A Dinosaur by any other name …

A Therapod dinosaur, AIG's Creation Museum, KY

The title is of course a play on the line from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet laments the fact that her new found love Romeo is from the family of Montague. The two families, the Montagues and Juliet’s family, the Capulets, have been feuding for some time, which sometimes erupted into dueling. The animosity between the two families sets the background for the play. Juliet expresses her dismay with the famous discourse that begins with “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” and includes the lines:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
;

Juliet’s well put and clear meaning being that Romeo would still be Romeo if he were called by any other name. Which is where we pick it up concerning dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs by Any Other Name are Still Dinosaurs

I originally wanted to call this article “Dragons are Dinosaurs.” But dinosaurs are also called by other names and perhaps just as importantly the term “Dinosaur” is limited to land-dwelling creatures, but I want to cover flying and swimming creatures as well. Continue Reading

The Global Flood: The Best Evidence for Creation?

The ark floating above fish in the global flood

The Bible states that the heavens and the earth were created in six literal days. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in a garden called Eden. Adam and Eve sinned, bringing sin into God’s perfect creation, and sin brought with it the consequence of death. The Bible goes on to state that:

“The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen 6.5)

So God elected to start over, wiping all the wicked people off the face of the earth and begin again with the family of one righteous man: Noah (Gen 6:8-10). 

What is the best evidence of this creation account?  The first question to answer is what kind of evidence should we be looking for? The first criteria is that it should be evidence that is accessible and acknowledged by all – on both sides of the debate.  The second criteria has to do with the explanatory power of the evidence, which is explained below. Continue Reading

Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

Intelligent Design’s Blind Side

William Dembski is a leader in the Intelligent Design (ID) community, so I read with initial interest a recent interview he did with Sean McDowell titled How is the Intelligent Design Movement Doing? Interview with William Dembski.  which is posted on McDowell’s blog. That initial interest turned to dismay as the adversarial attitude Dembski has toward revealed truth in general and Young Earth Creationism (YEC) in particular was made apparent. When asked how he assesses the reception of ID within the church, Dembski states:

“I would say that the church broadly and even the evangelical community has — on balance — been somewhere between useless and downright counterproductive to the success of ID.”

A most unfortunate assessment given the potential ID has to impact a culture that has largely fallen under the sway of the junk science put forth to support the materialist religion known as Darwinian Evolution. Even more unfortunate is Dembski’s  apparent blindness to how he (and other ID advocates with similar positions) has caused such a reaction from the God fearing, Bible believing faithful they’d like to gain support from. To unravel this mystery for them, let’s start with what both ID advocates and YEC advocates are trying to achieve. Continue Reading

Why have so many humans seen dinosaurs?

The full title of this article is too long to use for a blog article (which is why the shortened version appears), so let me put the full title here:

If dinosaurs died out 63 million years before humans existed
Why have so many humans seen dinosaurs?

Evolutionary theory claims that the age of dinosaurs began about 250 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago when they were wiped out by what many secularist believe was a huge asteroid strike. Humans, the theory claims, only came on the scene 2 million years go. (For a pictorial, see this timeline.) So according to evolutionary theory, the last dinosaurs died out some 63 million years before humans existed, and no human should ever have seen a living dinosaur. If that is the case why have so many  humans in all countries in all ages persistently claimed to have seen dinosaurs? This article suggests that the reason is two fold: 1. The earth is not that old, it is about 6,000 years old so the evolutionary time frame is entirely off, and 2: Humans and dinosaurs were both created on day 6 (Gen 1.24-26; 31) when God made all the other land creatures. We will examine the evidence for item 2: that humans and dinosaurs were created on the same day, and thus have lived together concurrently on the earth for as long as the earth has existed.

But before we get started, let’s clear the path of  red herrings. Continue Reading

Does ancient art prove dinosaurs lived with humans?

 

This brontosaurus was drawn 800-2150 years ago by Anasazi Indians in Utah. How did they know what a brontosaurus looked like?


Does Ancient Art Prove Dinosaurs lived with Humans?

Evolutionists and materialist scientists believe that dinosaurs were killed off in a mass extinction event – an asteroid striking the  earth – that happened (so they say) 65 million years ago. (A time frame based on circular reasoning. See GULO and Other Irrational Atheist Arguments, Part 2.) They also believe that man did not evolve to the current, recognizable form of homo sapiens until 200,000 years ago. Thus according to their timeline, it is impossible for dinosaurs and man to have lived together because dinosaurs went extinct some 64.8 million years before the first human existed. This gap is depicted in the evolutionary diagram1 below: (Between the green dinosaur and the white human skull.)


Evolutionary Time line

 

What then are we to make of all the depictions of dinosaurs in ancient art, as the one above of the brontosaurus? To see a good number of these depictions, visit Genesis Park Ancient Dinosaur Depictions.2  One of my favorites is this one from a temple in Angkor, Cambodia:

Stegosaurus carved on a temple in Angkor, Cambodia

The implication from such art – humans saw living dinosaurs – invalidates the evolutionary timeline above. It also questions the validity of the entire evolutionary story. So evolutionists and materialists object strongly to the conclusion that such art depicts what it appears to: dinosaurs living in full view of humans who saw them and captured them in art. Since dinosaurs living with man is denied by evolutionists, atheists and others, they must come up with an explanation of how these depictions came about.  Time now for evolutionist story-time, because as we’ll see none of their explanations make sense and are fit only for young children who don’t know better, and the gullible. Let’s run down the common explanations for the stegosaurus carving above:

Objection: “It doesn’t look like a stegosaurus”

This is a common objection on the ‘net regarding the Angkor stegosaurus depiction. I would then ask what is this next picture a depiction of?
Legend has it this is a depiction of the dragon slain by England's patron saint, St. George

Here’s a description:

“Carved into the white chalk hills of southern England is a giant figure. This astonishingly graphic outline is said by some to go back 3000 years. Other theories date it to King Alfred’s victory over the Danes 1200 years ago. What is it? Who carved it into this chalk hillside and why? It looks like a  horse but legend tells us it may be the dragon slain by St. George, patron saint of England.”3

What do you think it is? Continue Reading