Rebecca

Wow, I had forgotten about this thread! 😅 Since a new question hasn't been asked, I'll go ahead and ask one. Don't forget the scripture reference in your answer! What is the name of the storm that blew up near Crete, catching a ship off guard? Who had given warning that the voyage would be dangerous?

It is possible that the Leviathan and Behemoth mentioned in the Bible were dinosaurs, based on the descriptions. However, I will not say with 100% certainty that they were, it's just an interesting thought that maybe they were. I do agree about the locusts in Revelation, I think they will be real creatures that have never been seen on earth before, appearing only that one time. They will be true demonic monsters, and I'm glad I won't be there to see them.

The following is my personal belief concerning dinosaurs, I can not prove my belief with the Bible or with history. I believe God created the dinosaurs along with all the other animals, and called them "good", just as He did with the other animals of His creation, pre-fall. The fall of man is what changed some of them, just as lions, bears, alligators, etc changed. I don't believe this change made the animals "monsters", they're just predatory animals. In the pre-flood environment of the earth, I believe they thrived and did well, however, the environment changed after the flood, as evidenced by the shorter life span of humans. I believe this change of environment killed off the ones that Noah had saved on the ark. I believe that the half-human, half-animal false gods of various cultures came solely from their imaginations, not based on a reality of any kind. Do a key word search of the Bible for the word "imagination", almost every instance is negative, followed by wicked or evil. The very first usage comes in Genesis 6:5 - "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." I also think the majority of pictures we see depicting dinosaurs is more than likely false. No one knows what they really looked like, the artists are just giving their best guesses. Some of these are educated guesses as talented artists who understand anatomy can "rebuild" an animal from its skeleton outward. However, even these educated guesses may not be 100% accurate. This can result in some of the dinosaurs looking more "monstrous" than they were in reality. ((as an interesting side note, there was a case of a forensic scientist who was given a human skull and asked to "rebuild" it, so they could see the face. No one knew who the skull had belonged to. The scientist rebuilt it, and came up with a face. It turned out that the face he had created was surprisingly close to the woman the skull belonged to, and they were able to solve the case. This scientist had the benefit of understanding human anatomy very well, and knew the skull belonged to a modern human woman before he even started the reconstruction.)) Scientists/farmers/ranchers/breeders are indeed genetically modifying foods, pets, and working animals, it's really interesting to see the differences in various plants we eat now compared to just a few hundred years ago. The majority of these genetic changes are not evil in their origins, but to benefit mankind. Look up the differences of watermelons, corn, chickens, cows, horses, etc. It's interesting.

I'm glad you like the photos. 🙂 They were taken at a small village called Fu Shan, it's in SE Taiwan.

Sorry I haven't posted in this thread in so long. My computer has been having issues lately. I'm going to try to post a picture from my phone. I recently moved, and this is down the street from my house, where I walk my dog. The sunsets are very beautiful.

To address the op, I would do what I have done in the past. Generally speaking I simply be friendly with the girls and ladies and only speak about clothing when asked. I have only spoken to a girl about her attire once, and it was because she had vulgar language written in her shirt, so I took her aside and politely explained that the words in her shirt were inappropriate (it's normal for them to learn cuss words in school and when learning English as a second language) and to please not wear the shirt to church again. She never wore it again, and eventually even started wearing more modest clothing to church, even though that wasn't part of the conversation.

This is a Swinhoe's Tree Lizard (Japalura swinhonis), I named him Bobby. I usually just see the smaller less colorful females, but was fortunate to get a decent shot of a male.

The relationship between plants and pollinators is amazing to me, and just shows how much detail God thought of when creating the small things of the world. To me even the simple things like this can disprove evolution all on their own. "But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?" Job 12:7-9

There are a few forums I’m a part of that requires new members to first post in the introduce yourself section, it’s set up so that they’re unable to post anywhere else until that’s done. Then they’re restricted to only commenting and not starting new threads until they’ve commented a set number of times which varies on the different forums but can be from 5-20 comments on different threads and not on just one over and over.

It's not as clear in the OP as it should be, but after the heading "Trump's Lies", it's then quoting from the NY Times article by David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson, so they are the "we".

Somewhere in Michigan Somewhere in Missouri

It's a bit hard to tell from the angle, but it might be an American Salmonfly or Stonefly. Was it near water? Whether it is or not, an interesting fact about these insects is that they lay their eggs in water, and if the water is polluted in any way, the larvae will die, so if you see many of these insects and their larvae, it means the water is clean! The larvae eat algae and rotting plant matter in the water. The mature, winged adult only lives about a month and doesn't eat.

That’s wonderful news!

Thank you for the update! I’m glad the church members and the church building are all okay. Where you in Hualien during the earthquake?

Glad to hear you're okay! I'll pass on the news to those who've been asking about you. Do you know if all the church members are okay?