| Author |
Message |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1417
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 5:56 am: |     |
Goose,
Should we insist that God conform to our image of Him or should we conform our understanding to the revelation of Him? Should we define what His Word must mean by our image of God, or should we allow His Word to define our image? |
Goose
Registered user
Username: Goose
Post Number: 51
Registered: 11-2011
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 9:30 am: | |
Ric, not trying to make God after my own image or anything like that. Just tryin' to get some kind of idea how monsters like the T-rex came to be. In Revelations we read "there shall be no more pain." So, God's plan and purposes are to that end, that there be no more pain. So, His creating a blood thirsty monster is not congruent with God's purposes.
And yet, as I've read the many posts, I see that some folk make room for the possibility that T-Rex and other beasts like them, were among those beasts described in Gen 1, before the fall. If so, Adam would not even had time to name the thing, for it would have swallowed him whole, without even chewing.
Yes, I know, we have to live and be content not knowing everything. But it still bothers me that God would have created the T-Rex as we see it today. And if He didn't; if the T-Rex before the fall was just a big, funny lizard, did it grow those 6 inch teeth after the fall?
If it grew those teeth after the fall of Adam and Eve, how did our first parents defend themselves against it? Maybe the beasts just took to fighting and eating each other?
Anyway, with everything that can be said, I think most Christians do avoid really thinking about this. That is why I decided to create the topic. We have to grapple with things that are repressed or in-congruent.
I think of Jesus words regarding Satan, that he was a murderer from the beginning. What did Jesus mean? Did Satan murder angels? I don't think so. Now we don't know. Satan, if he can not directly create, may still have the power to corrupt creation. I think about the many diseases and plagues that have killed millions upon millions of humans.
I think we have to leave room for the possibility that Satan may have more power than we think. We don't know how advanced humans became before the Flood. They may have had the ability to do genetic engineering, and as I think at least one poster postulated, these beasts may have come from genetic manipulation, and used as today's armaments in battle.
But that God created the T-Rex, as we see it today, with those teeth, to me, is unacceptable. Such a creature could never be called "good."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdx_zQLtme4 |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1419
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 10:23 am: | |
Goose,
One of the dangers I see in your approach is that we define what is beautiful and what is ugly, and then we make Satan responsible for creating anything ugly. I am convinced that SDAism made Satan too strong and powerful. |
Goose
Registered user
Username: Goose
Post Number: 52
Registered: 11-2011
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 10:38 am: | |
I found this on http://gracethrufaith.com and liked what I read....
"It’s likely that God did create dinosaurs although not in a form recognizable to us. According to the fossil record, some had bodies too big for their skeletons, while others had brains too small to function properly. There were giant birds that couldn’t fly and animals so huge they had to remain in water to support their bulk. This doesn’t sound like God’s work to me. Remember, at the end of Day 6 He pronounced everything good.
The apocryphal Book of Enoch hints that Satan was tinkering with animal genetics after the Creation just like he did with mankind. His tinkering with the human gene pool produced the Nephilim, a half breed mix of angel and man that took over the world and was a major cause for Noah’s flood.
To me many of the dinosaurs look more like a science experiment gone bad than the handiwork of the Creator of the Universe. I think Satan was messing with them, as another way to corrupt God’s perfect Creation."
Here is a direct link to the above, for those who wish to visit the site http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/who-created-dinosaurs/ |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 1420
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 10:49 am: | |
So are small birds that can't fly a satanic creature as well? |
Mjcmcook
Registered user
Username: Mjcmcook
Post Number: 270
Registered: 2-2011
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 11:11 am: | |
~Goose~
Just had to tell you that I find this web-site
you quoted quite helpful sometimes~
I receive their free daily e-mail!
~mj~ |
Goose
Registered user
Username: Goose
Post Number: 53
Registered: 11-2011
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 11:45 am: | |
Yes, Mj. I explored that site a bit and you are right. Some very helpful and encouraging stuff there.
Ric, not sure how to answer that. When I lived in New Zealand, I saw a Kiwi, a small flightless bird, in the wild. They are nocturnal and come out at night. They do not even have wings.
There are many flightless birds. Chickens and quail are somewhat flightless. |
Lori
Registered user
Username: Lori
Post Number: 141
Registered: 11-1999
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 1:19 pm: | |
Genesis 1:29,30 clearly states what humans and animals were given to eat. There was no "goat popcorn" in the world God created. "I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food. And it was so."
So, at the very most, a t-rex was a gigantic, self-propelled, independently functioning, weed eater!!! |
Asurprise
Registered user
Username: Asurprise
Post Number: 2293
Registered: 7-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 1:46 pm: | |
Goose; God said that the things/creatures He created were good BEFORE Adam sinned. Then after that, the creation was cursed. |
Jeremiah
Registered user
Username: Jeremiah
Post Number: 466
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 5:51 pm: | |
Even though it is very different from how I was conditioned to believe while growing up SDA, I tend to side with evolution these days. The alternative, to me, is to believe in the God of the gaps, and within my lifetime science is comprehending so many previous mysteries that there might not be any real gaps left to fit that God into.
If God really wanted his creation to have free will, then having it be physical and apparently random gives it choice. If God creates a system of constant growth and change as we see in evolution and then leaves it mostly on it's own, the creatures will be free. And nothing teaches us to love like being exposed to pain, suffering, and trouble. This world with it's terrible tragedies really may be the only way to produce free creatures who actually become like God. You may remember that we are to share in the sufferings of Christ... apparently it's the only way. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 13241
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 6:45 pm: | |
You know, we really can't speculate beyond what we know for sure. We know T-Rex existed...and possibly even after the flood. We know he and his ilk became extinct—and God was in charge of that extinction as well.
Even though Satan messes with creation as much as he is allowed to do so, he cannot go beyond what God permits. We can't "blame" Satan for T-Rex or for the thorns on the roses. God is the one in charge.
Acts 17:26 is amazing...
quote: So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
(Acts 17:22-28 ESV)
God is responsible for all things, and we simply can't reduce His sovereignty to a formula that makes sense to us inside of three dimensions and time.
Look at Is. 45:7:
quote:I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
It is God whom we honor and fear, not satan. God is Love...and all reality must be seen through this fact: God Is Love.
Colleen |
Goose
Registered user
Username: Goose
Post Number: 54
Registered: 11-2011
| | Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 9:46 am: | |
I have read before that T-Rex's fossils have only been found in western North America. This site http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinos/trex/Questions.shtmlT. also states that T-rex fossils have been found in Mongolia, as well.
So, if it is true as has been said, the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the region of the Tigris/ Euphrates River valleys, then this not only separates Adam & Eve from T-rex in time, but most importantly by place. As for other carnivorous dinosaurs, I do not know. |
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