The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible Part 2
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Contents |
Contridicting Bible Verses (Cont.)
YECs, in their warped imagination, pretends there was such a time as dinosaurs living with man and insist falsely that what they imagine is true because the Bible says so, while in fact it don't. The idea that the "first" dinosaurs being created from the dust of the earth did came from Genesis 2:19 where God took a handful of dust and made all of the animals for Adam to name. That verse, whether the Christian Fundamentalists want to admit it or not, contradicts Genesis 1:24 where it is said that God made the animals before man and not afterwards like verse 19 says. Did you know that there are actually 2 versions of the creation story in the Bible instead of just one? It's true, even though some Bible scholars may say that this is nothing than a supplement of Genesis 1. Look at Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 carefully and you will find that there are actually 2 versions of the creation story not just one. Genesis 1 has the first version of the creation story and it ends in Genesis chapter 2, verse 3 and Genesis 2 has the second version of the creation story that begins in Genesis 2:4 and ends in verse 25. Don't believe me? Look at these.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/1.html
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/2.html
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/accounts.html
Real Dinosaur Ancestry
The REAL first dinosaurs shared a common ancestor with basal archosaurs; reptiles that has adopted straight fully erect leg posture and appeared at the very end of the Permian period, flourished throughout the Triassic, and died out at the very end of the Triassic period about 190 million years ago. Among them were Ornithosuchus, Euparkeria, Lagosuchus, Teratosaurus, and Postosuchus. They are also known to be the ancestors of pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and crocodiles as well as dinosaurs. You can find more about the true dinosaur ancestry right here.
http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/270Archosauromorpha/270.000.html
Behemoth Fallacy
Next, in the book on page 18-19 and on the web page here, we see an image of a sauropod with a thick chunky tail and stumpy legs walking past a hippo and an elephant that's looking on. This was made to illustrate the so-called answer to the question "Are there dinosaurs in the Bible?" The real answer to the question is yes and no. Birds, especially doves, eagles, ostriches, vultures, owls, ibis, sparrows, and pigeons are the only dinosaurs mentioned in the bible. No, dinosaurs like Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus are not found in the Bible. But according to Taylor, he thinks, like all other YECs, that dinosaurs like Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus is mentioned in the Bible. See The Truth About Behemoth for rebuttal to Taylor's claim.
Taylor claims "After all the behemoth had died out, many people forgot about them. Dinosaurs were extinct and the fossil skeletons that are in museums today did not begin to be put together until about 150 years ago." Oh, really! If that's the case, then what about the so-called claims made all over the world of people seeing many of them over the years? Kind of contradictory to the alleged claim about dragons being dinosaurs people saw over the years, which are in reality nothing but 100% blatant fabrications creationists made up themselves by distorting legends and myths about dragons and monsters, in which none of them were dinosaurs, to fit in with their young earth beliefs, don't you think? How can man ever forgot about them when there is no evidence of humans and dinosaurs' remains found mixed together and man himself have neither seen nor heard anything about them until the 1800's when they were first discovered in Sussex, England by a wife of an English doctor? Taylor's ignorance and contradictions knows no bounds.
Taylor's Edenic Fairy Tale
Next on page 20 and on the page here, Taylor tries to answer the question "Why did God created dinosaurs?" by saying that they were created to benefit mankind one-way or the other. If they were meant to benefit mankind, then how come their remains are NOT found mixed with human remains? It's no mystery about Taylor's ignorance and falsehood. He just ignores the facts, live in denial, use his imagination, and say that dinosaurs were created to benefit mankind like, for instance, having sauropods reaching out with their long necks to feed among the treetops; clearing a path in the forest to give ground growing plants a chance to grow when the sun beams down on them in the dense forest. It may have happened in real life during the Jurassic period when sauropods have cleared many a forest, creating pathways for other dinosaurs to travel on, and gave smaller plants a chance to grow. But NO WAY did this happen during the time of early humans. Sauropods were long dead by the time man evolved around 4 million years ago. The only large animals that may have benefited early man by clearing away trees for small plants to grow and create passageways for them to go through is elephants like mammoths and mastodons.
Taylor then states that God brought to Adam all of the dinosaurs and all the rest of the animals in the Garden of Eden for inspection so that he can name the animals one by one. The problem is Adam would have spent years and years and years inspecting and naming all of the 90 million + kinds of animals in the world living and extinct. With all those animals around him, it would be totally impossible to take a full day for Adam just to name all those animals. It would take years for him complete this task. It would be very tiresome and tedious job if that was the case. I like it much better with Adam being surrounded by only just modern animals in the Garden of Eden than those YEC fantasies that depicts ancient extinct animals living alongside of modern animals and man in an overcrowded Garden of Eden, where T.rex and Velociraptor along with all other animals living and extinct behaving so sickly sweet, stripping naked vegetation; bringing the plant kingdom to extinction and rendering the garden of Eden into a dry baron wasteland; never giving the plants any chance to grow and flourish in this so called Eden-like world, where all life is supposedly bliss. Some way to delight man, HA! Dinosaurs may be impressive but were all long dead when man first walked the earth a few million years ago and the only dinosaurs that were a lot like “a tame and obedient puppy in God's wise powerful hands” is birds such as parrots, doves, pigeons, and parakeets and nothing else.
Then Taylor explains of what life was like for the dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden on this page and he says that the first days of earth was a beautiful paradise where all is happy and peaceful eating plants the way God intended. There was no death, no disease, no pain, and no sorrow and no evil. However, if God does not want evil in the world, then why did he create it (Isaiah 45:7 KJV) and allowed it all to happen? (A jackpot question atheists ask both Christian Fundies and Conservatives about many times no doubt.) If there was no pain, then how come when God said to Eve that he will increase her pain during labor, this implies that there was actually pain occurring before and after the Fall? If He wants all animals to be all plant eaters then why did He create some to have sharp claws and thick, sharp, strong, homodontical teeth and a stomach for only red food (meat) as well as to have strong legs, speed, agility, and all of the capabilities of chasing down prey? Does Taylor ever know that plants, which are living things just like humans and animals, do die when they're eaten? Guess not. What about the hair? The hair is made up of dead cells. Does this means that Adam and Eve where all created to be bald in the first place? Were the first animals bald too? When you pick flowers from the ground, they wilt, whither, and die after a while. Even when you put them in a vase, they die. When you eat plants, they die and your stomach is doing its part to digest them, which is a form of decay. So in conclusion, in a way, there was death before the fall; animals killing plants by eating them and animals and people having hair on their bodies. So Taylor's fairy tale of Dinosaurs in Eden all featured sickly, sweet dinosaurs, despite having sharp teeth and a stomach for meat, being forced to eat only plants. Taylor has some links to questions on his web page here that when clicked on it takes you straight to the answers that's extremely preposterous, far-fetched, and silly. The plant eating T.rex myth will be discussed and refuted on this essay later.
Taylor's Extinction Fallacy
Next, on page 22 and on this page, we find the question "Why did the dinosaurs became extinct?" This is one of earth's greatest scientific mysteries. But did you know that there was once a far greater extinction event that has made the dinosaur extinction to look like a small, minor occurrence? This extinction event took place at the very end of the Permian period and the Paleozoic era, where 90% of all life on earth was all wiped out and only 10% have survived to repopulate the world. This is the Great Permian Extinction, where earth nearly died around 250 million years ago. The dinosaur extinction only wiped out only 60 to 70% of life on earth including dinosaurs. The Permian extinction was far even greater. Amazingly however, the Permian extinction is little known among most people. Most people pay attention to the dinosaur extinction more than anything else in the past because dinosaurs are much more interesting and fascinating than anything else in the prehistoric past. Nevertheless, the Permian extinction was a huge event and that paved the way for dinosaurs to appear and dominated the world for 160 million years.
References to more information about the Permian Extinction,
http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event
Taylor says that there is about 55 different theories made to explain the dinosaur extinctions but actually there's more than that. Some are thrown out because of lack of evidence for it. Some are just plain silly. But other theories, based on fossil evidence, are all logical and have been suggested and discussed thoroughly. One of them is the meteorite theory that says that a meteorite crash landed on earth; creating a global disaster that drastically ended the dinosaur race. Taylor, on the other hand, rejects the meteorite theory because it didn't explain why did the birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals all survived, while the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles and ammonites went to extinction. There is. Keyword: Adaptation. The survivors were capable of adapting to the climatic change; hide in natural shelters and in deep waters that protected them from the disasters that came from the meteorite and find food sources from far and wide. Others like dinosaurs (except birds) however, were unable to meet up with the occurrences of drastic changes made in both the climate and environment and eventually died out.
Taylor's Meteorite Denial
According to his book and on this page, Taylor denies any sightings of a crater that the asteroid made when it hit the earth millions of years ago. He states, in his book on pages 22 and 23, that no large asteroid crater (or 'hole' as he calls it.) has ever been found anywhere on earth, which is a blatant lie. He ignores the fact that the Gulf of Mexico has a large crater known as the Chicxulub crater. The crater is many miles long and is the most likely culprit to have caused the dinosaur extinction. He knows that asteroids contain iridium, a mineral rarely found on earth. But he states that just because the asteroids have iridium on it doesn't necessary mean that the asteroid was the one that caused the extinction...or does it!
Meteorites are CHOCK full of iridium and it would take a huge major impact to create a global disaster that caused life on earth to face extinction. The impact would have sprayed very hot molten iridium ash and rock in the air. The debris would have showered the land causing a firestorm that burned everything in its path and ash clouds would fly in the air and blocked the sun; causing the world to plunge into darkness; trapping either intensive heat or frigid cold inside and cause plants to die and plant-eaters to starve. The Chicxulub impact made in the Gulf nearby would cause tsunamis and engulfed the land and drown its inhabitants nearby. And finally triggered volcanoes to erupt and earthquakes that destroyed everything else in that area. Speaking of Volcanoes, Paul claims that volcanoes also have iridium too. True, but what he doesn't know is that volcanoes have far LESS iridium in it than what is found in meteorites. He believes that at one time, there was once volcanic eruptions and devastating earthquakes that was the greatest in history occurring during Noah's Flood. Nowhere in the Bible that says anything about it and there's no evidence for it either. Besides there are no volcanoes in the Middle east anyway. He may also think that meteorites are small, but the Chicxulub meteor was huge!! About 180 km long! There is even another meteorite crater known as the Shiva crater that dated back 65 million years ago. It was made by an extinction-causing meteorite, that also may have helped to end the dinosaurs' reign as well.
Lately however, there is a paleontologist named Gerta Keller who recently sparked a debate claiming the Chicxulub meteor is not the culprit behind the Mesozoic extinction. She believes that she have found evidence that the meteorite collision occurred about 300,000 years before the end of the Mesozoic era and could not have brought the dinosaurs into extinction. She also believes that the real meteorite culprit that has killed the dinosaurs should be out there somewhere. But if that's the case, then what about the Shiva crater? The crater located off the western coast of India? Could that be the main culprit or is the Chicxulub still the main culprit behind the extinction of the dinosaurs? Still there are those who disagree with her and still believe the Chicxulub meteor was the one that brought the dinosaurs to their demise. This subject of whether Chicxulub meteor was the one that killed the dinosaurs or not is debatable. Still, all of it has nothing to do with the mythic global flood of Noah.
References:
http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/extinct.htm
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact_cratering/Chicxulub/Chicx_title.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050214/kttsunami.html
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_3511414,00.html
Statement: When it comes to Keller’s idea, the verdict is still out on how did the dinosaurs died out and it lies beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
Lately, scientists have discovered evidence that the tsunami made by the impact may have jumbled up the fossil record when the meteorite hit the earth 65 million years ago. Here’s a link to an article that tells all about it.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050214/kttsunami.html
Taylor's Flood Fallacy
On pages 24-25 as well as on this page, Taylor then goes on to answer the question, “Where did the fossils come from?” and he just like other YECs says flat out that it was the great flood of Noah. Violent. Destructive. Covering all of the mountains of the world, even MT. Everest. With volcanoes and earthquakes and meteorites to boot. Despite what Taylor and other YECs claim, time and time again the truth is...
THERE'S NO EVIDENCE FOR THE GREAT WORLDWIDE FLOOD OF NOAH TO HAVE EVER TAKEN PLACE ON EARTH 4,500 YEARS AGO!
There's nothing in the Genesis 7:11 passage that says anything about earthquakes, volcanoes, meteorites, and geysers (YECs just threw them in there to make the event more dramatic as an attempt to explain volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, earthquakes amd other major natural disaster events that have occurred in ancient and prehistoric times.). Instead, massive tsunamis and huge torrential rainfall are 'the fountains of the deep' and 'windows of Heaven' that have flooded the known world in Noah's day. Taylor claims that the Garden of Eden was also destroyed too along with the rest of the earth. IBSS (Insitute for Biblical and Scientific Studies), on the othert hand, doesn't think so.
Paul claims the violent waters of Noah's flood formed the billions of fossils that scientists are seeing today, but where are they? Where are all of the billions of dead things that are laid down by water all over the earth as parroted by Ken Ham and Buddy Davis found at? The answer is nowhere! Instead, we are finding far LESS than billions of dead things laid down by multiple scores of events that have nothing to do with Noah's Flood all over the earth. Do they know that fossils are very rare and hard to find? And that fossils form only when the conditions are just right for it to occur when the bones gradually get covered up and filled with sediment over a long period of time and the original materials have all been replaced by the minerals from the earth? The answer is in fact no. They are all in denial. They live and breathe in denial. They would rather be in denial than face reality. Instead they lie for God and demanded that this kind of toiletry be taught in science class. Paul, on this page, states that the fossils of dinosaurs can be found washed together by the violent floodwaters and buried in mud, sand, and rock. Many of them torn apart, bones broken and jumbled-up, and buried in piles of mud, sand, and rock. If he thinks so, then how come there are fossils of dinosaurs that have died in peaceful, quiet conditions?
How come there are instances of intact fossils being found? And how come we are finding fossils of dinosaurs that have died in conditions that have nothing to do with the fabled violent Noah's flood like ash falls, drought, local floods, disease, killed by predators, and accidents like falling off a cliff, and old age? How come we are also finding carnosaur loose teeth and teeth marks on the carcasses of dinosaurs YEC claimed supposedly were all laid down by the flood? Were they eating them while they are supposed to be running for their lives? What about dinosaur feces? The footprints they leave behind? These could have been washed away and destroyed in such a violent flood, but this is not the case. Turns out that Paul and other YECs' flood model is entirely 100% flawed! Paul thinks that a quick burial is what it takes to make fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals to form. But here are the rebuttals to this entire YEC myth here.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC361.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC361_3.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC362.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC363.html
More Fossil Fallacies
Next on page 28 and on this page, Paul states that it doesn't take millions of years for fossils to form, which is a blatant lie. Coal, Amber, and oil do take millions of years to form. He also claims scientists have found that wood and chicken bones can form into fossils in a matter of ten years. That’s highly doubtful unless the wood and chicken bones form into silica. He most likely got this claim from an article in an old issue of Natural History magazine that's written by a man named Alfred S. Romer (1894-1973), a paleontologist who wrote in an old outdated Natural History Magazine October 1959 issue, in Vol.68 on page 456 where he said the following:
"Just because something is 'fossilized' does not mean that it is millions (or even thousands) of years old. When the conditions and materials are right, a bone can become filled with minerals fairly quickly ... Researchers have found that chicken bones and wood can be replaced with minerals in just five to ten years" (p.467).
Sorry to say, Paul may have misrepresented Alfred, who probably have said this to help explain a rapid form of fossilization called Silicification, which is a type of fossilization in which silica (SiO2) infills intercellular spaces (permineralization) or replaces the cell walls (petrifaction). I honestly have not seen the issue where the quote came from; still it is most likely what Alfred meant when he said that in the article. Either that or Paul have made up the quote that was never there in the Natural History magazine to begin with. As far as I know, Fossils can form rapidly thought the process of silification. However there are other forms of fossilization that prove to be much slower and take millions of years to perform such as unaltered preservation - insects trapped in amber, recrystallization - hard parts reverting to more stable minerals or small crystals turning into big crystals, and the slowest form of all, carbonization or coalification - where only carbon remains after other elements like oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen are removed. I still say that Paul ripped that quote out of text and change it to fit his own views. Otherwise the quote is either misrepresented or non-existent. Does Paul know any of Silification, Petrification, and other forms of fossilization and how the processes work? Nope he doesn't. He just took that quote out of text from the magazine and tell it like it is.
To really know about what types of fossilization that's out there and how they work, check out these references below.
http://www.zoomschool.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinofossils/Fossiltypes.html
http://www.fossilstore.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.what_is
http://people.uncw.edu/laws/GLY135/fossiltypes.htm
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookPaleo1.html
http://www.answersincreation.org/petrified2.htm
Here's an article below that refutes a YEC claim about the Petrified flour being fossilized within a few weeks. Believe me, after you read this, you will realized that the flour as well as the miner's hat and the cowboy boot among other YEC claims, did harden within several years to a few weeks, but the fabric, especially leather materials that made those objects are still there. No petrification ever occurred! Truly are they all fossil hoaxes! They really were never fossils to begin with. Conclusion: Fabrics and Flour Never Fossilize! If a fossil is found to have the original materials still embedded within it, then it's not a fossil. Here's the article.
http://www.answersincreation.org/petrified.htm
Even soft materials can be replaced with minerals too. Recently, a paleontologist have discovered a T.rex fossil with soft marrow tissues being found inside of a thigh bone. YECs immediately jumped to conclusions and say that what she found proves that the earth is young and dinosaurs lived recently while at the same time; grasping at straws and avoid the haystack that's all there. Click here to read the article that refutes the YECs claim about the T.rex fossil.
And finally, here is a reference to what Silicfication is all about and how it forms on fossils.
Carson, G. A. 1991. Silicification of fossils. In: Allison, P. A. & Briggs, D. E. G. (eds), Taphonomy: Releasing data locked in the fossil record. Plenum Press, New York, pp. 455-499.
Next, Paul states that not all of the dinosaur fossils completely turned to rock. He claims there were fossils with chemicals in them like proteins and amino acids. He also claimed that there's some fish fossils found in them with a fishy smell when first uncovered form the ground. All false. The rebuttal of the fossil chemical myth is right here.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/osteocalcin.html
The so-called fish fossils with a fishy smell myth is likely a direct fabrication of the fact that some fossil fish, in many cases, smell like fossil fuel; oil, the substance that used in powering automobiles and house furnaces.
To learn about fossil fuel, check out these sites.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761586407/Fossil_Fuels.html
Paul even states there are plants in New Jersey that are found in the strata where the dinosaurs are at that are neither fossilized nor turned to stone. But the claim is a direct fabrication of the great fossil discovery of amber with insects and plants that are trapped in it. Reference to the real discovery in New Jersey is here.
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/misc/amber.htm
Reason for the Flood
Next, on page 30-31 and on this page, Paul gives out the reason why there was the Great flood. Because of man's evil behavior, God have no choice but to punish man wickedness with the great big flood. No big deal. But this is.
Taylor's Ark Fallacy
Next, Taylor, on page 32 and on this page, tries to answer the question "Did Noah took up dinosaurs in the ark?" Yes and no! Noah took up only birds in the ark, which are indeed dinosaurs; the only dinosaurs to have been on the ark. No, he did not take up dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus or Stegosaurus into the ark. Taylor however states that dinosaurs like T.rex and Triceratops were taken up on the ark along with all of the other animals living and extinct. He claims that there was plenty of room for all of the animals in the ark, including dinosaurs; carefully built to fulfill the needs of the animals in the ark and many of the animals slept through most of the trip, which is all false. There is no way can 90 million + animals or about 70,000 animals fit or more into the 450x75x45 ark. Even if he did, there will still be heavy major problem with care, maintenance, cleaning, feeding, disease, etc. Taylor even states that the dinosaurs Noah took up where all very young basic dinosaurs just like the ones in the Garden of Eden and not the varieties of them that had all developed since creation (Is Paul talking about, when it comes to having Noah taking up only basics and not varieties that have developed from them since creation, what YEC so often call a lie and yet they teach it to their followers without giving themselves a second thought on what they are teaching here is the very same thing they regard it as a lie -- evolution? It could be so!). This is crap. Noah was supposed to take up 2 of every kind of animal into the ark like God has told him to, not just the basics. Noah was also told to take up with him animals that are all sexually mature, not inexperience babies. Paul's entire just-so Dinosaurs-on-Noah's-ark story never holds water at all. Every thing about the great flood of Noah according to YECs is all clearly refuted here.
http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/sillyflood.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/noahs_ark.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/flood.htm
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/flood.html
Hell on Earth
Then on page 34, Paul goes on to state that after the flood, the dinosaurs died out after living on earth for a few centuries due to extreme conditions that occurred after the flood like cold weather, ice age, and men hunting them down and not finding enough food. Are plants the only secret to how the dinosaurs got big as Paul claims in the book, film, and this page here? I don't think so! Paul on this page states that once there was a special atmosphere that once covered the earth before the flood, which most likely refers to the vapor canopy myth where there was once a vapor canopy YECs claim to have once covered the earth before the Flood and prolonging the lives of man and turning animals and people into giants and that plants were watered only by dew or mist, rivers, and waters that flow underground instead of rain. Those claims are all nothing but hot air...literally. If that was such a case, then the term “Hell on Earth” will have a much literal meaning. The claims about the vapor canopy myth are all refuted here.
Food for thought: If God wanted to save the dinosaurs from the Flood to keep alive afterwards and yet they die off completely after they have left the ark when the Flood ended, then what's the point of rescuing them from the flood anyway?
