All of these prehistoric animals could've been an extension of rivalries between spirit beings/siblings - one creates a TRex and the other then tries to outdo that creation by making a Brontasaur (sp?). My View: There's no question that this earth had a different purpose in prehistoric times than the one we have today. I don't think of the creation account of the 7 days, Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve, Sin and Satan as literally as JW teach. The flood of Noah's day as told in the Bible has never seem possible; there's too many types of animals and too many animals living exclusively in certain areas for a world flood to have occurred. All these stories seem like metaphor and we as humans need to think of where we came from etc. and this is as good a story as any. SIDE NOTE: My mother thinks everything was created by Jehovah and the dinosaurs were created to give us petroleum products! You know fossil fuel. Q from California
Who here believes in Creation, yet believes in the Fossil records??
by Lady Liberty 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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barry
While God has been a physist for 15 billion years he has only been a theologin for six thousand years. Anyway that was the explaination of a delegate at a creation science conference held by the SDA church.
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sass_my_frass
What a great day it will be, the day that a fossil of a prehistoric god is found.
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Mariusuk.
The fossil record along with the evidence for evolution does make the concept of a creator rather redundant, this deity has gone from being an almighty, all creating super being to a creature which "lit the blue touchpaper". New discoveries strip yet more and more of the mysteries away and without the mystery the need for a supernatural explanation disappears
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Abaddon
I don't get this...
Fossils exist.
Why would someone want to advance a theory of an incompetent or unomnipowerful god making prototype animals?
Why can't they accept that maybe god is so clever that the animals develop independently but still acheieve gods aims?
I don't personally believe god had anything to do with creation, but both of the above ideas (incompetent god making prototypes or a really clever god making self-developing organisms) are as removed from the literal account as each other, yet the self developing one just seems more reasonable than an incompetent god some people would rather believe in than accept the fact of evolution.
Oh, Bryson's figures on the amouts of fossils seem a bit shakey. I could place an order for kilos of certain types of fossils, there are fossils beds where you can just go and carve them out of the grounds, and I guess he excludes coal, of which there is considerably more than a five-ton tuck load, and a lot of coal bears fossils
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erandir
I like Mark Twain's version of creation and the fossil record. In the Diary of Adam or the Diary of Eve (don't remember which one, or the exact title), Adam and Eve and the kids make fossils and bury them on mountain tops as a practical joke for future generations.
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Caedes
"lit the blue touchpaper".
god took the instructions a little too seriously, "light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance" and his followers have been all tetchy since.
I really wish that in a discussion about fossil records people would remember that they don't have any theories, they have at best a hypotheses and at worse a wild guess. In a discussion about a scientific subject you really should know the difference between the common meaning and the scientific one.
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Terry
I didn't know that the dubs do not believe dinosaurs existed, a clearly an erroneous idea.
Well, yes and no.
Try to get a JW to explore ideas about the subject and they flee in terror. JW's are allowed no personal ideas. The Watchtower cannot make definitive statements about dinosaurs without damaging themselves. So, the rank and file member simply has to have a blank spot in their mind on this subject.
This is like holding up garlic to a vampire.
Try it and then see if you don't change your mind. What a person refuses to even THINK about does not (for all practical purposes) EXIST for them.
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Mariusuk.
agreed!
However when you have a comment stating that "maybe supernatural beings were trying to out do each other with T rex's and Brontosaurus's" you realise that a scientific discussion is probably out of the question
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Terry
I believe in the Bible, and also in the fossil record.
An interesting viewpoint on this is expressed by Dr. Kent Hovind at http://www.drdino.com
He's a young earther, and a serioud born again, and I don't personally subscribe to the full range of his beliefs; but his videos are free downloads and he is a very entertaining and engaging speaker.
I found quite a few points that gave me things to think about.
Roller
I work in a bookstore in the Religion, Philosophy and Metaphysics section. I have seen a trend in apologist books over the last several years by seemingly competent (academics with credentials) writers who are trying to turn the rudder on the great ship of Fundamentalism.
Why are they writing these books? Because Christian Fundamentalism has made people look like idiots, cretins and knuckle-dragging fools, that's why! Rehabilitaion was vital to reputation!
I get many a puzzled Creationist desperate for a workable argument searching these books for support. Ammunition against friends, co-workers and non-believers has become indispensible.
Check out Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe ministries. He is clever by far.