This question has been bothering me for some time now and after much research online I am even more uncertain of the answer. Just wondering how others have dealt with this conundrum?

No-one created him. He always was and always is. Alpha & Omega.

I think it was man?

I'm tempted to ask "How old are you?" because this is the mischievious question we used to ever so innocently ask of our Scripture teachers when we were thirteen. They would tie themselves in knots trying to answer this question.

The short answer is nobody. God is not part of the Creation.

You might just as well ask a scientist "What existed before the Big Bang?" It is an unanswerable question. Any answer must inevitably be pure speculaltion.

Reshad, I am not sure you are in the right forum for this - unless you up to mischief.

I am an Atheist. ex RC.
In my view the concept of "god" or "gods" is a human construct. It delves back to pre-written record, so there is no way to determine who specifically first uttered the word god (or similar).

In my view it is a natural human response to categorise the concept of creation, life after death etc under a god/s.

*I mean no disrespect to those of faith. I respect your faith and choice. I just have different views

I am nearly 40 and not up to mischief as such. I have posted my query on EB as it is the only site that I am familiar with after spending many days reading all sorts of posts on all manner of subjects ... so thought I would try it out for myself and get feedback.

So while I am here I also have another question that has always bothered me ..... Will Judas go to Hell?

I was always told from a young age that God had a plan and Jesus came down to earth and did what he did as part of God's plan. My concern is that if Judas betraying Jesus was part of God's plan then he was a patsy and therefore shouldn't go to hell.

I stumped my RE teacher in year 1 when I asked if dinosaurs were around before Adam and Eve. She couldn't answer that one.

I still don't know.

Do Christians believe that dinosaurs didn't exist?

Do they like Jurassic Park?

I was tempted to say someone with a vivid imagination but then I realised it was a serious question...

My parents. And I am actually female.

Actually, that is an interesting question/s.

I would imagine that if you put it on a time scale, Dinosaurs would have been around way before A&E got it on.
However, from what I understand, some Christians do believe that dinosaurs existed - but at the same time as early man. There is the whole dispute about the age of the earth in term of billions of years - which to be fair is a pretty magnificent number to visualise or imagine. Mind blowing even.

And, of course they like JP! Dodgy science and all, who doesn't?! Pffft

This christian's answer is Yes and Certainly Do.

I don't presume to speak for all christians. We are individuals, not clones.

I think everyone likes J-Park

Except for that is what the LHC at CERN is partly about - experiments to test string theory ... brief article here
http://scienceline.org/2006/08/ask-snyder-bang/

Interesting but...

As I said earlier,
I'm not downplaying the role of speculation in the scientific method but any answer or explanation based on speculation is tenuous, at least for the time being.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum

Dinosaurs were on Noah's ark... Apparently

I was told by a Christian friend of mine that dinosaurs were actually around when people were, but the devil fooled the scientists into thinking the bones were a lot older than they actually are, so as to throw doubt into the minds of Christians etc. Seems weird they weren't mentioned in the Bible if this is the case though. I mean Dinosaurs would be pretty impossible to ignore and very intense to live around I'd imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum

The American hegemony strikes again!
Although I do have to admit that Ken Ham is an Australian.

No way is this the teaching at my church.
We bar the door against all such nonsense.

It would want to be a pretty big ark considering the many different species of Dinosaurs and the size of them.

How did the T-Rex not eat everything else on the Ark including Noah and his family? Did they all stand very still for 40 days and 40 nights?

How can Christians deny all the scientific evidence? I am genuinely interested.



Do you bar it against dinosaurs?

I did. It was easy.

Who created God? Well that depends on your perspective... Well actually it doesn't, but obviously whether you believe he exisits or not will skew your view one way or another...

Basically, if you believe God exists, then this is somewhat a silly question, or at least one that you awknowledge you may never have an answer to... God created us and generally we believe that he has always been... If at some point he did not and somehow was created or came into being, then it is most certainly beyond our knowledge and understanding...

If you don't believe God exists then you most likely think he is a human invention, but as far as I know, one that has been around so long that you can't attribute his invention to any specific person or culture...

As for Judas... We are not privy to who does and who does not go to hell. Some Christians aren't even sure hell exists. At any rate, the Bible gives guidelines as to how we should live etc if we want to go to heaven and assurances that even those who have done wrong may be forgiven... But the final judgement is Gods and not ours... In other words, we really can't be sure if Judas went to hell or not and it's none of our business really. Other humans should not ever go around telling people that they are most definitely going to hell, because to be honest, they don't know that... True, many people's behaviour may indicate such and we don't hold much hope for those who totally reject God, but the point is that he is a forgiving God and will forgive those who repent and it is hard for any human to know the heart of anothers and know their true relationship with God...

Of course if your point is more about pre-destination and whether some people are perhaps pre-destined to be 'saved' and others to go to hell... Well that's more complicated and there isn't really a 'standard' in Christian thinking on that one... Most Christians will still argue and debate issues around pre-destination and free will... Most of us will happily admit that we have no idea and maybe never will...

As for the dinosaurs... Not all Christians are creationists. I happily accept evolution as a valid theory... In fact I find it more valid than creationism and yet I still believe God created the world... I don't find the two conflict that much... So I have no problem with the existence of dinosaurs... I'm not sure why you'd think I would? My DD loves dinosaurs! I'm not that huge a fan of Jurassic Park though

No offence, but some of you should get out and talk to more Christians... We're not all idiots and we most definitely don't all believe the same things... In fact a lot of us probably don't believe half the things you think we do... Fair enough if you have problems with some of the odd weird ones... I sometimes have problems with them too, especially the door knockers... But there's a huge variety...

Maybe they understood the effort Noah was going to and they had a dinosaur meeting and decided to behave until the flood was over.

Thank you for an intelligent response. I guess my questions were aimed more at creationists. All Christians aren't creationists, but all creationists are Christians, right?

My one problem with your response is, how can you not like Jurassic Park?



A T-Rex would get very hungry in 40 days.

They softened their hearts...

Everyone had to sacrifice dude...

Funnily enough this topic doesn't come up very often. However, the day I wore my green Triceratops slippers to church there was a bit of a kerfuffle.

Lots of people, not necessarily christian, are currently denying human activity as a agent of climate change, also against all scientific evidence. Ignorance is very vocal.

Are you really, really, really comparing human activity as an agent of climate change to the existence of dinosaurs?

Really, really?

As others have said, from the Christian perspective, God always was.

As for Judas, it's not our place to decide who goes to heaven and hell, but the bible says that it's through our belief in Jesus and our acceptance of his death on the cross as 'payment' for our rejection of God, that we are 'saved'. Less technically - it's about believing in Him, not about what you do or don't do.

So for Judas - well there's no denying he seemed to believe Jesus was who he said he was. But perhaps he didn't think he was in need of a Saviour, and in that sense pretty much thumbed his nose at God and said no thanks. So I'm not sure!

Regarding the Bing Bang theory its still opens up a thousand of questions of WHY they occur? If the Universe is one of many Universes then is there something bigger? Using the analogy of our universe being a popped bubble in a bath of many bubbles then what is the bath?

This is why I will always remain a fence sitter and sit comfortably and being agnositc.

Human brains are still to puny and we are still WAY to unintelligent to totally grasp and understand what is going around us.

'So for Judas - well there's no denying he seemed to believe Jesus was who he said he was. But perhaps he didn't think he was in need of a Saviour, and in that sense pretty much thumbed his nose at God and said no thanks. So I'm not sure!'

But if Judas didn't do what he did then Jesus wouldn't have died on the cross as he did so one would think that God had already worked this bit out and planned it that way? Therefore Judas had no option.

I think she might be!

Oh, I wouldn't say I dislike it... It's a bit of fun... It just doesn't rate on my list of DVDs that I'd take with me to a deserted island or anything...

I can't speak for creationists, I don't know too many of them to be honest, but I think for some people it is simply easier to try and take the Bible as literal truth than to spend time wrestling with questions and issues that you may never understand... I can't say I blame them really... Life would be simplier that way... And let's face it, it's not only creationists that do it...

Maybe it was like the Doomsday Vault - except instead of specimens of every seed it was actually and advanced floating genetics lab and it was all stored in embryonic form?
Think about it.



Maybe they were like Bears - load up on food and then hibernate?

The key to my thinking on this is God's revelation of his name to Abraham - a bit untranslatable into English, but something like "I am who I am," or "I will be who I will be." "I AM." To me, God is not, so to speak, part of the furniture of the universe; not on the same level as matter, energy, time and space. Not contingent. Those things have being, but God IS being; God undergirds and sustains all that is or ever was or will be. God is uncreated, eternal, the source and ultimate destiny of all else. (I hope that's not too philosophical to be useful).

I think the other questions raised here have been answered well, although I might add that I seem to recall a lengthy discussion on creation and dinosaurs in this forum a while back. The search function might bring it up again?

I just had to Google the Doomsday Vault.

That is so, so cool.

It is isn't it. Norwegians may eat some ****ed up sh*t (hákarl ), but they have brains.

I just Googled that, too.

That is not cool at all.

Awww TK421, I'm broadening your horizons

OP, I imagine humans have always worshipped SOMETHING, whether it be through offerings, idols, ceremony..what have you. I wonder if our innate need for ritual is part of what sets us apart from other animals.

I dunno, I just walked in to my cat doing a blood ritual to summon a demonic force from the Goetia. Should I be concerned for her soul or correct her ritual? (she really sucks at making circles on the floor.....and the mouse wasn't quite dead enough).

disclaimer: not my joke.

Every person is responsible for their own sin - God does not cause people to sin, but does know that they will. In the gospels you will see that many people tried to kill Jesus, at many times, but each of these times he was able to slip away untouched. We are told that is was not yet the proper time for him to die.

So this is how I answer your question about Judas - That he was just one of the people among the whole of humanity who put their own selfish interests above loyalty to Jesus Chist (God the Son), which is a definition of sin. If it wasn't him it would have been someone else, there were many people trying actively to kill Jesus. God knew that Judas would betray Christ, and allowed that this timing was appropriate for the murder of Jesus to succeed. Jesus, as fully God and fully man, then willingly died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin we all owe God, but are unable to pay ourselves. His death is sufficient to cover every sin of every person who has ever existed or will exist, in order for them to be reconcilled to God. This included the sins of Judas, and all others involved in the murder of Christ.

All people sin, Judas is not alone in this, and all people are destined to pay for their sin in Hell, unless they reach out to Christ for forgiveness, offered by trusting that his death paid the price they owe, and living their life as one of appreciation for the gift they have been given.

While we cannot know where Judas ends up until we get their ourselves, we do know that before God, what he did was no better or worse than the sins we all do, every day. We know that forgivness was offered to him through Jesus' death, we know that he felt guilt/remorse for his actions (killed himself), but we don't know if he turned to Christ for forgiveness.

God did not force him to sin, but allowed it. God offered him a way back to safety. His destiny is his responsibility.

Humans of course! We're the only ones with complex enough cognitive processes to have thought of such a thing.
I am sure there have been studies of the mythologies of early human populations that might put a date on it.
Not sure if that's the answer you are looking for though.

As with Trivial Pursuit, the answer is in the question.

Who created God?

There was no 'who' before God. There is nothing and no-one external to God. He is Existence itself. Everything that exists now, that we can see, exists because God's will is holding it in Existence. If there was no God, there would be no nothing. No anything. There could be no-one outside of God to create Him, because God is infinite.

Created? That's a past participle, which implies time existed when God was being created. That's impossible. Time is the measurement of change. God changes not. Before God created anything, there was no time. There was no measurement of change, there was just God. "Before the world was created, I Am." Not "I was". He is beyond time, beyond measure, he was Existence itself before, by his will, he brought everything else into existence.

God is not a product of creation. He is not a creature. He is the ultimate source of all existence, he is the beginning and the end. He created us from nothing, if, for some reason, he decided to withdraw his will to create us, we would return to being nothing. We would cease to exist.

It is therefore impossible for a person to be there before god existed in order to create him. That is a non-sensical group of words. It's like asking whether God can make a four-sided triangle. Such a thing is impossible, it's a nonsense.

Theoretically if god were to be able to conceive of a 4 sided triangle, god would be able to create it ... being all knowing, seeing, omnipotent etc...
A triangle and what we perceive as a triangle is only so because without human logic it would have no value.

For all we know, if god exists, god could be calling a square a 4 sided triangle and us silly humans decided to name it a square instead

Ah, but see, no, because, at the heart of questions of theology, are questions of reality. What is real, what is not real. A four-sided triangle is not real. It is a nothing. We call a four-sided figure a square. God may call it a 'kag', or something else, that's fine, and the french will call it something else again. But we, God, and the French all agree that a four-sided figure is something, it is real, and a three-sided figure is another thing, it is also real.

But if I went around saying that some things are other things, say I said my cat was a king, or that a four-sided figure was a triangle, you would think I was insane. And you'd be right. I would not be seeing things as they are - I would not be seeing reality, and you couldn't converse with me on a rational level.

God, being Existence, being Reality Himself, cannot conceive of a 4 sided triangle because a four-sided triangle is not real - it is a nothing. And nothing, (to put a slightly different emphasis on scripture) is impossible to God.

No. My point was that christians are not the only ones that deny/ignore scientific evidence. The example I used was the first one to come into my head. How about flat earthers, horoscope followers and people who use a wedding ring to determine the sex of a baby? IMO all fly in the face of currently available scientific evidence.

And about dinosaurs, the scientific evidence is irrefutable. The evidence for human activity as an agent of climate change is weaker, but building. The evidence for string theory is not (yet) available. Some day it might be. Or not.

It was me!

If someone created God then we would have to ask who created the person who created God. It has to stop somewhere...

For me it stops at the universe for I am atheist, it just really makes sense to me. I do find religion interesting though.

As for the OP - Tealbag answered it So well, I shan't waste anytime on that



We were just discussing this recently - In our opinion, is 'dunno?' an allowed answer? The only 'sin' that we could see was his suicide at the end. He had been told by Jesus that he would betray Him, and he denied it. We came to the conclusion that poor Judas has gotten a very bad rap all these years. We believe he honestly felt that Jesus was going to be the blood and justice of his time and free the people from Roman rule, but just needed to push Jesus and his supporters in the right direction, so to speak. Then, when everything went to pot and the vocal masses suddenly turned on Jesus, instead of Judas 'thought' would happen (we think he thought the people would rise up and support Jesus and everyone would fight together) he was overwhealmed with guilt (well, do you blame to poor guy? He handed Jesus over and then Jesus got the snot beaten out of him and stuck to a tree) and hung himself . Poor dude didn't even get the chance to see Jesus rise from the dead -

Anyhoo, we like to think that Jesus took Judas home. We think that Jesus would have understood what Judas was feeling, and would have interceeded to God on Judas' behalf.



I firmly believe Dinosaurs existed! Where-else to you think Dragons came from??

I started a thread about it several times - very interesting reading

Love LOVE JP - drool worthy Jeff!!



Dinosaurs are meantioned in the bible many times - they tend to be named things like lethvians etc.




Animals on the ark were believed to be young animals - babies almost, those that required meat, God closed their mouths and bid them calm. (so basically, they were on a meat free diet for a while )



He certainly did have options, we all have options. He didn't have to take his life, he didn't have to accept the silver, he didn't have to turn Jesus over, b ut his choices were to do that. God knows what is in the hearts of men, so therefore Jesus would have known as well.

I love the part where you say "Dinosaurs would be pretty impossible to ignore and very intense to live around".

I'm an atheist. But if I was a christian I would assume that no one created God, and that he/she has always existed and always will.

I know people have wanted to claim "dinosaur" status for Leviathan, Behemoth, and even the Kraken...but I think the evidence is very weak. Rather the evidence suggests that they had their background in Babylonian mythology, and for the Hebrews came to represent the forces of primal evil and chaos over which God reigns supreme.

Oh, and I'm firmly in the camp of not reading the flood narrative simplistically ("literally"). It doesn't make a whole heap of sense to me that way.