Dinosaur

The word dinosaur was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen, from the Latin for "terrible lizard" (fututor). Dinosaurs were a group of large lizards that previously lived in abundance on Earth.

Most scientists believe that dinosaurs lived from 230 million until 65 million years ago and that they are all currently extinct (however birds are considered by scientists to be descended from early therapod dinosaurs). They claim the fossil evidence supports this theory, although many Creationists dispute this, and claim that the dating methods used to judge the age of the fossils are not always precise and that there are gaps within the fossil records themselves.

Dinosaurs, Evolution and Creation

Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisting

Some claim there are a number of lines of evidence that point to dinosaurs and man coexisting. For example, trained scientists have reported seeing a live dinosaur. However, it is unclear what discipline these scientists were trained in and, judging by their reports, it is most likely they were 17th century alchemists or sports scientists. A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today. This reported sighting coincided with the region's tourism promotion drive, aimed at Dungeons and Dragons fans worldwide. An expedition which included Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which is claimed to point to dinosaurs and man existing Since it is a pictorial representation produced by human beings, it has no validity as proof whatsoever, much like the Bible. The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology." How this is relevant to this article is a matter of some mystery, but it has been included because it is a good read. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, is said to appear to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. This is quite hard evidence.

Since 565 A.D. there are reports about the Loch Ness Monster (Nessie by birth), a large Monster living in Loch Ness, near Inverness, Scotland, where one of the best curry restaurants in the area can be found (beware the chicken Madras). People who saw Nessie described the Monster as it would look similar to a dinosaur. This information, along with a hazy picture of a black shadow, was released as a joint venture by the Inverness Tourism and Sheep-shearing Quality Control Board along with the Xinjiang Department of Tourism and Bad English Signage's dinosaur-like monster reported sightings. So far the initiative appears to have been unsuccessful as not many Scots appear to have found their way to Xinjian, nor have many Chinese been spotted in the Inverness area.

Early accounts describe St Columba driving away the dinosaur through prayer, lending even more solid credibility to the report. There are suggestions that Dinosaurs may have had a diabolical origin, indeed, their large teeth and frightening appearance would seem to support this theory, as evidenced by fossils found by palaeontologists. There are claims they planted this evidence, though, since they were unemployed at the time. Evidence from China indicates that dinosaurs may have lived communally suggesting they were left wing, and thus ungodly. It is likely that the current population of China evolved from these dinosaurs, given their current political inclination.

It should be noted, however, that none of these claims have been verified and neither has the information in this article. Nevertheless, it can most certainly be used for your third-grade homework assignments.

An alternate theory for the inclusion of dinosaurs within many cultures is the existence of fossils. Ancient people, unaware that the ancient fossils uncovered by erosion were of extinct animals, attributed the bones to living, magical creatures. This would explain the importance of dragons in Chinese culture - there are a large number of dinosaur and dragon fossils to be found in China. It is of course nothing to do with their imagination, because the Chinese have none due to their overeating of sweet and sour sauce over the millennia. It is thought sweet and sour sauce may be the blood of dinosaurs; however this is unconfirmed by both the Inverness Tourism and Sheep-shearing Quality Control Board and the Xinjiang Department of Tourism and Bad English Signage Creationists do not believe in the outrageous claims by palaeontologists that dinosaur fossils are over 50 million years old. After all, palaeontologists are scientists and therefore of bogus credibility.

Dinosaurs and Birds

As a number of feathered dinosaur fossils have been discovered, and the similiarity in the bone structure between birds and dinosaurs, scientists contend that modern birds are a descendant of dinosaurs. While some scientists are a cog in the machine of liberal propaganda and not to believed (evolutionary biologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, to name but a few) creationists of course believe these, since they support the theories they believe in. One has merely to look at a pigeon in the street for the evidence to be quite clear.

Dinosaurs and Creationism

Some Christians reject the Theory of Evolution and the current science community consensus of the age of the earth. Of those Christians who reject evolution, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical sources, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week as a final addendum to the wonders God created, approximately 6,000 years ago; that they lived in the Garden of Eden in harmony with other animals, eating only plants; that pairs of various dinosaurs were taken onto Noah's Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today, even though none of the six billion people currently residing on the planet have seen them.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the Bible obviously does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are alleged to be mentioned in numerous places throughout the biblical account. For example, the behemoth in Job and the leviathan in Isaiah are sometimes said to be references to dinosaurs, although they could have been references to anything large, such as the Egyptian pyramids, Jesus' ego, a huge hailstone that still has not melted despite having fallen in one of the hottest places on Earth, or a squid caught by Yemeni fishermen while illegally fishing off the coast of Bahrain. Other biblical scholars who are not reported to enjoy recreational drugs contend that the terms respectively refer to hippopotomi and crocodiles .