h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, dragons are pretty easily explained: dinosaurs. In fact, skeletons have been found that suggest that the creature may have been able to breath fire. Although you really can't glean much from a skeleton, it did give the possibility.

Dinosaurs breathing fire, never heard that one before. What dino was that, and what gave them the idea?

hmmmm, fire-breathing dinosaurs?

No, it´s more likely that when people found the bones they reconstructed these creatures in their minds. Might explain why there are dragons (not too different either) in bothe western and eastern mythologies.

except of course that unless you come from the deep south, our closest ancestor during the time of the dinosaurs was a kind of rat-shaped monkey thing. Folklore passed down through thousands of generations? I think not...

Not folklore, but perhaps genetic memory. People are afraid of spiders because of genetics I would imagine. Now what if all spiders in the world died out? People might then have some fear they couldn't explain, but would try and visualize it. And maybe come up with spiderlike monsters. Perhaps the same has happened with dinosaurs. Just an idea.

However, I think that dragons doesn't seem to be such a global thing as most think. To me it seems asian dragons doesn't have much more in common with western that we have decided to call them dragons as well. The myths concerning them are quite different. Besides being reptiles, they seem quite different to me. Also they seem to have started out as being a sort of amphibious creature thousands of years ago. While the western word dragon apparently doesn't mean much more than big monster.

Well, In this area we must agree to disagree, Sprinks. I am a christian, and I thus believe that evolution is not fact. God created all creatures in a six day period, and thus they all coexisted, at least for a short time.

As for genetic memory, I'm not so sure. I mean, it sure seems like quite a coincidence that our ancestors rationalized their fear with monsters that bear an uncanny resemblance to dinosaurs.

And by the way, I really can't give the name of the dinosaur. But consider this: If fireflies didn't exist, we would be pretty skeptical that there could be insects that actually generated light. Or that a living being could generate electricity as a certain species of eel can. Or dinosaurs, for crying out loud. Who would believe that giant lizards roamed the earth if we didn't find their skeletons?

I meant that they rationalized their fear of dinosaurs with something that looked like dinosaurs. But few dragons bear much resemblance to the most common dinosaurs types.

As for breathing fire, you can't really use that as an argument can you? That would mean if we can't rule it out it would exist. Show us the evidence for a fire breathing dinosaur and we will rethink it. You can always do it in the Creationism thread.

" I am a christian, and I thus believe that evolution is not fact. God created all creatures in a six day period, and thus they all coexisted, at least for a short time"

I consider myself a Christian, but I have to disagree with you that all creatures were created in a six day period.
Man and dinosaur did not coexist, except in B-movieland.

If you believe as the bible states that life began in 4000 BC, how do you explain the dinosaur skeletons?
I disagree with the bible because it was written by men {several}.

I know that to question faith is the wrong thing to do.
You have the right to believe in what you want to believe in.

I believe the dinosaur you are thinking of, which reminded you of a dragon, is the pteradon, {or pteradactyl}, which was the only "flying" dinosaur. There is no evidence that it ever breathed fire, but then, none to say that they didn't, either.

Word of mouth?

As far as I know there were no talking dinosaurs.....

Xantiac (please forgive me if I spelled your name wrong! ) : I wasn't saying exactly that "because we can't rule it out, it exists," I was saying that just because there isn't concrete proof, doesn't mean that it isn't feasible. And it is entirely within the realm of biological possibility, so to speak, that an animal could create blasts of fire from it's mouth, or thereabouts. But I won't go into that. Perhaps I should have started this thread like this:

"Dragon legends might find their roots in fire-breathing dinosaurs that the locals found running around, much to their surprise and, apparently, terror."

And Archangel, What did you mean by "how can you explain dinosaur skeletons"?

Please don't be offended by what I'm about to say, Archangel. I'm not questioning your faith. I'm trying to understand where you're coming from, in the name of intelligent discussion!

I'm guessing your justification for not believing the bible is that, because its written by men, it is thus flawed. But do you think God is sitting up in heaven, going "darn it! Why did those stupid humans have to go and mess up my word? Now what am I going to do?" Do you think that our mighty God, who has created the entire universe and has absolute control over even the most minute detail, would allow his perfect word to be flawed by us shortsighted humans? If he chose to get his message to us through godly (and yes, flawed themselves) men, who are we to question it and call it flawed? And without the bible, how can you justify your belief in God? Now If you meant that through translation, the bible could have been messed up, I'll agree. but that leaves it up to us sift through the garbage and find the good stuff.

Again, I'm not trying to attack anyone here.

Talking dinosaurs would be fun . . .

There were several flying dinosaurs. Some also claim to have spotted them in recent times. I was shown an internet site recently where there were cave paintings of dinosaurs.

What did you mean by "how can you explain dinosaur skeletons"?

"Well, In this area we must agree to disagree, Sprinks. I am a christian, and I thus believe that evolution is not fact. God created all creatures in a six day period, and thus they all coexisted, at least for a short time."

Were those not your words?
I took them to mean that you believe God created all creatures in six days, and that included dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs existed millions of years ago.

I asked how can you explain dinosaur skeletons if you believe that God created all creatures in a six day period.

I love to talk dinosaurs.
I would much rather talk about dinosaurs than religion!

Oh, and Xanatic, I saw a picture on the internet recently of a man on top of the World Trade Centre with a plane about to hit it....

Ehh, and what do you mean by that AGB? And the picture is a fake anyway.

The guy of course beleives that the dating of dino skeletons is wrong.

Alright, dinosaurs it is, then.

These are the scientific problems I have with dinosaurs being as old as palentologists (I spelled that wrong. Hokd on foniks wurkd fr me!)
say they are, mainly because I don't think anything existed that long ago. For instance, scientists have noticed that the earth is gathering dust from space, so to speak. After billions of years, you'd think that there would be thousands of tons of the stuff washed up in the oceans, etc. But there is none. At the rate that it seems to gather, NASA experts guessed that the moon must be covered with at least 54 feet of dust. When we finally got there, we discovered that the moon had as little as 1/8 to 3 inches thick layer of dust. This would have taken as little as 10,000 years to build up.

It has been proven that the sun is actually shrinking about five feet per year. Wind it back a few billion years, and the surface of our planet and the surface of the sun would have been touching. As far as verification, apparently scientists have been observing this phenomenon for over 100 years.

As far as the dating methods: At least one of the methods used is called carbon dating. I'm sure you know all of this junk, but I might as well go over it. CDing is the method of measuring certain elements in a rock, typically three elements, Potassium Argon, Uranium Lead, and Carbon-14. (carbon-14 is measured the most because the first two can only be found in ineous rocks). Basically, the less of these elements there are in the thing being measured, the older it is.

This method requires a static enviroment so that these elements can decay. But consider this: Let's say that you are stuck in a room with only a candle, and you were told to guess how long the candle had been burning. You quickly realize this is impossible. You could try and measure the amount of wax at the bottom of the candle, but who knows if someone could have blown it out and relit it? Or you could try and measure the amount of oxygen in the room compared to the amount outside. But who knows if someone had opened the windows or not?

*gasp, gasp*

"I was shown an internet site recently where there were cave paintings of dinosaurs"

I meant exactly what you just posted, Xanatic.
The picture was a fake anyway.
As are internet sites.
I have your good self to thank me for being so suspicious as to not believe my own eyes these days.


There once was someone who used to hate housework, Quentin Crisp, I remember him saying that "After a few years, the dust doesn't get any worse" - maybe that's what happened to the moon.
Personally, I prefer to think that maybe it's the few hundred meteorites that hit the moon which stir up the dust, and fills up the holes caused by the previous meteorites.

"It has been proven that the sun is actually shrinking about five feet per year. Wind it back a few billion years, and the surface of our planet and the surface of the sun would have been touching."
The Earth's orbit of the sun has not changed, since time began.
Yes, the sun is shrinking, it's burning itself out, but you cannot touch the surface of the sun.
There is no surface, it's a hot ball of gas.

Dinosaur bones are found in certain places in the ground.
Paleantologists dig there for a reason, I guess.
If you want to look for a needle in a haystack, at least point us in the direction of the haystack!
The bones are found in layers of the ground from certain periods of Earth's past, known as the Jurassic or the Triassic, etc.
The fossilized fuels we burn, e.g. coal used to be trees from very old forests.

I didn't know carbon dating was guesswork.
I thought it was scientific...*shrug*

I have to say I can't decide wether carbon dating is real or guesswork. As for the cave paintings, I'd just think I'd mention it. I am not convinced of anything so far, I have to find out more about them. But it is an interesting idea. I know there has been found other depictions of dinosaurs that seems strange. AGB, I get your point now, I just at the time didn't get quite why you talked about WTC

I guess I am being too optimistic, but those examples mentioned are pretty well known. Did you consider looking on the web for other peoples explanation of them?

Well, yeah, the sun is a big ball of gas, but if we were just a little closer (well, relatively anyway) the earth would be a burning wasteland.

And yeah, about the dusty moon, a meteor could have hit it, knocking some of the dust off.
But as another example, at the present rate of erosion of the earth's crust, if the earth is billions of years old, there should be thirty times more sediment in the ocean. There is evidence that suggests that the rate of erosion was greater in the past. But even if it did stay at the rate it is now since the beginning, all of the continents of the earth would have been worn down to ocean level.

About going online to try and find explainations, I think I might do that.

You don't think you should have started there?

Hey hey hey, why did you people pretend I said something I didn't? I said "when people found the bones they reconstructed these creatures in their minds. " How do you get that to say I believe men and dinosaurs coexisted?
What I inferred is only that paleontologists are probably not the first people to find dinosaur skeletons. Dragon is a definite lizard fire-breathing monster in western mythology, not merely a big monster. They're there in medieval fairy-tales, pretty much just as we know them from modern fantasy-type dragons.
The eastern dragons I don't know much about, but I wonder if they d't have their origins in dino skeletons unearthed in Gobi or something...


Lawn Gnome, I am (also) a Christian, I do not reject experience just because it disagrees with my preconceptions. Bear in mind that when Jesus was asked (by Pilate) why he had come he did not answer "to save all mankind" (but I do believe he did!) He said it this way: "For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth" (from John 18:37, NASB translation)

If truth is so important, we have a duty to mantain a certain intellectual integrity.

The problem is with your (or should I say your branch's) bible interpretation is that you seem unable to admit "I do not know the meaning of this." Our honest inquiries, using reason(the one and one is two kind of reason) and experience, has shown that either:

The text is correct, but doesn't say what we thought it said.
In this case we are at loss to suggest another interpretation, but that's just life. You can't always know it all.

Or the text is wrong.

(I don't believe that, I trust that God wants to tell us something here, I just don't presume to know what.)

The arguments you propose for a young earth theory are not scientific and have not come out of an honest-search-for-the-truth-whatever-it-may-be, (that which I call intellectual integrity). Don't take it personally because I know it wasn't you that made up these arguments. But I won't bother to answer them before you agree that our duty is to look for the truth whatever it may be.

If that wasn't our duty, any belief is as good as anyone else. Thankfully, we are forced by conscience to look for the truth. I wouldn't like to look at a world in which we weren't! Though of course people go against this dicate of conscience like all the others.

Xanatic>> Sure. But first of all, why rely on the internet? Although it does contain a weath of information, it certainly isn't as reliable as ye olde library. And this is a debate; I present an argument, and you try and disprove it. Therefore, isn't it your job to find this proof?

MnnVint>> How exactly are these arguments unscientific? What do you believe? Do you agree with me? Of course I believe that "our duty is to look for the truth whatever it may be". You don't agree with me; that much is obvious. Did you just decide that my evidence was unscientific? Upon what did you base this judgement? Of course I believe that "our duty is to look for the truth whatever it may be".

I guess that it all boils down to this: I didn't do a background check on the evidence I presented because 1.) I'm no scientist. I can't claim to be absolutely certain about my views on the age of the earth. And really, does it matter? I mean, as christians, MnnVint, our job is not to argue how old the planet is, but rather to speak the truth about the guy who came to save the miserable inhabitants of this planet. 2.) Are you going to listen to me? I mean really? Would you change your beliefs so that they favor the idea of a living god over what some 16 year old kid told you?

I'm not trying to be rude or mean-spirited, by the way. I appologize if I came across that way.