The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible Part 3
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YECs are known to falsely and hypocritically accuse evolutionists of promoting fairy tales to people, claiming that "believing in evolution is like believing in fairy tales" as the radio program The Childrens Bible Hour (a young earth endorser) puts it (One of the purest example of this, of YECs claiming evolution to be “fairy tales for adults,” which the statement is nothing but a quote taken out of context, is found here.), yet turned around and promote fairy tales of their own. One of the fairy tales young earther's tell is the fairy tale of dragons being dnosaurs people saw in history. To prove that dinosaurs and man once lived together recently, YECs would promote the crackpot, falsehood claim of dragon tales being historical accounts of people meeting up with dinosaurs. They also make claims of alleged artifacts, which to them "proves" their young earth myth of men living with dinosaurs at on time to be true, while proving nothing of what they claim.
Sightings of fossilized remains of dinosaurs and all other prehistoric animals may have inspired stories of dragons and other mythical monsters that are circulated throughout the world since ancient times. But, what YECs promote is all prime examples of taking small bits and pieces of medieval images and artifacts, create sculptures, engravements, and other forms of hoaxes and rip selective dragon and monster tales out of context and distort, twist, and fabricate them all to fit in with their own views about what medieval legends is all about and exploit them all in an effort to beguile their followers and the laymen into being brainwashed and indoctrinated into putting their blind faith into the falsehood of YECism. Using dragon myths as proof of dinosaurs living with man is no proofs at all.
Since they have no valid evidence of people meeting up with dinosaurs in the fossil record, YECs would, instead, foolishly resort to legends, folkloric tales, mythology (mainly all about dragons), elaborete hoaxes, and cryptozoology and cite them as evidence of people meeting up with dinosaurs rather than admit the truth about no humans living back then when dinosaurs walked the earth.
All of the alleged artifacts, images, and the dragon tales, YECs claimed to be accounts of people meeting up with dinosaurs all failed miserably to explain how come there are no human remains found mixed with dinosaur remains. They also have failed to explain, how come there is no dinosaur remains found above and below the Mesozoic strata and how come there is no dinosaur remains found mixed with Permian reptiles, Cenozoic mammals, Devonian Trilobites, Quaternary hominids, and modern man.
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Best Example
The best example of how do young earthers promote fairy tales as facts is in YE Creationist, Paul S. Taylor's book and media series The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible, where on pages 36-49 Paul gives out what he believes to be evidence of "post-Flood" dragons being actually dinosaurs people saw, fought, and killed. Yet a close examination will find then to be all nothing more than fabricated stories all made up to promote pure YE dinosaur heresy.
The "dragons" of supposedly ancient myth that creationists want to equate with dinosaurs are actually a rather modern creation (late middle ages) with a traceable development as popular myth. Dragons, like all folklore, evolved over time, only entering a relatively fixed form when stories began to be written down. Going back to ancient Greece, dragons are recorded by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History records dragons as very large snakes. Indeed, the word dragon derives from a greek epithet drakon meaning 'snake'. Over time, the image of dragons in myth changes. They adopt more lizard-like features, add bat-wings (which dinosaurs never had), develop first venomous bites, then the ability to spit or drool venom, then steaming venom, then fire. The shift in the image over time, only laterly becoming something which resembles a Hollywood caricature of dinosaurs, clearly reflects a myth, and it's origin as snakes denies creationist claims that they record actual contact with dinosaurs.
No dinosaur in fact ever resembled snakes and serpents in one form or another. Sadly, YECs like Paul S. Taylor of his book and website mentioned above doesn't buy it. In fact, in his book, video, and website, there are stories he claims to be 'proofs' that dinosaurs and dragons are one and the same and man met up with them. They are all found on page 36-49 in his book.
Image Distortions
The first thing Paul shows on page 36 is 3 images of scenes involving dragons shown above in compairison with 3 images of dinosaurs shown at the bottom in a attempt to convince the lay reader of how similar these monsters are in comparison. But not one of them match each other, even down to the finest detail. For example, one image shows St. George slaying a dragon. At the bottom of the image, there is an image of Compsognathus. Look at them closely in the book and you will find that there really are NO similarities between the 2. Compsognathus in the picture has bipedal, fully erect stance but it never had a curly tail, a narrow forked tongue, or Bat-like wings and a sail-like fin. Instead Compsognathus have a straight stiffened tail and possibly a coat of hair-like feathers covering all over his body. This Compsognathus in the picture is a cheap rendition of Rod Ruth's Compsognathus illustration as seen in a well known classic dinosaur book, The Album of the Dinosaurs.
The second image shows a head of a dragon or one of the heads of the chimera, a monster with a head of a lion, a body and head of a goat, and a tail of a snake in comparison with the image of a Saurolophus, which is another cheap knock off version of a Neeve Parker painting as seen in full view in John Mann's dinosaur classic The Day of the Dinosaur. Saurolophus, in the picture, is anatomically incorrect. as it lacked cheeks, lacked a duck-billed beak, and the hand arrangements on him are not right either. In fact, Saurolophus actually was a 4 legged dinosaur with a stiffened tail, cheeks, duck beak, hunched back, mitten fore hands for ground support, and a spike like crest that may have supported a sheet of skin that stretched from the neck all the way to the tail.
And finally, the third images shows a knight killing a dragon being compared to an image of a Rutiodon, a Late Triassic crocodile-like archosaur called a phytosaur, not a dinosaur. Unlike the dragon in the picture, Rutiodon had nostrils right near its forehead, not at the tips of its snout like modern crocodiles have. This is the way to distinguish phytosaurs from crocodiles, in fact. Rutiodon never saw a human being. But, crocodiles, snakes, and other reptiles along with sightings of fossilized remains of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, as mentioned before, may have been one of the factors that made up the stories of dragons and other mythical beasts of ancient times.
How Fossils Inspired Mythology
For one example, according to historical accounts, a team of explorers from Greece came upon a cave where inside of the cave they found what appears to be skulls of prehistoric elephants, like the Mastodon, for instance and they became terrified of them. Thinking that they came upon the tomb of a fearsome race of one-eyed giants living in the region, they raced out of the cave and began to spread stories about one-eyed giants called Cyclops that lived in caves and preyed on people. According to another account, a team of Asian explorers in a desert in Mongolia came across fossilized remains of Protoceratops they sworn them to be the bony remains of a half eagle, half lion monster known as the Griffin and began to spread stories about them saying that the griffin is known to guard a large horde of gold for the gods and defended them from thieves, even to the very death. Unlike Protoceratops, the Griffin has wings that enables it to fly. And the hole in the center forehead of the Mastodon what the explorers thought of them as the eye sockets of the giant is actually a opening for the Mastodon's trunk. These are a few examples of how mythology may have been inspired through sightings of fossilized remains of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals long before the concept of science has ever been grasped.
As mentioned before, using dragon lore, as evidence that dinosaurs lived with man is not really evidence at all. Dragon stories all prove nothing and it is a very bad science to use these legends, myths, and fairy tales as an attempt to prove anything like what Paul tries to prove here.
List of Dragon/Dinosaur Fabrications Taken From Paul Taylor's book The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible and Its Rebuttals To Them
Main Article: See List of Dragon/Dinosaur Fabrications Taken From Paul Taylor's book The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible and Its Rebuttals To Them
Other YEC dragon/dinosaur claims
Main Article: See Other Dragon/Dinosaur Claims
Conclusion
Remember the saying: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?"
In order to believe all the stories here to be true, scientists needs real VALID evidence for all of those claims; real truthful evidence that confirms all the stories told in the book to be true. But none are found! And since the stories are nothing but just-so stories without proof of evidence as well as hoaxes, then why should we believe them? And besides, if there ever is such case as shown in the books, then we should see fossils of them allmixed together with man embedded within the Cenozoic strata up to the most youngest strata as well as fully intact dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles that are all dated way back to recent times, but none are found! All that that is known, in conclusion, is that the only dinosaurs living alongside of man and are all still living to this very day are birds and nothing more.
References
See References to The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible Part 3
