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Check this out! I thought it was really interesting that they may have found soft tissue that survived in any form after MILLIONS OF YEARS. Maybe soon scientist will actually admit that dinos didn't go extinct that long ago and that man actually contributed to their demise. I mean, really, why did so many cultures mention dragons in their mythology and art? Because they co-existed with us and Sir George actually DID slay a dragon. CNN.comPosts: 232 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:I mean, really, why did so many cultures mention dragons in their mythology and art? Because they co-existed with us and Sir George actually DID
That is certainly one explination. Do you agree that there are many other explinations that fit the facts?
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I came to my conclusions years ago, and I've read some of the other theories, but they just don't make as much sense to me. 'People saw dino bones hundreds of years ago and made up myths about them' that sort of thing. I mean there are written accounts about dragons and were treated as fact by the people of those cultures. The artwork depicting them has them right alongside creatures that still exist. To me it just makes sense that the reason so many cultures mentioned dragons (african, south american, europe, china, even north american natives) is because they lived alongside dinosaurs. And what the heck is that Loch Ness monster? Easy, a dinosaur.
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Do you admit that, however implausible it seems to you, that the commonly held view on dinosaurs explains the facts well?
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The common view that dinosaurs died millions of years ago yet somehow we have images of them as dragons and legends in the bible but of course had never dug any up. Sure that makes perfect sense. Silly me.
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Crotalus, folk belief in small, sometimes malevolent, sometimes helpful humanoids is pretty much global as well. What do you make of this?
Edit--I'm honestly curious to know what you think about this, by the way. I can think of a number of arguments you might make in response to this question, and I'm curious to know if I've guessed the one you subscribe to.
quote:The common view that dinosaurs died millions of years ago yet somehow we have images of them as dragons and legends in the bible but of course had never dug any up. Sure that makes perfect sense. Silly me.
And yet your belief in the literal truth of a revision of a revision of a two-thousand-year-old book that describes the divine creator of the universe and everything in it wandering about setting bushes on fire in the Middle East is utterly unshakeable. Yes, of course, that makes so much more sense. Silly me.
Whoo boy I'm touchy this morning. I shouldn't post this. And yet, somehow, I can't resist...
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Set one bush on fire and everyone thinks you’re a pyro… Revision of a revision? Interesting. Sure there are translations into other languages but the original Greek and Hebrew are pretty much set in stone (pun intended).
[ March 31, 2005, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Jay ]
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Crotalus, what are some of the phenomenon that you believe cannot be explained by the idea that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago?
Now, to clarify -- I'm talking about explinations that while they may seem farcical to you, still can explain the facts. For example, possible explinations of why all cultures have dragons that don't involve humans co-habitating with dinosaurs include:
1. People found dino bones, and extrapolated from there. (I know this seems far-fetched to you, but it explains it just fine.) 2. People extrapolated dragons from lizards, just like they extrapolated giants from humans. 3. Although we call them all dragons, the dragons in different cultures are drastically different. Some of them are more similar to dogs than they are to dinosaurs.
OK, now that I've said that, what are some of the phenomena that you don't think can be explained by the "scientific" view of dinosaurs?
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Well, people are talking about dragons, and then Tom mentioned virgins, and naturally my mind went to a song about dragons and virgins. Just listen to the song, will ya?
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I want to know if they would have supported the notion that there were many Gods, presided over by a storm God who had defeated his father for the position, back when most of the known world had a similar myth.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire Wow... I wonder if somehow cultures were all closer at the beginning. And spoke the same language. Maybe some kind of dividing of the tongues. Wait…. Was there a big tower. Tower of Babble or something. I don’t know. Silly me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairies Very interesting. Tom I think you might be onto something here. Seems like that the cultures are closer then we ever suspected. All these similar tales.
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"Very interesting. Tom I think you might be onto something here. Seems like that the cultures are closer then we ever suspected. All these similar tales."
Yes, that's certainly one interpretation. I like how Sesame Street's on the air in hundreds of countries around the world, too, thus proving that Big Bird really exists.
I think what this really proves is that mankind hungers for story, and certain narratives are more compelling -- or seem to answer more questions -- than others, especially as a society develops. Everyone needs an origin myth; everyone needs a giant or a dragon or "Little People" to account for missing socks.
Urban legends and sock-eating dryer monsters play the same role in modern myth.
posted
Known to each other. In this case, we're talking Europe, primarily southern, mediterranean and north african, middle eastern, and much of southeast asia. Which together make up a big chunk of the world as a whole.
That is, the largest chunk of the world that had regular contact with other parts of itself -- in a networked sense, the most "connected" part of the world.
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You're reaching on that cave drawing, Jay. If I may say: you're trying to fit that picture into your foregone conclusion. I say that because, to me, that looks no more like a dinosaur than any other cave drawing I've seen. And just so we're clear, all cultures believe in hairy horned horses because giant scaly lizards slept in the next cave over?
What do vampires have to do with the Tower of Babble? That you can gain power by taking the essence of a man is a common thread in all cultures, and not hard to see why. It's not such a leap to vampires. What are you talking about? Do you always insinuate things because you don't know the point you're trying to make and trust us to make it for you?
And your flood link talks of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish flood traditions. Well... of course they have them, but that hardly speaks for all the other cultures. Not to mention that the flood myth could just as easily come from the end of the ice age. For that matter, one could argue that the flood myth in the bible is also derived from the end of the ice age. So I think this argument holds no water (har har).
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Sauropods and humans could have coexisted at some point in recorded history. After all, we've still got crocodilians, which remain largely unchanged from their fossilized ancestors.
Fossilized remains of any particular land-dwelling creature are extremely rare. Fossilization requires a unique set of circumstances. Usually the creature has to be buried almost immediately following death, probably by some sort of natural disaster like a flood or volcanic eruption. Even tar pits containing animal remains are fairly rare.
By the time humans came on the scene, any surviving species of sauropods would have found themselves being hunted and eaten faster than they could die and be fossilized by natural causes. We don't find too many fossils of cattle and chickens do we?
Also, we haven't had a major fossil-creating event since humans came on the scene. So we have no idea what sort of creatures the early humans might have encountered.
One thing's for sure, humans have demonstrated the ability to hunt anything that is slow, ugly, or tasty to extinction.
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posted
Crocodilians aren't sauropods, or particularly close relatives, or particularly alike in their ability to survive natural disaster (due to being in a completely different ecological niche).
Also, one thing we do find plenty of are bones left behind by our feasting ancestors -- had our ancestors been eating sauropods, we would likely have found those as well.
Not to mention there are no images on cave walls (and other locations) that look like even a near approximation of a sauropod -- there are plenty of rather clear images of many other sorts of creatures.
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Well, Big Bird does exist. Don’t you ever watch TV? How can you call his existence into question? He’s a guy in a puppet suit in some Hollywood studio. But we’re getting sidetracked here.
So many similar stories in ancient cultures doesn’t point to some kind of connection? Yes, the Tower of Babble where everyone spoke the same language after the flood would help explain this interesting common thread across vastly distant cultures. Stories passed down before the tongues were divided. Hence my point was that the similar stories about giants, unicorns, vampires, and fairies could have been told before the Tower of Babble. Christian, Islamic, and Jewish aren’t the only cultures to have flood stories. Australian Aboriginal flood stories for example: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3764.aspPosts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Jay is right about the ubiquity of flood myths--virtually all cultures seem to have them. Twinky is right that floods are a threat that faces virtually every culture at some time or another, and I don't find it to be much of a stretch to believe that those devistating floods were immortalized in myth.
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Yes, because clearly it was possible for ancient people to tell that a flood was global.
Note that in many of the ancient legends it only talks about the huge flood rising to the height of the rooftops or the trees -- hardly a global level.
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Sure the flood stories could be connected that way. How about the rest though? Seems like there are countless examples of similar cultural stories like this.
I honestly forget the title of the book you recommended. I imagine there would be a copy of it on eBay or Amazon that I could get for chump change.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
My whole point in posting to begin with is to say how ludicrous it is to believe that soft tissue of any kind would be preserved for MILLIONS OF YEARS. Think about how long just one million years is. As for fairies I'm sure I was expected to retort with explaining them away as demons, or maybe I was supposed to cite the recent 'hobbit' find. Unicorns? Whose to say they didn't once exist. We do have Narwhals. As for my original argument, here is a link of interest to support it.
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Crotalus, Neat site. I like it. And agree with you. Don’t get discouraged! I know they can be harsh. But I need ya dude! Occasional is one of the only other ones around who helps me out sometimes! Well, ok Farmgirl too, but she can be shy with these touchy ones. By the way, we need an intro from ya. Where you’re from and what you do and all that. Anyway….. thanks!
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Actually, it never occurred to me that you might believe in demons. The small hominid fossil find did occur to me as one possibility. I'm still interested to hear what your thoughts on the matter are, if you'd care to share.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Crotalus -- in case you missed it in all the threads since then, I asked you a specific question. What are your thoughts on that?
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quote: One would think that such hard evidence would be highly problematic for evolutionary theory. Indeed Dr. Philip Kitcher, in his anti-creationist book Abusing Science, claims that solid evidence that dinosaurs and man co-existed would "shake the foundations of evolutionary theory."
Okay, having followed the most recent link, I have to say that I find this baffling.
Leaving aside the author's claim that ancient art represents "hard evidence" of anything, I fail to understand why anyone would think that vanishingly rare numbers of surviving dinosaur species would "shake the foundations of evolutionary theory."
Would one of the Creationists here explain to me why it would be impossible for evolution to be true and yet have small numbers of dinosaurs alive until, say, the 1600s or so?
I ask this because some of the earliest proponents of the "some dinosaurs were contemporary with man, and may even survive in some isolated part of Africa" story were in fact ardent evolutionists. While that theory has largely been discounted by the preponderance of other evidence against it, there's no reason that modern dinosaurs and evolutionary theory can't co-exist.
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First of all, Anticool and Noemon, I will get to your questions when i have time to elaborate. I'm at work right now and deadlines are looming. Maybe this weekend I can go into some in-depth responses.
Jay, (and for anyone else)
I'm male, 36, QC Chemist for a pharm manufacting site. I've lurked here for years, but just started posting here a few weeks ago. I've put up a fragment in the writers forum and just jumped in on this side this week. I'm a husband and dad of a 2yr old with another due in May. Oh yeah, and I hail from Georgia, USA.
That's right the BIBLE BELT. Now everyone feel free to put your labels on me.
now back to work...Q'PLA!
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
So you've lurked here for years, and yet expect us to automatically pidgeonhole you because you're from the South? That's...a bit odd, I think.
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