability to question those in charge and make the choice to disobey.

Not to be confused with lawlessness, which is the inability to line up at all to any kind of authority. And doing what you want all the time no matter who it hurts. That is mental illness because it embodies lack of reason and empathy, and yields to a repeating pattern of thinking and behavior that cannot be broken, meaning the person is unable to make a different choice other than the one they have always made. The part of the mind that allows a person to do anything except be contradictory is impaired, creating an unbreakable pattern that cannot be escaped.

Which is tragic in its own right, but much worse when that person has authority over others who cannot think for themselves and disobey.

The repeating pattern of thoughts, phrases, behaviors is what makes a given illness diagnosable. When you can guess very acurately how a person will behave, you have a repeating pattern. The question becomes, is a pattern healthy and life sustaining? or unhealthy like a trauma that leads to bad life chocies and further traumas.

Also for anyone reading who may know or believe they might be struggling with some form of mental illness or trauma, I encourage you to be brave and see a professional. There are treatments, medications, mental exercises, and supoort groups that can help you have a more fulfilling, freer life. These things have been studied for a very long time. You aren’t alone. You can have a better life and don’t need to suffer. The past does not need to define you. It is worth the time and work to heal.

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It’s often not an inability, rather simply an unwillingness - to think things through. People would rather be comforted by a lie, even theological lies, than be confronted with a truth. Truth can be very uncomfortable.

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It depends on the situation.

A narcisist for example has no internal understanding of what love and affection are. That is because it forms the first year or so of a person’s life. When a mother is unable to nurture her baby sufficiently (because she dies, sufers from post partum depression, abaondons the child, etc) and no one else steps up to feed, change the diaper, pick the baby up and hold it, etc, that baby does not ever internalize what love and affection are.

From this void, a child grows to replace actual love with getting attention. They consume attention, look for attention. Because they cannot feel love or give love. It is foreign, a concept that does not register in their core.

Everything becomes a show, an illusion to create positive attention for the Narcissist. Other people can be wrong, but not the Narcissist. This illusion is everything to the Narcissist. Life or death. So anything that threatens to break the illusion must be resisted, denied. And the person who tries to reveal the truth becomes demonized and must be destroyed.

The people who love, befriend the Narcissist feed him the attention he needs and maintain the illusion, they get sucked into his battles against his detracters and former lovers who see the truth and turn against him. No one can walk away from a Narcisisst. He must always walk away from you first.

There is a high suicide rate among those who suffer from Narcissim because until the illusion is shattered a Narcissist will not pursue mental health guidance. They have to enter crisis first, rock bottom before they can challenge the behavior and make a choice to do the work to figure out what it means to love themselves… Which can then be projected on to others. Creating a potential for healthy reciprical relationships and actual bonding with others.

The people who get sucked into this illusion tend to give everyrhing to the Narcissist with few breadcrumbs back of any sort of affection. But they live for these crumbs, trying to feel thwir own emptiness from having given so much love away to him, until they are completely burnt out. And the Narcissist eventually replaces them with a fresh source, demonizing or ignoring them when he is done.

It is all a psychological holding pattern of domino effects, one person triggering another, who triggers another. Self destructive and entirely doomed to repeat again and again until someone can break the cycle.

That is what Jesus is. Someone who can break the cycle.

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Hi,

Should dinosaurs believe in Christians?

Think about this.
Before sin entered the world, there was no death.
We know this because the wages of sin is death. (Rim . 6:23)
What would a 1000 year old elephant look like?
If a tiger could live long enough, would it develop saber teeth?
How tall could a giraffe get to be?
What about gators or komodo dragons?
Did you know that one characteristic about reptiles is that they never stop growing.

God does not use trickery to get people to believe.
The Bible says God created us to give His love to us.
He gives us each a measure of faith through which we can receive Him.

Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

All we are asked to do is believe in Jesus.

Blessings

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Hello Tillman.
Here’s something interesting for you’

Isaiah 45:18

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.

But here the Word says,

Genesis 1:2

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Chuck Missler’s teachings on the book of Genesis, yes…on YouTube, states that the more precise translation may be “and the earth BECAME void and without form”

Then there is this,

Jeremiah 4:23-28

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.

For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

I’m thinking ‘Gap Theory.’ Truth or conjecture? This is very interesting indeed.

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This was my first ever Hebrew lesson-- and I was instantly hooked.

My instructor was a Messianic Jew and to begin the lessons he opened the class ‘in the beginning’ with the book of Genesis and looking at the meaning of the Hebrew words used in the recording of scripture. It was a game-changer for me, and now I never neglect having the Hebrew and Greek (or Aramaic) at my fingertips when considering a text.

In the beginning -I’ll give you the pronunciation/equivalent— raysheeth— and while it does mean beginning- it relates directly with the concept of firstfruits. That’s incredibly interesting in the context of this conversation.

As you point out- "in the beginning the world was formless (tohuw) and void (bohuw)— but Isaiah tells us that it was not created to be formless and empty.

That means, that though it was not created to be this way, in the beginning of this story- that’s what it had become-- and that’s where the story starts. Like -this chapter of human history… So why does raysheeth matter?

Because the Genesis story is evidently the beginning of a new chapter of human history that starts with a planting of firstfruits. It’s fascinating because the firstfruits ALWAYS come from a previous harvest-- a prior generation. If you miss this, you miss a lot, and actually you can then miss almost all of it.

Tohuw doesn’t just mean formless-- it means ‘desolated’ and that’s quite evocative in terms of 'how" the land became ‘a worthless thing.’ As with Bohuw-- which means more than empty, it means “a ruin.”

So then… and I love that you made this point… but our story begins with a desolated, ruined earth, where the firstfruits are brought and ‘planted’ to renew life and to make the desolation productive and good-- again.

It gives needed context to the concept of a promised ‘new heaven and a new earth’ in the book of Revelation- which will come after the old earth is sadly ruined once more.

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In the beginning, God basically said, “Let there be a universe.” Then there was a Big Bang. God had less of a problem creating a universe than explaining it to humans. If you compare creation to the Big Bang, the phases that took place are the same. The term day did not happen until things cooled down.
A question. Should people believe in Kangaroos? How would you like to explain infinity to a two year old?

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I agree with the author when she says, “Christians who question the existence of Leviathan and Behemoth may extrapolate to believe that since these are the only two large, strange creatures mentioned in the Bible, there were no dinosaurs. The Bible would have mentioned others, right? Not necessarily. We don’t have a list anywhere, including in the list of all the animals in Noah’s ark, of all the creatures that God created.”

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Thank you for this! I know the Bible was written for us but not to us. It was written to other generations directly for Hebrews and Jews who were to be the earthly priests to later bless the entire earth.

Yes, I was very unaware of what the definition of what firtsfruits meant. Very interesting.

Again, thank you for the knowledge.

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The Bible is created! It is created for Christians, and for the world, there are only two words: repent and turn, and inherit salvation.