Do Dinosaurs Go To Heaven? Discussion

Well here is a pretty good explanation of the valley of dried bones:

It is not a place but a vision. Not sure what you are referring to with Jesus, could you elaborate?

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The best current estimate for number of members of Homo sapiens sapiens over the last 200-300,000 years is ~100,000,000,000.

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So correct me if i am wrong here however was it not JESUS who had visions ? in fact i think it does in fact refer to Joseph as interpreting dreams in prisons ? now was this before jesus was born or after and was this the same joesph that later got with Mary and became jesus stepdaddy so if jesus was a Gift from god than would he not bear some of his dad’s qualities and attributes or gifts i would think so

i was thinking about this topic more today as i was looking at my own flesh and was thinking to myself if i were a dinosaur and could talk would i see my skin that covers my bones as flesh if i were a donkey in a zoo would i ask the zookepper if the fur that covered my bones was indeed fur just some more stuff to think about

This is an interesting question about animals and heaven.

I also cannot imagine heaven without the dogs I have owned or taken care of. And for loved human beings, words cannot express my hope for them to be there.

Perhaps thinking of heaven in a different way from “somewhere we go when our bodies die” can be helpful. Perhaps we should think more of heaven as coming to earth and redeeming it. Bible scholar N.T. Wright has something to say about this in his book “Surprised by Hope”, chapter 6, section “The marriage of heaven and earth” which I quote here:

We thus arrive at the last and perhaps the greatest image of new creation, of cosmic renewal, in the whole Bible. This scene, set out in Revelation 21-22, is not well enough known or pondered (perhaps because, in order to earn the right to read it, one should really read the rest of the Revelation of St. John first, which proves too daunting for many). This time the image is that of marriage. The New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.

We notice right away how drastically different this is from all those would-be Christian scenarios in which the end of the story is the Christian going off to heaven as a soul, naked and unadorned, to meet its maker in fear and trembling. As in Philippians 3, it is not we who go to heaven, it is heaven that comes to earth; indeed, it is the church itself, the heavenly Jerusalem, that comes down to earth. This is the ultimate rejection of all types of Gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven. It is the final answer to the Lord’s prayer, that God’s kingdom will come and his will be done on earth as in heaven. It is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1:10, that God’s design, and promise, was to sum up all things in Christ, things both in heaven and on earth. It is the final fulfillment, in richly symbolic imagery, of the promise of Genesis I, that the creation of male and female would together reflect God’s image in the world. And it is the final accomplishment of God’s great design, to defeat and abolish death forever - which can only mean the rescue of creation from its present plight of decay.

Heaven and earth, it seems, are not after all poles apart, needing to be separated forever when all the children of heaven have been rescued from this wicked earth. Nor are they simply different ways of looking at the same thing, as would be implied by some kinds of pantheism. No, they are different, radically different, but they are made for each other in the same way (Revelation is suggesting) as male and female. And when they finally come together, that will be cause for rejoicing in the same way that a wedding is: a creational sign that God’s project is going forward; that opposite poles within creation are made for union, not competition; that love and not hate have the last word in the universe; that fruitfulness and not sterility is God’s will for creation.

It’s not necessarily that I’m a universalist - it seems that Satan and his angels will be utterly destroyed - but I can imagine that heaven could contain redeemed versions of all of God’s good creatures. For an infinite God, there shouldn’t be an issue with space for a finite number of creatures :slightly_smiling_face:. And perhaps we will only need Jesus to sustain us, or we will only need flora as food. Isaiah 65:25 says “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox…” As for mosquitoes, I can imagine an extension to this principle as the human co-habiting with the mosquito :slightly_smiling_face:. And no, I don’t know how a Tyrannosaurus Rex is going to eat vegetation with those teeth :slightly_smiling_face:.

Frankly I don’t think the spiritual body is in any way a part of the space-time structure of the physical universe. Jesus appearance in a spiritual body to his apostles is a miraculous exception and even He did not do so very long. The spiritual body is not made of the stuff of the earth but of heaven and that is where it belongs.

I don’t think so.

Genesis 2:7 says " the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

But I do not think this means God was a necromancer creating a magical golem. I think it means God created man from the stuff of the earth according to its natural law (including evolution) and then He spoke to them giving them the inspiration that gave birth to the human mind.

They have a physical body, therefore they have a spiritual body. However… I think the majority of the choices and learning are as a species rather than as individuals. Though, I think there are exceptions such as when they interact with humans and acquire human characteristics.

I believe in an infinite God, who therefore has ample room for an infinite number of intelligent species from an infinite number of planets from an infinite number of universes. I don’t know that any other such species, planets, or universes exist. But I see no problem with this.

The physical universe is staggeringly vast and it is but a tiny womb compared what is beyond.

The resurrected spiritual body is imperishable because it has no part in the laws of nature of this physical universe.

I am certain of it. Like with the dinosaurs, people have invested considerable love and interest in them. How then could it be heavenly if you would diminish our existence by excluding them?

What if in the New Heaven and New Earth all life forms, that have ever lived, are resurrected and we get to continue to partner with God in the flourishing of creation by geoforming dormient planets to be ecosystems for long extinct animal species. That sounds a lot more interesting to me than just chilling in a city with streets of gold!

Here is the original discussion of this article, in case anyone wants it for reference!

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