No 12

(Day 6 of creation)

On the 6^th day, God created all the land animals; He also created man, but we will see this later. “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so” (Gen 1: 24). We see that phrase again “after his kind” that indicates that animals are exclusive to their kind or species and that, as we have already discussed, inter-breeding among different species is impossible; it either doesn’t work or produces sterile offspring. In the above verse, we note that there are three types of land animals : 1) Cattle (cows, sheep, goats); 2) Creeping things (Snakes, crocodiles, rodents and dragons; 3) Beasts (Giraffes, tyrannosaurs, mammoths and deer). The Bible says that all pre-flood animals were vegetarians (Gen 1 :30). After the flood, God gave man dominion over the animals and they were given to man for food (Gen 9 : 2, 3). Several species of animals have become extinct over the centuries. Creationists believe that in the case of dinosaurs, they died off because of a lack of food after the flood and also because of the radically changed atmospheric pressure on the earth brought about when the waters that surrounded the globe fell to the earth. Some other now-extinct animals (mammoths) have been found frozen solid in the Arctic ice glaciers; they even had undigested food in their stomach pointing to a rapid change in climate. Other animals became extinct for various reasons : loss of habitat through de-forestation, climate changes, over-hunting and pollution. Mankind has abused the God-given privilege of dominion over animals and has failed miserably as caretaker of an once-perfect world ; but not to worry, this is all going to be replaced one day : “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Rev 21 : 1).