How did the meat-eating predators like venomous snakes/reptiles/amphibians, and sharp clawed, sharp-toothed dinosaurs/lions/crocodiles/sharks survive on vegetation when they were designed to eat meat?
Genesis 1 : 30 “And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.”. Deductibly, all these predators and preys lived in peace together and were all vegetarians. But the predators were not built to chew and digest vegetation. How did they survive? So how did the venomous snake not use its venom, and how did the dinasours do away with the sharp teeth....? These questions puzzle me.
Genesis 1:30
NIV - 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
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Asked June 04 2019
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Philip Wong
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Aurel Gheorghe
Actually, many animals with sharp teeth can survive on fruits and vegetables alone. In God’s original plan, all animals and humans were to eat a plant based diet - they were not to eat flesh. God intended His animal creation to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:30) - however, sin changed everything. Of the seventeen different lizard families, the Varanidae is the only group that is strictly carnivore, the rest are primarily fruit eaters although all have very sharp teeth. Many dogs also live on a mixed diet of meat and plants; for example, most of the coyote diet is fruit. My 74 lbs dog loves meats, but she also eats large amounts vegetable (watermelon, banana, peaches, carrots, green beans, apples, all type of berries, celery, etc.) Most bats, although they have teeth that can cut flesh, are either insectivores or fructivores. Bears also can survive just on a diet of fruit, berries, nuts, and honey; not to mention the Pandas who are strictly vegetarians – they have few sharp teeth which they use to bite tough bamboo stalks. Then, there is the story of Little Tyke, a female African lion born and raised in America, lived her entire life on a vegetarian diet - she refused to eat any meat. In Isaiah 11:6-9 we read about the New Earth where God is going to restore life as He intended from the begging: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain”
Byard Parks
If seems fully possible that upon receiving the curse of sin that all nature was retooled to accommodate in someway the evil that now held the planet captive. For example it is certain God's original intent did not include venom. Poisonous fish, poisonous spiders, poisenous snakes etc. All these creatures obviously changed. So just as the plants "began to produce thorns,” evil’s affect on animals was also manifest as painful and visible. It seems God adjusted the ecosystem to "Work" despite the compromise that had taken place. Of course the "working" of a system with death and animals eating animals was less than ideal and Romans chapter 8 says, “all nature groans in eager expectation” from its release from the grip of evil.
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