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By Becky Jungbauer | January 22nd 2009 12:10 PM | 26 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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About Becky Jungbauer

A scientist and journalist by training, I enjoy all things science, especially science-related humor. My column title is a throwback to Jane Austen's famous first line in Pride and Prejudice


... Full Bio

A high-quality glossy titled, "What Really Happened To Dinosaurs?", is making the rounds, thanks to CEO Ken Ham and the good people at Discovery Institute.

Dinosaurs, in addition to being Adam and Eve's first choice for every flag football game in the Garden, are also apparently the foremost of weapons used to indoctrinate children in the fallacy of evolution. And it gets better.

The two main thrusts of the booklet: Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared because dinosaurs had not previously existed; and death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering are a result of Adam’s sin, and nothing could die before Adam committed the original sin, ergo dinosaurs could not have died before Adam even existed.

You have to check out the cartoons on this site (see below for one example). Other gems about dinosaurs from the perspective of the Bible, which, according to Ham, is the History Book of the Universe:

Where did dinosaurs come from? "The Bible tells us that God created different kinds of land animals on Day 6 of Creation Week. Because dinosaurs were land animals, this must have included the dinosaur kinds." (Apparently they didn't see the BBC's 2003 series Sea Monsters.)

What did dinosaurs look like? "Scientists generally do not dig up a dinosaur with all its flesh intact."

Who discovered dinosaurs? "Adam discovered dinosaurs when he first observed them." Discoveries made in the 1600s-1800s were actually "re-discoveries" from a biblical perspective.

When did dinosaurs live? "Evolutionists claim dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. But it is important to realize that when they dig up a dinosaur bone it does not have a label attached showing its date.




"Does God tell us when He made Tyrannosaurus rex? Many would say no. But the Bible states that God made all things in six normal days. He made the land animals, including dinosaurs, on Day 6, so they date from around 6,000 years ago—the approximate date of creation obtained by adding up the years in the Bible. So, since T. rex was a land animal and God made all the land animals on Day 6, then God made T. rex on Day 6.

Furthermore, from the Bible we see that there was no death, bloodshed, disease, or suffering before sin. If one approaches Genesis to Revelation consistently, interpreting Scripture with Scripture, then death and bloodshed of man and animals came into the world only after Adam sinned. The first death of an animal occurred when God shed an animal’s blood in the Garden of Eden and clothed Adam and Eve. This was also a picture of the Atonement—foreshadowing Christ’s blood that was to be shed for us. Thus, there could not have been bones of dead animals before sin—this would undermine the gospel.



This means that the dinosaurs must have died after sin entered the world, not before. Dinosaur bones could not be millions of years old because Adam lived only thousands of years ago.


How many dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark? "There were probably fewer than 50 distinct groups or kinds of dinosaurs that had to be on the Ark. Also, it must be remembered that Noah’s Ark was extremely large and quite capable of carrying the number of animals needed, including dinosaurs."

Why talk about dinosaurs anyway? "Although dinosaurs are fascinating, some readers may say, 'Why are dinosaurs such a big deal? Surely there are many more important issues to deal with in today’s world, such as abortion, family breakdown, racism, promiscuity, dishonesty, homosexual behavior, euthanasia, suicide, lawlessness, pornography, and so on. In fact, we should be telling people about the gospel of Jesus Christ, not worrying about side issues like dinosaurs. Actually, the evolutionary teachings on dinosaurs that pervade society do have a great bearing on why many will not listen to the gospel, and thus why social problems abound today. If they don’t believe the history in the Bible, why would anyone trust its moral aspects and message of salvation?'"

The best part - Ham uses science in every argument FOR creationism and AGAINST evolution. How can claim that something is flawed, and then use that very thing to prove that it is flawed? (And before I get a billion emails calling me godless, I have no problem with faith and no problem with God. I went to Catholic school all my life, so unlike a lot of creationists, I actually know what's in the Bible and what's happened for 2,000 years in Christianity. My point in this blog is that I think it's hypocritical to use science to disprove science.)

In related news, the Texas Freedom Network has a blog and live feed covering the action of the State Board of Education, which is pretty divided on whether to insert creationism into public school science textbooks. They are currently considering textbooks to be adopted by the state in 2011.

Comments

Hank's picture
Scientists generally do not dig up a dinosaur with all its flesh intact.

Factually correct, but I am not a paleontologist so I will let the Simpsons handle this:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.


Gerhard Adam's picture

Unfortunately these people don't even know the bible that they're so fond of quoting.


I'm not sure where they got their fantasy notions about death and the garden of Eden, but the bible is quite clear in Genesis 3:22,23

" And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life,  and eat, and live for ever:
 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. "
 
Therefore, death was certainly in the garden of Eden, since the precise reason why were kicked out was to avoid them becoming immortal.

I'm also not clear on why these people think that animals share in this notion of original sin.  Clearly the story of Noah's ark indicates that God didn't think them guilty of anything, but as a practical matter couldn't save them all (although for an omnipotent being that seems like a paltry excuse).



Gerhard Adam's picture
... then again ... I'm still stuck on the fact that water existed before god created it.

Becky Jungbauer's picture
Why let a silly thing like that mar their argument?

Gerhard Adam's picture
Yes .... I believe "silly" is the operative word here

adaptivecomplexity's picture
How many dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark? "There were
probably fewer than 50 distinct groups or kinds of dinosaurs that had
to be on the Ark. Also, it must be remembered that Noah’s Ark was
extremely large and quite capable of carrying the number of animals
needed, including dinosaurs."

I would love to see the calculation that went into that. How the hell do they come up with "50 distinct groups"?

Actually, the evolutionary teachings on dinosaurs that pervade society do have a great bearing on why many will not listen to the gospel, and thus why social problems abound today.

Wow, they didn't have social problems like racism and promiscuity and lawlessness before 1859? Darwin sure ruined everything.

Hank's picture
What we need; a graphic designer in this community who can do t-shirts for us, because "Darwin: Ruining Your Culture Since 1859" would be a great one for an SB biology shirt.    Actually, we have come up with a lot of t-shirts here, we just can't make them look cool enough to make.

jtwitten's picture
Wait, I'm confused.  Was it Darwin or Adam and Eve that introduced evil into the world?

Hank's picture
It was the snake, unless you are of the modern "let's blame television for making Oprah annoying" school of thought, in which case it was an apple.

jtwitten's picture
That doesn't address the timing question.  Was there evil in the world before Darwin?

Hank's picture
Sure, Darwin just made it trendy for misguided hipsters:



jtwitten's picture
And, luckily enough, i already have the cafepress.com site to sell the t-shirts.

Yes, but he sure helped evil spread.

Gerhard Adam's picture
It was the snake

Well, let's be more specific.  It was a talking snake.  So apparently when the serpent was cursed to crawl on it's belly, it not only lost its legs, but also its vocal chords and brain.

Makes you wonder that if snakes could reason and argue as this one did, what the other animals were capable of.

HedgehogFive's picture
Totally off topic, but ...

when one sees a headline like
Obama says "on target" for stimulus plan

doesn't one think of the banner at the top of Becky's blog?

Becky Jungbauer's picture
Wouldn't that be nice?

"The Bible tells us that God created different kinds of land animals on Day 6 of Creation Week."

Wasn't that on discovery channel right after shark week?

There may not have been a tag on the bones, but there IS a little thing called carbon dating.

jtwitten's picture
They don't believe that carbon dating works.

jtwitten's picture
If one's brain follows logic that is this circular, it is a virtual certainty that one will wind up with one's head lodged as far up one's ass as Ken Ham.

Becky Jungbauer's picture
I wonder if his head was evolutionarily adapted to fit up his ass.

jtwitten's picture
Only if the selection was for masochism (otherwise the head would be pointier).   This photo actually comes from a site that's URL is essentially "about/ham".
Answers in Genesis publicity photograph

Steve Davis's picture
Hank, I love that Viva La Evolucion banner!

logicman's picture
From the web site of Answers in Genesis:
We focus particularly on providing answers to questions surrounding the book of Genesis, as it is the most-attacked book of the Bible. We also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview ...

AiG teaches that “facts” don’t speak for themselves, but must be interpreted. That is, there aren’t separate sets of “evidences” for evolution and creation—we all deal with the same evidence (we all live on the same earth, have the same fossils, observe the same animals, etc.). The difference lies in how we interpret what we study.

The Bible—the “history book of the universe”—provides a reliable, eye-witness account of the beginning of all things ... 

When properly understood
, the “evidence” confirms the biblical account.

For an elaboration of AiG’s presuppositional thrust ...

[My emphasis]

Presuppositional apologetics is a 'philosophy' based on the notion that 'facts' can only be understood from the point of view that the Bible is true.

So, bottom line, they want to brainwash everyone else into sharing their beliefs,
and they truly believe in their own version of the Holy Bible:

Genesis Chapter 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ..."
What?  In front of an eye witness ??? !!! ???

I would just love a public debate with one of these crackpots.
I don't need any scientific citations or whatever -
I just need my Bible.  :)

Creationists: Teaching you what to think since 1929

Humans and dinos living together in total harmony..
"Flintstone Hypothesis"..
Hoo boy..
There is no logic in your arguments. The ideas behind your biblical derived universe are deeply embedded in ancient mythologies.
"Blind Faith" notwithstanding, it would behoove you creationist types to simply open your eyes. Try to actually SEE and FEEL and understand reality.. Go further in your education. Ask real questions about the world around you. Try to make SENSE of it. .
If doing these things doesn't provide some answers for you. I suggest some follow-up therapy.

religion did once rule the world, you know.

it was called the dark ages.

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