i dont kno if im the person to answer this, and im also not sure if im correct in all this info. i also wont get too far into evolutionary thinking in this, even though it plays an important part in various other theories, it would just take too long to go in depth. im willing to talk about evoultion in sum other thread. this is just wut i believe...
oh and also major credit goes to The Revised & Expanded Answers Book, by don batten, ken ham, jonathan sardati, and carl wieland, for my answer to this. tried not to plagiarize, so i rephrased everything in my own words when possible
first, the bible sez dat the world was created in 6, not 7 days. God finished his work in 6 days, and saw that all was good, resting on the 7th, and setting it apart as holy, hence the jewish (or christian) sabbath. in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. the Spirit of God was hovering over the water. ok, so, day 1 was light; day 2 was the separation of sky and water, thru the creation of the horizon; day 3 was the combination of all water under the sky, creation of dry land and vegetation; day 4 was the creation of night and day as we know it today, w/ the sun to shine in the day, and moon at night, and the stars; day 5 was sea creatures and birds; and day 6 was land creatures and adam & eve. day 7 was rest. dinosaurs were land creatures
now to some various objections to the literal days that get involved here:
1) the sun was not created til day 4. how was there day and night for the first 3 days then?
a) the end of each day in Genesis, bible reads "evening and morning", first 3 days and next 3 days, the same way
b) sun is not required for day n night. there was light created b4 the sun was created. it was only after the creation of the sun, that it was to rule the day God had created. a spinning earth is implied by "evening and morning", and if the earth's rotating, w/ light, there would still be night & day.
2) there's some verse that says a day w/ the Lord is a thousand years. so it might be "long" days in genesis.
a) kind of like a metaphor (english class sucks), but deals with the second coming. it relates to the fact that it may seem like such a long time before Christ comes again, but is nothing to God
b) rest of the verse says "as a thousand years as one day", kind of cancelling the first part out, if used in reference to Genesis
3) billions of years doesn't limit God, but 6 days does.
a) more like the other way around. it is our own disbelief in 6 days that puts billions of years in, as "more probable". God does exist out of time, and created the flow of time as we see it. there's also different stuff on the theory of relativity, and light being "created on its way, since if stars are millions of lightyears away, how could we see them now (young earth - around 6,000 to a max around 10,000 yrs old)? some theory/explanation for this, not proven - time is not constant and gravity disorts time. familiar math equation 4 u: distance divided by rate = time. if distance measured of stars is accurate, and speed of light has always been the same, the only thing left is time that can be changed. i dont kno enough about this to go into more detail
4) Genesis 2 says diff about creation, w/ adam and eve
a) only a more detailed account of the creation of man, on day 6, not two contradicting stories
there's other arguments about meanings of diff jewish words and translations, but i dont know enough about dat. there's also bigger arguments that deal with evolution and the big bang and such, which is too much to put here. if neone would like to debate those topics, id be happy to.
now for dinosaurs.
evolutionists say dinosaurs evolved around 325 mil yrs ago, way b4 man, which already contradicts the bible - man and land animals came at the same time. Some catastrophic event wiped them all out 65 mil yrs ago. some say they evolved into birds and are still here today... bible sez came about the same time as humans and land animals, and coexisted. they could not have died about before people, cuz they didn't exist before ppl, and also bloodshed and death came after Adam's sinning. they were still able to live with man all the time they were around. i can't say that dinosaurs never ate people, and very likely there were numbers of people who became meals for dinosaurs. however, people weren't stupid and cavemen, as evolutionists like to portray "early men", who can't even really be considered "early" or "primitive", as in the sense we think of today. that's getting off topic though, i can discuss that elsewhere. there are also mentions of large creatures in the bible, that can easily be interpreted as dinosaurs - dragons, the leviathan, and the behemoth. the behemoth was described "chief of the ways of God", making sense for it to be the largest land creature ever made, possibly a brachiosaurus. also, why do so many cultures include references of dragons/dinosaurs? the sumerian gilgamesh slew a dragon; st. george slew a dragon; alexander the great and his men reported very large hissing reptiles in india that were worshipped; chinese culture deals a lot with dragons; several different early european accounts of smaller creatures, which today seem to describe various small dinosaurs, etc. there has also been hemoglobin found in some dinosaur fossils, a component of blood, which would have disintergrated if they were millions of years old, and also some unfossilized dinosaur bones have been found in alaska. some might say many dinosaurs specifically ate meat. first, this is not proven fact. many animals today have sharp teeth and claws, yet live largely on a vegetarian diet. pandas hv teeth and claws, and have been seen eating small animals before, but mainly eat bamboo (bet u didnt kno dat ). bears have large teeth and claws, but are mainly vegetarian, or live on fish. evolutionists say these animals have adapted. well, maybe they may have adapted, but meat eaters came about as a result of the curse of man, either as a mutation or fitted with new uses for their body parts. evolutionists believe that species improve over time, with natural selection, but the earth is actually degenerating. all things will fall to ruin over time, as a result of adam's sin. natural selection actually weeds out genetic information instead of accumulating it. from biblical view, many dinosaurs were wiped out as the flood came, and the ones taken aboard noah's ark didn't necessarily need to be large, as pointed out by zero-sen. they also may have been infants or children or adolescents. dinosaur and other fossils mainly originated around the flood, as sediment, rain and mud quickly covered creatures, trapping them and preserving them , as more layers piled on. the ones that lived on the ark may have died out due to inability to adjust to the new environment they were now in, and many creationists believe that the one and only ice age occurred following the flood. animals today are extinct because their environment was destroyed somehow, by man or naturally, or maybe killed by man. we have our endangered species program to try and save endangered animals nowadays. why are animals disappearing? man killing them, lack of environment, food, disease, catastrophes...what happened to the dinosaurs? don't know, there are many possibilites, but scientists say its a mystery :omg: if dinosaurs lived alongside man, it really should be no mystery at all why dinosaurs died out. ppl also dont really kno if all dinosaurs are extinct for sure. explorers have described dinosaur-like creatures in the congo, and mammoth-like elephants in nepal. one previously thought extinct animal is the coelacanth, a extremely strange looking fish, once put as an evolutionary transitional link, have been found alive today.
last thoughts...
the bible doesn't contradict science. it contradicts evolution and naturalism and humanism, the underlying beliefs in evolution. evolution is not science, it is unproven, can be disproved by facts, when interpreted from a creationist view.
facts dont speak for themselves, they are interpreted according to a bias. evolutionary bias is naturalism. creationist bias is special creation by God. it is a question of which bias is right, not who is biased. it is up to u to decide for yourself after looking at the arguments (dont want to force my beliefs on u). seriously, im willing to debate with someone over evolution and creation.
to seung ju:
-many do belive that the bible is a literal account of world's history, as far as it goes, but it obviously doesnt include everyones history and everything that vere happened, because it was not intended as such, and only included neccesary parts to get across God's message of salvation thru Christ
-the bible was inspired by God. i agree with dat, but as for accuracy and interpretation, the different authors knew what they were doing. accuracy and fitting together of the bible is amazing, with prophecies and such. yes, there are contradictions, but have no significance in changing the story. god inspired but didn't dictate. these people were chosen by God, and very accurate.
-yes, the bible is full of symbolism, and facts also. i believe dat Genesis is fact. other bks like Revelation is symbolism and prophecy that will be fact when they happen.
to jusun:
jeez u kno a lot
to daNNy LuV 1TYM: well, i believe the bible can be taken literally, including ages of old testament people. ages of ppl declined after the fall of man, w/ sin entering the world, and even more rapidly after the flood.
to the rest: willing to take corrections if i made ne mistakes
sheesh, i spent like an hour doing this...it would make a good essay...gosh, its even longer than jusun's
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