Dinosaurs and the Bible

[edwest2]

Well that’s an ironic statement. In any case, what kind of professional research are you involved in? Do you have a Ph.D.? Are you published?

I would like your reply to my other comments in that post. Ironic? No. It’s been my experience that constant secular preaching is a cover up to some degree. In this case, the campaign is proving that out.

Please pay attention to the following:

"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

So, if the Church is unsure, there is reason for doubt.

Peace,
ed

 

[Robertanthony]

Psalm 42:2 “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (emphasis added) Do you find the Bible “beyond ludicrous”?

rossum

How does the living God, the one that the psalmist refers to and whose soul thirsts for, how does he being “living” preclude him from knowing about the origin of life? Sorry God but since you’re a living God, you can’t possibly know anything about the origin of life. You being eternal and omniscient, omnipotent won’t change the fact that the origin of life will forever escape you. Sorry. That’s the ludicrous part.

 

[rossum]

How does the living God, the one that the psalmist refers to and whose soul thirsts for, how does he being “living” preclude him from knowing about the origin of life? Sorry God but since you’re a living God, you can’t possibly know anything about the origin of life. You being eternal and omniscient, omnipotent won’t change the fact that the origin of life will forever escape you. Sorry. That’s the ludicrous part.

Since Christians tell us that God did not have an origin, then how can God know about it? If it never happened, then there can be no knowledge of it.

If life had an origin, then God had an origin. If God did not have an origin, then life did not have an origin. A living God is not, and can not, be an explanation for the origin of life.

rossum

 

[Robertanthony]

Since Christians tell us that God did not have an origin, then how can God know about it? If it never happened, then there can be no knowledge of it.

If life had an origin, then God had an origin. If God did not have an origin, then life did not have an origin. A living God is not, and can not, be an explanation for the origin of life.

rossum

“God’s ways are so far above our ways as the heavens are above the Earth”. Prior to the existence of the universe, actually there was no “prior” because “prior” is a marker of time and God was simply in eternity, God was. Time+the universe were created by God (is the Earth thought to be around the same age age as the universe?) some 4.6 billion years if we’re to believe current methods of dating (which may be flawed to some extent, but probably not by 4.59 billion years to equal 6000 years) I’m here because my parents got together some 40 some years ago and made me, so I owe my origin to them, and on and on until I go back hundreds and hundreds of years to all of humanity’s 1st parents: Adam and Eve. They’re my and your great (x600) grand-parents. The syllogism: All life has an origin, God is life (alive), therefore God has an origin doesn’t work. God is the ultimate first cause, period. Mind-boggling? I know.

I wish there was a book that existed with all the facts, the right dates, the right explanantion, all we have are bits and pieces of a 1000-piece puzzle, plus we’ll never know for sure if the end-result puzzle we’ll have put together will be an accurate depiction of what was.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Maybe a “Griffin” is an embellishment with wings of the four legged critters, Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus the latter of which is more the size of a sheep with a long tail and a beak.

Of course Rossum, who claims that there is NO ultimate truth makes it very clear that dragons as noted in ancient literature are NOT dinosaurs - an ultimate truth as pontificated by Rossum! Now just hold that thought for a minute. Rossum is claiming that there is no ultimate truth yet he claims dragons are NOT dinosaurs because they have six limbs - four legs and two wings. He dares anyone to find such a winged creature with four legs. Prove my ultimate truth wrong by finding such a creature he implied. He may be right; I don’t think there was such a creature. “His” ultimate truth of course can be found in this children’s explanation of dragons whyzz.com/what-are-dragons. But what if what the ancients saw were really “wingless” dragons alias dinosaurs but who just jazzed up their description a bit with wings!

I can’t believe you actually jumped into that trap. Jazzed up? Why stop there? Maybe the part about them being bigger than a house was jazzed up to. Oh and the scales? Jazzed up. The reptilian aspect? Jazzed up too.

Heck, you might as well say they were jazzed up ideals given symbolic, animal form.

 

[Philipp]

So, you agree that we do not have eye witness accounts of dinosaurs, but “embellishments” of fossils that were found in the past.

How is this supposed to impact on modern day biological science?

Please try to be consistent here. Above you had “embellishments”, while now you are claiming “quality depictions”. One or the other please. You can’t have both.

And as I have pointed out, unusual survivals are not a big issue. Interesting, but not significant in the larger picture. A branch that was thought to be dead puts out a new green shoot. That does not have a big effect on the whole tree.

No. An insistence on the use of C-14 dating, to the exclusion of other methods, is often a good indicator of creationist nonsense.

Do you think that the Earth is over 22,000 years old? A 22,000 year age of the Earth is contrary to the literal interpretation of Genesis, which Ussher calculated to give 6,000 years only. Do you reject the literal interpretation of Genesis?

Are those C-14 dates right or wrong? If they are right then a 6,000 year old Earth is wrong. If the C-14 dates are wrong, then they are bad data and you cannot draw any good conclusions from them. What you are not allowed to do is to treat those dates as correct in one paragraph and then treat them as incorrect in the next paragraph. Those dates are right or wrong. You can’t switch from one to the other as it suits your argument. That just destroys whatever argument you were trying to make.

Are your quoted C-14 dates of 22,000 ybp correct or incorrect?

rossum

I am not and “Ussherite.” I simply defend the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation that was believed and proclaimed by all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Councils in their authoritative teaching for almost ~ 2000 years. As I said or implied in an earlier post I use the scientific method of field and lab research to support the church fathers as several Popes urged us to do. As a research chemist for many years I think that I am qualified to do so. Science is not perfect and not an all knowing God but I get the sense that you have a tremendous amount of faith in the current paradigm of origins which to my scientific training in research is more like mythological speculation than even some of the ancients who occasionally would embellish their observations of living dinosaurs.

You ask: Are our quoted C-14 dates of 22,000 ybp corrent or incorrect?
There he goes again! Have you quit beating your wife? All we want is a straight yes or no? Right! It is sort of ironic to have demands for Yes or No answers from a person who is deep into mythology. I think it is really rather brazen of you to expect a straight Yes or No answer from the rest of us. Well, how about this answer: The dates of 22,000 ybp are both correct and incorrect but they are 2000 times closer to the real ages than the 65 M years claimed by other methods and in the same ball park as saber tooth tigers, mammoths, mastodons an giaant sloths. Why? Simple! There should not be one atom of C-14 left in bones after a few 100,000 years. Thus the most logical answer is that by direct C-14 dating of dinosaurs and other fossils there appears to be NO 65 million years between man and dinosaur. That’s my point! The exact date of their demise probably will remain unknown as there is also a reservoir or Suess effect which could also give the fossil an older age than reality. You just don’t know where the living creature, now a fossil obtained its nutrients. It could have sources during its life span that were very low in C-14 content thus making it appear older.

Therfore, I would like to make a recommendation to those who want to see some further research and who will take the time to study web sites like www.earthage.com and www.dinosaurc14ages.com and the published paper from 2009 sciencevsevolution.org/Holzschuh.htm - Please challenge your local university Earth scientists to cross check for C-14 content in dinosaur fossil bones and that of other fossil materials including oily shale [labs with 60,000 year sensitivity and tell them to send in their data to journals like PLoS ONE, Science, Nature etc. - Fat chance, but they need the encouragement and you will get the satisfaction that you tried.

And there is indeed some real progress. A Swedish team has performed many experiments on an alleged 70 M year old marine reptile called Mosasaur and discovered both collagen and C-14 where NONE should have survived if dead more than a few hundred thousand years [PLoS ONE, April 29, 2011]. The age was 24,600 years BP based on lthe C-14 content. That’s a big start!

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

All right, I’m going to put some visual aids here so that people will realize what it means to equate a dinosaur with a dragon:

These are dinosaurs:



(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

THESE are dragons:

http://theclik.characterarcade.com/_images/Deathwing-1.jpg



Had any of these lived alongside man, the following rates their threat level in comparison to modern day animals.

Bears - XXX
Sharks - XXXX
Dinosaurs - XXXXXXX
Dragons - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please review your myths children with regards to the last one. You’ll need either a magical sword or divine intervention to even take out ONE dragon.

 

[rossum]

The syllogism: All life has an origin, God is life (alive), therefore God has an origin doesn’t work.

I agree, the syllogism fails. Let us look at that it in detail:

P1 All life has an origin.

P2 God is life (alive)

C3 God has an origin.

We both agree that the conclusion, C3, fails. It is also clear that the syllogism is well formed, hence there must be a problem with one or both of the premises. Since Psalms tell us that P2 is true, then it must be P1 that fails. All life does not have an origin. Hence my point that creationism does not have an explanation for the origin of life, since such an explanation would in effect be an explanation for the origin of God.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I simply defend the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation that was believed and proclaimed by all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Councils in their authoritative teaching for almost ~ 2000 years.

Not “all” the Church Fathers. Saint Augustine accepted an instantaneous creation, not a six day creation. Origen thought that a literal interpretation of Genesis was foolish:

“What intelligent person will suppose that there was a first, a second and a third day, that there was evening and morning without the existence of the sun and moon and stars? Or that there was a first day without a sky?”

• as quoted in the Philocalia

How many of those Church Fathers and Popes would accept a date of 22,000 ybp? If they are the authorities you are relying on, then why are you pushing dates that they would reject? Please can we have a little consistency here.

You ask: Are our quoted C-14 dates of 22,000 ybp corrent or incorrect?
There he goes again! Have you quit beating your wife? All we want is a straight yes or no? Right! It is sort of ironic to have demands for Yes or No answers from a person who is deep into mythology. I think it is really rather brazen of you to expect a straight Yes or No answer from the rest of us. Well, how about this answer: The dates of 22,000 ybp are both correct and incorrect but they are 2000 times closer to the real ages than the 65 M years claimed by other methods and in the same ball park as saber tooth tigers, mammoths, mastodons an giaant sloths.

So you want to have your cake and eat it. That is foolish, and will get you precisely nowhere in any argument about science. If the figures are correct, then they have to be accepted as correct in all circumstances. If they are incorrect, then we cannot base any reliable conclusions on them. You are trying to have it both ways; such equivocating will not win you any arguments against any sort of real opposition.

If this is the best that your creationist sources can come up with then you really need to find better sources.

Why? Simple! There should not be one atom of C-14 left in bones after a few 100,000 years.

Which is precisely my point about the kitchen scales. All you are measuring is the accuracy of the lab equipment, not the age of the sample. Instead, knowledgeable scientists use other radiometric dating methods, not involving C-14, where there will be atoms left in the bones. Methods like Rb-Sr, Ar-Ar etc.

It is one of the signs of creationist pseudoscience that they try to use C-14 dating on old samples. They avoid other dating methods like the plague, because those methods won’t give them the sort of results they want. Even then they trumpet the C-14 dates as accurate one minute, and as incorrect the next.

rossum

 

[colmywaykurtz]

And I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have heard that there are actually depictions of dinosaurs by ancient civilizations, so maybe it’s possible some of them made it into that time period, and that’s how we got the ideas of dragons? Seems a little far fetched to me though lol.

I don’t know about surviving dinosaurs, but it is known that some very large reptiles survived into human times in Australia—twenty foot-long lizards that were fully capable of swallowing a human whole. The first aborigines learned to fight them by surrounding them with grassfires, apparently, and soon hunted them to extinction. Possibly word spread by the canoe grapevine to SE Asia and elsewhere about these? Just a thought.

Burr Cartwright Brundage, in The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion (ISBN-10: 0806117737, ISBN-13: 978-0806117737; Univ of Oklahoma Pr; 1st edition, February 1982), plausibly contends that Mesoamerican peoples may have connected saurian and serpentine forms with a variety of natural objects and natural phenomena, including earth and sky themselves—simply because of the grace and fluidity of motion of these animals. I lean toward that opinion.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Can C-14 dating help?

As far as that goes, some very instructive information can be found here, in an article whose immediate subject is Siloam’s Tunnel:

geography.huji.ac.il/personal/Frumkin/pdf/nature%20Siloam%20Tunnel%202003.pdf

 

[aragonjohn1]

Aragonjohn1 points out correctly that *“Twentieth-century excavations in the Gobi Desert have unearthed Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus skeletons, both beaked dinosaurs, from the same regions where the nomads prospected.” *Maybe a “Griffin” is an embellishment with wings of the four legged critters, Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus the latter of which is more the size of a sheep with a long tail and a beak.

Of course Rossum, who claims that there is NO ultimate truth makes it very clear that dragons as noted in ancient literature are NOT dinosaurs - an ultimate truth as pontificated by Rossum! Now just hold that thought for a minute. Rossum is claiming that there is no ultimate truth yet he claims dragons are NOT dinosaurs because they have six limbs - four legs and two wings. He dares anyone to find such a winged creature with four legs. Prove my ultimate truth wrong by finding such a creature he implied. He may be right; I don’t think there was such a creature. “His” ultimate truth of course can be found in this children’s explanation of dragons whyzz.com/what-are-dragons. But what if what the ancients saw were really “wingless” dragons alias dinosaurs but who just jazzed up their description a bit with wings! That’s speculation I know but some scientists these days do it all the time in peer reviewed papers as to what they find in the fossil record and then proclaim it a fact that we have evolved over billions of years from star dust and the Big Bang.

But modern science is also discovering that there are many quality depictions of dinosaurs our ancestors described that have also been found in the sedimentary fossil record by the billions where they died in a watery catastrophe. **What Aragonjohn1 is arguing, I think is that what our ancestors saw were probably some of the survivors just like the coelacanth. **

Can C-14 dating help? A Psittacosaurus dinosaur tail bone was C-14 dated in 2011 along with a Rhinoceros skull bone from the Gobi and they were essentially the same age, 22,020 ± 50 and 22,830 ± 90 respectively; note that the Rhino was just a tad bit older - maybe it was an elder statesman of its species and the dino was a younger one of its species. No one can really know other than to say that the real ages could be much younger than C-14 ages for many very good scientific reasons. Reference: Carbon 14 dating on www.dinosaurc14ages.com - scroll down to last tabulation.

So what’s the problem? Coelacanths were found alive and well and were also in the fossil record in similar geologic formations with dinosaurs. So some of our more astute ancestors apparently described many different species of living dinosaurs called dragons in those days and their bones are also found in Cretaceous - Jurassic geologic formations from TX to Alaska, China and Europe. Direct C-14 dating of the fossils including Coelacanth bones world-wide will perhaps someday help us solve this problem of “Dinosaurs and the Bible” as it has with many other fossil record problems.

Thus perhaps Rossum’s ultimate truth of origins of dinosaurs into birds could also be a myth that his friends have developed for our kids - he even claims seeing them flying around his nest all the time. That’s just a polite suggestion of course based on modern scientific observations and lab studies. Thus the real question me thinks is: Did Moses along with Christ and the church fathers get it right or do we believe in the mythological speculations of Academia?

Maybe Buffalo’s theory best describes what happened long before we came on the scene: IDvolution - God “breathed” the super language of DNA
into the “kinds” in the creative act.

Shalom : )

Also maybe the creature in job described as “a flying serpent with fire in its belly” may be related to the dinosaur siteing in one of my earlier links about the dinosaur seen by 700+ people and even photographed a few times. Also Marco polo saw and described at least two different types of domesticated dinosaurs the triceratops and the diplodocus(?)
He also rode one!

Also what about the dinosaur bones with blood and muscle found intact?

• creation.mobi/sensational-dinosaur-blood-report

Since blood in that area can only survive for a short time (tops 2000 - 3000 years) I could prove that dinosaurs could have been seen by the biblical people’s.

 

[ringil]

All right, I’m going to put some visual aids here so that people will realize what it means to equate a dinosaur with a dragon:

These are dinosaurs:

http://www.rareresource.com/photos/dinosaur-gallery/Tyrannosaurus_rex8.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/dinosaurs/images/7/71/Brachiosaurus-Todd-Marshall.jpg

THESE are dragons:

http://theclik.characterarcade.com/_images/Deathwing-1.jpg

http://ertaislament.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ryusei.jpg

Had any of these lived alongside man, the following rates their threat level in comparison to modern day animals.

Bears - XXX
Sharks - XXXX
Dinosaurs - XXXXXXX
Dragons - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please review your myths children with regards to the last one. You’ll need either a magical sword or divine intervention to even take out ONE dragon.

You know that dragons aren’t real right? I guess that is your point?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

You know that dragons aren’t real right? I guess that is your point?

No duh that’s been my point. Myths about dragons are too fantastical to describe actual creatures. If you read my first post, most if not all legendary/mythological monsters represent ideals more than they’ll ever stand for something that actually existed.

The dragon (be it of the East or West) is one of the finest examples of mythological symbolism. I won’t deny that influence of ancient fossil findings may have played a role in their conception but that is where I draw the line. I can see how some ancient world peasant would see a skull and dream up a monster but that is a far cry from saying such a thing actually existed.

Simply put dragons =/= dinosaurs. The former was regarded way too powerful to compare. I usually avoid threads like this but once people start misusing myths like the Creationists do, I have to step in.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

And since some people here are persisting with more unbelievable comparisons:

Here is a Psittacosaurus and a Protoceratops.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)



Here is a griffin:



http://mythologyandlegends.webs.com/photos/Mythological/Griffin 2.jpg

How creationists jump from one creature to the other is beyond me. Yeah, that’s some ‘jazzing up’ right there.

 

[Robertanthony]

I agree, the syllogism fails. Let us look at that it in detail:

P1 All life has an origin.

P2 God is life (alive)

C3 God has an origin.

We both agree that the conclusion, C3, fails. It is also clear that the syllogism is well formed, hence there must be a problem with one or both of the premises. Since Psalms tell us that P2 is true, then it must be P1 that fails. All life does not have an origin. Hence my point that creationism does not have an explanation for the origin of life, since such an explanation would in effect be an explanation for the origin of God.

rossum

All natural life has an origin. That’s how nature operates. Ditch the syllogism, God’s existence is not bound by laws of nature (“supra-natural” would be the correct adjective, I think), his eternal existence, the fact that there was never a time, so to speak, when he was not does not make sense to the human mind. As for the origin of life, or even the universe and time being created, God being the sole originator of it, I’m sure there aren’t many details of it that escape him! I just wanted to bring to your attention that God being alive does not make it impossible for him to know about the origin of life, but this isn’t quite what this thread is about, so I’ll just leave it at that. Peace.

 

[rossum]

All natural life has an origin.

I did not ask about the origin of “natural life”, I asked about the origin of “life”. You are avoiding answering the question I asked by answering a different question.

Ditch the syllogism

It was your syllogism. If you don’t like it, then why did you introduce it in the first place? I thought it was a perfectly good syllogism, and an excellent illustration of the point I wanted to make. Thank you for suggesting it.

rossum

 

[ringil]

http://wonjae.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/asia_protoceratops_hzoom.jpg

How creationists jump from one creature to the other is beyond me. Yeah, that’s some ‘jazzing up’ right there.

That protoceratops is cool. Never seen him before. RRRAAAWWRRR!!

Nature, you scary!!

 

[Robertanthony]

I did not ask about the origin of “natural life”, I asked about the origin of “life”. You are avoiding answering the question I asked by answering a different question.

It was your syllogism. If you don’t like it, then why did you introduce it in the first place? I thought it was a perfectly good syllogism, and an excellent illustration of the point I wanted to make. Thank you for suggesting it.

rossum

There is God and there is the universe and all that it contains (galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids, comets, meteorites, the human, animal, plant and mineral kingdoms I left out angelic as it is not pertinent here]).God is the creator, all that is encompassed in the universe is God’s creation. God created it from naught, set it in motion, gave it laws to obey. God is apart from that, supranatural, supernatural, call it what you will. Hell, he even created C-14, I’m sure he knows its good aspects and its limitations immensely more than you do. Is there something else that you don’t get or are you going to keep on playing with words? God is life in that is alive, God is life in that that is who he is, God is also the originator of life, not talking about his existence but about what most folks mean by the origin of life (i.e. the origin of the universe). I don’t know if God can laugh but I’m sure if he does he must be laughing right now seeing he can’t know about the origin of life because he himself is alive. It always amazes me to no end how people want to put God in a tiny little box. The universe needed someone to create it ex nihilo, God didn’t. There’s an awe-inspiring mystery for you.

 

[Robertanthony]

No duh that’s been my point. Myths about dragons are too fantastical to describe actual creatures. If you read my first post, most if not all legendary/mythological monsters represent ideals more than they’ll ever stand for something that actually existed.

The dragon (be it of the East or West) is one of the finest examples of mythological symbolism. I won’t deny that influence of ancient fossil findings may have played a role in their conception but that is where I draw the line. **I can see how some ancient world peasant would see a skull and dream up a monster **but that is a far cry from saying such a thing actually existed.

Simply put dragons =/= dinosaurs. The former was regarded way too powerful to compare. I usually avoid threads like this but once people start misusing myths like the Creationists do, I have to step in.

Could you elaborate on that? General time-frame, geographical location, skull of what animal, how the skull was dug out or was it simply lying on the ground for everyone to see?