Carnivores

[Shempster]

I was told in church growing up that originally cats, dogs, alligators and even sharks originally were vegans. Then they say that when Adam fell God changed them and caused them to consume other animals while still alive. That always sounded wonky to me.
These animals like a lion are completely designed to eat entire animals. Blood, bones, fur, organs,ect. Lions in zoos cannot survive eating only meat cuts, they need everything.

Plus the whole experience is awful. Have you ever watched a pack of lions eating a Cape buffalo alive? Its insane. Imagine if a tiger jumped you and ate you alive. It happens in India and Asia even today.

So do you really think God re-created animals internal and external features and added the instinct into their brains after the fall?
If not, what could another explanation be?

 

[PollyJetix]

We aren't told.
However, we are given clear revelation that God changed the DNA of plants, so that they bore thorns and thistles. If plant DNA was changed, who is to say animal DNA wasn't?

 

[Justaman0000]

I doubt animals only ate plants. Scripture doesn't say. It does say that man was given all the plants and fruit in the garden to eat as food. Then after the flood, according to scripture, man was told that all the animals were also for food for them as well.

 

[-57]

I was told in church growing up that originally cats, dogs, alligators and even sharks originally were vegans. Then they say that when Adam fell God changed them and caused them to consume other animals while still alive. That always sounded wonky to me.
These animals like a lion are completely designed to eat entire animals. Blood, bones, fur, organs,ect. Lions in zoos cannot survive eating only meat cuts, they need everything.

Plus the whole experience is awful. Have you ever watched a pack of lions eating a Cape buffalo alive? Its insane. Imagine if a tiger jumped you and ate you alive. It happens in India and Asia even today.

So do you really think God re-created animals internal and external features and added the instinct into their brains after the fall?
If not, what could another explanation be?

I think that logic was derived to eplain when death began. Did animals die before the fall...or did the fall now allow animals to die? Or, does no death before the fall only pertain to humans?

 

[Papias]

I was told in church growing up that originally cats, dogs, alligators and even sharks originally were vegans. Then they say that when Adam fell God changed them and caused them to consume other animals while still alive. That always sounded wonky to me.
These animals like a lion are completely designed to eat entire animals. Blood, bones, fur, organs,ect. Lions in zoos cannot survive eating only meat cuts, they need everything.

The idea that there was no animal death before the fall is unscriptural. I've heard that from YECs, but it's not a universal Christian doctrine - I'm not even sure if it is very common. There are a lot of problems with the idea that animals didn't die before the fall.

The present day animals that God created clearly show that death has always been around because many creatures are clearly designed head to toe to be predators. A few examples:

• Spiderwebs - I suppose those were for catching seeds to eat?
• Poison - literally thousands of animals have poison for predation (snakes, spiders, wasps, etc.) or for defense against predation (arrow-frogs, toads, monarch butterflies, etc.).
• deep sea anglerfish - Why would anything be attracted to their "bait"? and look at the anglerfish's teeth!
• Alligator snapper turtle "worm" tongue bait - same thing.
• many other deepsea fish.
• Sharks - what did they eat?
• A cheetah's speed - why be designed fast if you only have to catch a squash? Did squash vines grow really fast back then?
• A chameleon's tongue - gotta snatch those mexican jumping beans!
• and on and on........
  

That's not to mention past creatures, like a T-rex, etc. There is also tons of evidence for disease, predation, death, and so on from the fossil record. Limestone - one of the most common types of stone on earth - is literally made up of many trillions of compacted marine fossils. The oceans of hundreds of earth's couldn't hold that many creatures if there were all alive at once, so they couldn't have all been killed in a flood on earth.

Misinterpretations like the idea that there was no animal death before the fall make the Bible look silly. Aside from the obvious problems (like what did gulper eels eat, or what were spider webs for), there are so many other problems with the all-vegan world idea that I don't know where to start.

Simple math might be a good place. A praying mantis lays hundreds of eggs per season. If all of those live (because there is no death), then from 1 mantis pair in year 1, you'll have:

Year: Number of Mantids:
1 2
2 200
3 20000
4 2000000
5 2E+08
6 2E+10
7 2E+12
8 2E+14
9 2E+16
10 2E+18
11 2E+20
12 2E+22
13 2E+24
14 2E+26
15 2E+28
16 2E+30
17 2E+32
18 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (just to show what kind of numbers we have)
19 2E+36
20 2E+38

So that means that by around year 12, mantids cover the earth to the depth of 1 mile, and by year 16, the writhing mass of mantids engulfs the moon, expanding at an ever increasing speed to engulf the sun the next year and the whole solar system (including the Kuiper belt) the year after that. The mantisplosion! Things go even faster for many other insect species, because the reproduce faster.

In Christ -

Papias