Dragons or Dinosaurs?
Take the bible literally and all forms of life are believed to have been created around 6 thousand years ago. Evolutionary dating puts simple life as beginning around 3.5 billion years ago. Dinosaurs 240 million years ago. Can the biblical accounts in Genesis be made to fit? It has been tried, it’s called theistic evolution and is very popular in many churches, but it’s like getting an ugly sisters foot into Cinderella’s slipper. It bursts the seams of biblical history, ruins something beautiful and leaves it in tatters and unusable. Theistic evolution is the idea that God started or directed evolutionary processes. Dinosaurs are an icon and confirmation of evolution. They are the set in stone proof of the theory of millions of years.
According to the well-respected evolutionist and scientist: Douglas Futuyma there are only two possible options regarding the Creation.
Quote: “Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.”
D.J. Futuyma, Science on Trial.
So if we search written history, what do we find?
SEA SERPENTS!
Declassified files recently released from the National Archives indicate that huge sea serpents were a fact of life for mariners. This account is taken from a captain of the Royal Navy. It.is in no sense legendary and comes from the 19th century. This sea-serpent was seen close to the island of St Helena on May 9, 1830 by the crew of the Rob Roy. Its captain, James Stockdale recorded the encounter in his official log.
“About five p.m. all at once while I was walking on the poop my attention was drawn to the water on the port bow by a scuffling noise. Likewise all the watch on deck were drawn to it. Judge my amazement when what should stare us all in the face as if not knowing whether to come over the deck or to go around the stern, but the great big sea snake! Now I have heard of the fellow before, and I have killed snakes twenty-four feet long in the straits of Malacca, but they would go in his mouth. I think he must have been asleep for we were going along very softly two knots an hour, and he seemed as much alarmed as we were and all taken aback for about fifteen seconds. But he soon was underway and, when fairly off, his head was square with our topsail and his tail was square with the foremast….My ship is 171 feet long overall and the foremast is 42 feet from the stern which would make the monster about 129 feet long. If I had not seen it I could not have believed it but there was no mistake or doubt of its length, for the brute was so close I could even smell his nasty fishy smell….When underway he carried his head about six feet out of water – with a fin between the shoulders about two feet long. I think he was swimming about five miles an hour – for I watched him from the topsail yard till I lost sight of him in about fifty minutes. I hope never to see him more. It is enough to frighten the strong at heart.”
This second report of a sea-monster sighting has been declassified at an official level by the British Government. It describes an 1857 encounter that also occurred in the vicinity of the island of St. Helena. The following is from Commander George Henry Harrington. His ship was the Castilian
“While myself and officers were standing on the lee side of the poop looking toward the island, we were startled by the sight of a huge marine animal which reared its head out of the water within twenty yards of the ship when it suddenly disappeared for about half a minute and then made a reappearance in the same manner again, showing us its neck and head about ten or twenty feet out of the water….Its head was shaped like a long buoy and I should suppose the diameter to have been seven or eight feet in the largest part with a kind of scroll or ruff encircling it about two feet from the top. The water was discoloured for several hundred feet from the head, so much so that on its first appearance my impression was that the ship was in broken waters, produced, as I supposed, by some volcanic agency, since I passed the island before….But the second appearance completely dispelled those fears and assured us that it was a monster of extraordinary length and appeared to be moving slowly towards the land. The ship was going too fast to enable us to reach the masthead in time to form a correct estimate of this extreme length, but from what we saw from the deck we conclude that he must have been over two hundred feet long. The Boatswain and several of the crew, who observed it from the forecastle, state that it was more than double the length of the ship, in which case it must have been five hundred feet”
DINOSAURS / DRAGONS
LIVY 64 or 59 BC – AD 17, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. He describes an attack by a reptile on the army of General Regulus who was fighting a war against Cartage in North Africa.
Livy writes:
“After many soldiers had been seized in its [the dragon’s] mouth, and many more crushed by the folds of its tail, its hide being too thick for javelins and darts, the dragon was at last attacked by military engines and crushed by repeated blows from heavy stones.”
There is another fuller account of the same event.
The historian PLINY THE ELDER states:
It is well known that Regulus, Imperator during the Wars against the Carthaginians, near the River Bograda assailed a Serpent with his Military Engines, the Balistae and Tormentum, as he would have done to a Town…and when Subdued, the Length of the Serpent was found to be 120 Feet. The Skin and Jaws of this Serpent were preserved in a Temple at Rome until the War of Numantia. And this is rendered the more credible from the Serpents that we see in Italy that are called Boae, which increase to such Size, that in the Days of the emperor Claudius there was one of them killed in the Vatican, within the Belly of which there was found an Infant Child…’
In a work titled The Travels of Marco Polo, published in 1300 AD, he describes a dragon found in a province named Karajan.
“Leaving the city of Yachi, and traveling ten days in a westerly direction, you reach the province of Karazan, which is also the name of the chief city….Here are seen huge serpents, ten paces in length (about 30 feet), and ten spans (about 8 feet) girth of the body. At the fore part, near the head, they have two short legs, having three claws like those of a tiger, with eyes larger than a forepenny loaf and very glaring. The jaws are wide enough to swallow a man, and their whole appearance is so formidable, that neither man, nor any kind of animal can approach them without terror.
If this is real, then a T Rex like creature with its size well described and its very short fore legs was around less than 800 years ago, making evolutionary explanations of the past nothing more than modern myths. There is however a mistake in his account if a T Rex is being described because they did not have three claws, it had only two. However a close relative of T Rex is the Allosaurus, which did have three claws. See the video below. Consequently Marco Polo could have been spot on with his observations. Also the Allosaurus, although very similar in all respects was much less heavy than the T Rex, two tons against twenty tons for the T Rex which would would account for the more modest eight foot girth.
And there is more. Palaeontologist Phil Senter noted structures in dinosaurs that became so reduced in size they could no longer carry out their original functions. His example was taken from the T Rex. Although this species had only two fingers it nevertheless retained a single bone from its third finger: the metacarpal, which was enclosed within its hand. Since many other theropods, like the allosaurus, and including some early tyrannosauroids did have the three fingers described by Marco Polo. In other words the claws like a tiger could have been correct even for a T Rex.
Next is an account by Apollonius of Tyana, a famous Greek traveller and philosopher who was a contemporary of Jesus. Here he speaks of observing a dragon hunt in India.
“Now as they descended the mountain they came in for a dragon hunt, which I must needs describe. For it is utterly absurd for those who are amateurs of hare-hunting to spin yarns about the hare as to how it is caught or ought to be caught, and yet that we should omit to describe a chase as bold as it is wonderful, and in which the sage was careful to assist; so I have written the following account of it: The whole of India is filled with dragons of enormous size; for not only the marshes are full of them, but the mountains as well, and there is not a single ridge without one. Now the marsh kind are sluggish in their habits and are thirty cubits long, ( 45ft ) and they have no crest standing up on their heads, but in this respect resemble the she-dragons. Their backs however are very black, with fewer scales on them than the other kinds; and Homer has described them with deeper insight than have most poets, for he says that the dragon that lived hard by the spring in Aulis had a tawny back; but other poets declare that this kind found in the grove of Nemea also had a crest, a feature which we could not verify in regard to the marsh dragons.
( No writer of myths is concerned about verifying anything, let alone checking observations against previous observations. Myths are evidence free zones )
AND the dragons along the foothills and the mountain crests make their way into the plains after their quarry, and prey upon all the creatures in the marshes; for indeed they reach an extreme length, and move faster than the swiftest rivers, so that nothing escapes them. These actually have a crest, of moderate extent and height when they are young; but as they reach their full size, it grows with them and extends to a considerable height, at which time also they turn red and get serrated backs. This kind also have beards, and lift their necks on high, while their scales glitter like silver; and the pupils of their eyes consist of a fiery stone, and they say that this has an uncanny power for many secret purposes. The plain specimen falls the prize of the hunters whenever it draws upon itself an elephant; for the destruction of both creatures is the result, and those who capture the dragons are rewarded by getting the eyes and skin and teeth. In most respects they resemble the largest swine, but they are slighter in build and ‘flexible, and they have teeth as sharp and indestructible as those of the largest fishes.
Now the dragons of the mountains have scales of a golden colour, and in length excel those of the plain, and they have bushy beards, which also are of a golden hue; and their eyebrows are more prominent than those of the plain, and their eye is sunk deep under the eyebrow, and emits a terrible and ruthless glance. And they give off a noise like the clashing of brass whenever they are burrowing under the earth, and from their crests, which are all fiery red there flashes a fire brighter than a torch.”
OK, now we have a myth like feature appearing right at the end of this otherwise compelling account account.
FIRE BREATHING.
Is it possible? Maybe not just possible, but intentional!
Imagine if you will a dinosaur, probably a herbivore or omnivore that exhales methane gas through an adaption embedded within a crest. The crest provides tubes or passage-ways for the release of air into the atmosphere. Scientists think it could be used for making trumpeting sounds, mating calls maybe. Some mechanism could create a spark, which, when combined with methane could produce a flame thrower effect, providing both a defence system and a spectacular mating display.
Here is just one plausible solution to the problem. I searched the Internet for means of igniting methane and found the following. It relates to an examination of how and why fires or explosions begin during the collapse of mine roofs, tunnels and shafts.
‘When a large area of open gob collapses suddenly, a windblast is produced that can cause considerable damage throughout the infrastructure of a mine….Controlled escape of the air via interconnecting entries limits the build- up of air pressure. However, this same phenomenon causes the potential energy of the falling strata to be concentrated into a diminishing mass of air. Computer simulations predicted that the temperature of the air would increase rapidly as the roof descends, reaching values that are capable of igniting either methane or coal dust.’
If this process of igniting methane can occur under accidental conditions whereby air is compressed and forced through escape channels, then why could not the same occur in a designed system? The effect: something akin to a controlled sneeze in a creature as large as a dinosaur could surely cause the same kind of ignition effect as that described above. Assuming scientists are correct in thinking that these cranial crests were used for trumpeting, then large volumes of air must have been forced through these channels at great speed? This would create a similar effect to the one described above, and possibly an even more efficient way of igniting methane gas. In other words a design feature, similar to all those found in so many diverse creatures: the electric eel and bombardier beetle, to name but two. If this were so then the proliferation of stories relating to fire-breathing would be no stranger than bioluminescence: found in many different creatures. Below is a video describing duck billed dinosaurs which have the kind of crest required for exhaling sound and possibly igniting methane.
If eye witnesses, many of them very reliable sources of information from the ancient world, saw and recorded huge Sea Serpents / Dragons / Terrible lizards and Dinosaurs, then the evolutionary theory of millions of years falls apart at the seams and a biblical timescale becomes probable, if not certain.
Darwin had an agenda and it good to know this.
He stated in the Descent of Man: ”I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change . . . If I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its (natural selection’s) power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.”
The “dogma of separate creations” refers to the Creation account of all living creatures in Genesis Chapter 1 being created according to their separate kinds. Darwin’s exaggerations of “natural selection’s power” led to the fact free zone and the myth that kinds of animals, dog kind, cat kind, dinosaur kind, can evolve into anything other than potential variations fixed within their genetically defined borders. Every example given in evolutionary explanations are of variations within kinds. Like Darwin’s famous example: Galapagos Island finches. These may change their beak shapes and sizes according to environmental needs, but they remain fixed in their kind. They have, ever since being first observed by Darwin remained Finches!
If creatures could make this hypothetical change from dinosaurs to birds then surely there should be some examples of this that have been observed and catalogued, but no, nothing! Why have no intermediates types been seen and documented, other than through assumptions made on the basis of the theory. A terrible way to do science unless you critically evaluate every step. Look up whale evolution on the internet and you will see a series of linked creatures which lay out the transitions between a doglike mammal and the ocean dwelling whale. Every link is, in true scientific terms, a “just so story”. The fictitious accounts of how animals like leopards got their spots. Evolutionists pick a fossil, suggest it could be a link to the next required evolutionary step, publish it in a peer reviewed article, and then, if you have funding and a name in palaeontology the chances of your peers supporting your viewpoint are good. All illustrated evolutionary publications and media presentations are full of such speculation. That it is so easily picked up and supported is a commentary on evolutionary science.
Why should Darwin’s processes cease as soon as we get to the point of wanting to discover them? This is not only my question. Darwin asked it and so have other supporters of his theory. Because previously there must have been countless ongoing living examples of transitional or intermediate forms. Why no more fish in the process of evolving mammalian lungs and legs? Why no more mammals preparing for a full life lived in the oceans. As the famous now deceased evolutionist Stephen. J. Gould lamented, all we see in the fossil record is stasis. Stasis means a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium. No significant recorded changes. Gould became so unsettled by this lack that he and his colleague Eldredge invented a super-fast version of evolution called punctuated equilibrium. This theory flared for a while before withering and if not yet dead, can be found in a coma from which it is unlikely to recover.
Darwin had insisted on slow processes. He pictured organisms gradually transforming from one species into another over immense spans of time. Evolution, he believed, had to occur through,”infinitely numerous transitional links” forming “the finest graduated steps.” Darwin was a strict adherent of gradualism and the notion that “nature does not make leaps.” He spelled this out very clearly in his Origin of Species: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (Darwin, 1859, p. 219).
If this is true then his theory has absolutely broken down. To make matters worse he also wrote this.
On his comments expressed in the Imperfection of the Geological Record he admits:…The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, (must) be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”
Darwin set about to destroy any belief in fully developed separate creations brought into being by God. He succeeded because he was appealing to the truth of his theory long before it had become a “scientific fact”. Long before it had been tested and validated. long before modern science had proved it to be genetically a bridge much too far. But by then it had become a Truth of Science so foundational to all of science, including even cosmology, that it was too ingrained to be removed. The later version Neo-Darwinism just incorporated a genetic mechanism that that actually does produce novelties: genetic mutations. Unfortunately they are uniformly either neutral in their effects, deleterious or fatal to whatever organism or part of the organism these mistranslated of Dna codes choose to colonise. I have had a personal encounter with this truth: it is called cancer, which is caused by mutations. Evolutionary theory is an ideology long before it is a scientific theory. It absolves its followers from seeking a Designer, a God, a being to whom we, as humans, created and conscious have and often feel an inbuilt responsibility to seek out. Our whole being is naturally formed to wonder about how we came to be, who or what made us, why we are as we are, why is the earth the only life sustaining planet we can discover, and what happens to us following death.
Darwin had an agenda, and so have all his followers. I admit I have an agenda as well. I believe the Bible. I believe God made it all in quick time. And once you come to believe all that, the road opens up to Jesus, who was according to New testament scripture there right at the very beginning. “All things created by him, through him and for him.” And that includes you and me. The full quote is from Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 -17.
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or authority. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
