Do jw's believe dinosaurs existed?

by farmer 38 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  TD

  My observation is in line with Patio's comment.

  Although the JW's do acknowledge the existence of the dinosaurs, it is a subject they will address only in the most cursorial manner because of the literal/inerrant view of Gen 1:30 they still seem to hold. Even if we ignore the overwhelming evidence of predator/prey relationships manifest in the many attack and defense mechanisms of the dinosaurs, this view still makes for all sort of problems.

  Aside from the obvious, (An herbivore must be able to internally synthesize taurine, an essential amino acid not found in plant material. However no member of the cat family can do this.) most seem to miss the fact that whereas man is given the seeds and fruits of plants in verse 29, the animals are relegated to eating only the foilage in verse 30.

  Even among herbivorous animal species, there are relatively few that truly fit this mold. Almost all herbivores much prefer the seeds and fruit of plants when they can get them.
• 

  mineralogist

  gaiagirl wrote

  This was probably the 1969 bound volume, in which it stated that dinosaurs may have existed up until the time of Noah!!!!!

  This fits exactly with a popular song about Noah and the flood some years ago in germany:
  "Die Dinosaurier wer'n immer trauriger ... denn die Saurier dürfen nicht an Bord"
  "The Sauriers get sad and sader cause they are not allowed to get onboard"

  When i realized that official teaching is still that of creationist - i.e. 7000 years per creation day - it was just another nail in the coffin. Nobody told me when becoming a dub.
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  franklin J

  how do you argue with skeletal fossil remains?

  Frank, of the " I believe in dinosaurs" class
• 

  gitasatsangha

  Franlin,

  Many JW's assume that Satan has interfered with the fossil record to misguide mankind. You can't argue with that kind of idiocy.
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  XQsThaiPoes

  7000 years of creation dear god man! You guys are so out of touch. Some people act like the watchtower believes anything beside its own vicarship. This is 8 years before the creator book which is less apologetic to creationist.

  ***

  g90 2/8 p. 11 What Happened to the Dinosaurs? ***

  The

  Genesis Account and Dinosaurs

  While the radioactive dating method is innovative, it is still based on speculation and assumption. In contrast, the Bible account in the first chapter of Genesis simply states the general order of creation. It allows for possibly thousands of millions of years for the formation of the earth and many millenniums in six creative eras, or "days," to prepare the earth for human habitation.

  Some dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) may indeed have been created in the fifth era listed in Genesis, when the Bible says that God made "flying creatures" and "great sea monsters." Perhaps other types of dinosaurs were created in the sixth epoch. The vast array of dinosaurs with their huge appetites would have been appropriate considering the abundant vegetation that evidently existed in their time.?Genesis 1:20-24.

  When the dinosaurs had fulfilled their purpose, God ended their life. But the Bible is silent on how he did that or when. We can be sure that dinosaurs were created by Jehovah for a purpose, even if we do not fully understand that purpose at this time. They were no mistake, no product of evolution. That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible?s view of creative acts of God.
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  heathen

  I think another thing that blows a hole in evolution is the fact that there are animals alive today that have virtually remained unchanged that date back to the time of dinos. The shark and the crockodile are 2 that come to mind . It is clear that the dinos became extinct as if over night so this business of them evolving into birds is not a reasonable explanation . Then we have to consider all the variety of animals around today and wonder how they got here because the fossil record does not support a common ancestor that can be identified . Scientists have often changed their opinion on dinosaurs so why shouldn't theologians ? Clearly it is not an important issue that's why there isn't an explanation to why the dinos became extinct . I am happy with the asteroid theory or the super volcano .
• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  Heaten you have to read about the "new" evolution. It has came about since the leaps in genetics. Individuals don't evolve but populations do. So what ever survives is evolved. Specise "change" due to genetic variation, and the enviroment kill the ones with bad genes. So if the enviroment is stable then gene pool will be stable. As you can se this makes little sense because it is saying evolution does not mean evolution. And that some things like roaches and jelly fish start out "evolved" enough to make the long haul.
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  gitasatsangha

  and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links

  Birds, probably.
• 

  Nathan Natas

  Here's the original "Questions from Readers" - it was a bit more recent than 1969...

  The WATCHTOWER, July 15, 1973, pages 447-448, "Questions from Readers"

  Questions from Readers

  ? When did God create dinosaurs, and when did they become extinct??U.S.A.

  The Bible does not provide specific answers to this question. According to the Genesis account, animals were created during the fifth and sixth creative periods or ?days.? If the Hebrew expression translated ?great sea monsters? [Hebrew, tan·ni·nim´] includes dinosaurs, which often inhabited swampy, watery areas, this would mean that dinosaurs were created on the fifth ?day.? (Gen. 1:21) We do not know whether they continued to exist until man was created (toward the close of the sixth ?day?). At the very latest it seems likely that they must have disappeared off the earth at the time of the flood of Noah?s day. Dinosaurs were reptiles, and some kinds of dinosaurs bear strong resemblance structurally and otherwise to lizards (sauros is, in fact, the Greek word for ?lizard?; saura in Leviticus 11:29, LXX). Not all types of dinosaurs were of such gigantic size. Hence, even if they had survived till the Flood, this would not have required taking pairs of the mammoth varieties into the ark. Other smaller members of the particular family or ?kind? to which these belonged would have sufficed to fulfill the divine command.?Gen. 6:19, 20; 7:14.

  Some of the older translations of the Bible at times use the word ?dragons? to translate the Hebrew tan·ni·nim´ (?sea monsters,? NW). (Ps. 74:13; 148:7; Isa. 27:1, Authorized Version) The term ?dragon? (Greek, dra´kon) is found in the Christian Greek Scriptures. It has been suggested as possible that, rather than having a purely mythical source, this expression may originally have been applied to enormous creatures such as the dinosaurs, taking on mythical tones only after these mammoth creatures had long disappeared. Interestingly, many of the mythical depictions of the ?dragon? strongly resemble certain types within the family of huge reptilian creatures that includes the dinosaur.

  - - - end quote - - -

  Stay tuned until next week, when a reader asks, "Do you guys know how full of shit you are, or are you clueless about that TOO?"
• 

  drawcad_1

  If you look up the WT definition of the word ?Kind? you will get a discussion on the kind of animals that Noah packed into the ARK. This will be a much smaller figure than what we have on the earth today, and then the article will state that from these kinds we have all of the species that are on the earth today. Show that to a Dub that does not believe in evolution, I have. Then explain that all of the different species of animals that are on the earth today probably don?t even resemble the ones that god originally created.