Dinosaurs or God? Which is more real?

[dianaiad]

Because people didn’t know what these fossils were.

I am just glad that we (today’s “we”) no longer call them “dragons”.

Today, we call the lizards from one of the Lesser Sunda islands, Indonesia - Komodo dragons - but these too are not dragons from myths and folklore.

You have to remember in Jesus’ times and Jews before him (pre-Christian Jews), that people were superstitions enough to think the stars we see in the night sky were angels, and it were angels pushing and pulling the sun, moon and clouds around the sky.

That was then, this is now.

No, dragons as represented by dinosaur fossils never existed. NO firebreathers, no flyers and sitters upon hoards of gold.

Makes me sad.

A perfect world SHOULD have dragons in it.

And Legolas.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Pretty well understood, is code for "I haven't looked up why it couldn't happen." Why bones with no preservatives and no coffin should dissolved during the putrefaction process. In four weeks, in open air or even in most soil (especially moist soil) will skeletonize.

Know the Time That a Corpse Takes to Decompose

​

Corpses in open air, are not going to be the organisms that fossilize. Sounds like you are, unsurprisingly I might add, the one who's not informed on how fossilization works.

You forgot to answer the question of what you believe, btw.

Actually, degrees are given to two major classes of people. Good little sheep that obey without questioning their overlords, and people who actually get a critical thinking education.

Yes, yes.

Schools and universities are really just brainwashing places where the devil and his minions are trying to indoctrinate people into becoming evil scientists who can then go on to deny the bible. They make you swear a blood oath and everything! And if you try to go against those powers, you just disappear never to be heared from again.

 

[Revoltingest]

It's been awhile since I really offended learned posters.
So....
Ode to comparing God with dinosaurs....

The difference twixt those thing's colossal.
With dinos there's proof by the fossils.
And now we have birds.
Believers...mere words
from preachers & ancient apostles

 

[Audie]

​

Corpses in open air, are not going to be the organisms that fossilize. Sounds like you are, unsurprisingly I might add, the one who's not informed on how fossilization works.

You forgot to answer the question of what you believe, btw.




Yes, yes.

Schools and universities are really just brainwashing places where the devil and his minions are trying to indoctrinate people into becoming evil scientists who can then go on to deny the bible. They make you swear a blood oath and everything! And if you try to go against those powers, you just disappear never to be heared from again.

Yes, the Conspiracy. I have heard about that.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Which stories have you read so far?

HP Lovecraft once said that the one thing that humans fear more than anything else is helplessness i think. Or maybe he was referring to the unknown. I can read other horror books and not be phased by them for the most part. But for some reason I cant read HP Lovecraft stories at night because the unnerving feeling they evoke makes me paranoid about the unknown. It seems to me like his work disturbs a primal fear inside me. His work isnt the most scary on the surface. But the psychological effect of the narrative stirs our paranoia about the shadows we see and our superstitions. And I think the fact that insanity is central to his narratives makes us link his stories to a psychological problem we know exists but dont actually understand and it makes his narratives that more believable and horrifying, because it might happen to us.

He is the father of Cosmic Horror and this is what that genre is all about: helplessness. We are subject to a higher being or force's will and we cant do anything about it. I personally think that that is how religions started because we feared helplessness and appealling to a higher power gives us a sense of control in our lives.

Lovecraft himself was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Dickenson sounds a lot like Poe as well.

I meant get back to you on this. Sorry for the delay.

A while back I downloaded a file associated with Project Gutenberg containing the complete stand alone works of Lovecraft starting from 1917. So far I have read

• The Tomb (1917)
• Dagon (1917)
• Polaris (1918)
• Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919)
• Memory (1919)
• Old Bugs (1919)
• The Transition of Juan Romero (1919)

I am rather enjoying the stories so far in a rather visceral sense. I can see (feel) Poe in there. I read a lot of Poe as a boy.

I get that deep sensation of being unnerved you mention. About the best way to describe it. Almost as if you are being drawn into the story as if the teller is a seat away and the events very related were very recent and near.

I clearly have a fondness for this type of literature and it is in keeping with my recent (over the last few years) turn to older works. I have read or re-read some of the John Carter on Mars stories, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court" by Twain, several older stories by Harry Harrison, Poul Anderson, Eando Ponder and Doc Smith. Just prior to the Lovecraft, I read "Armageddon 2419" by Philip Bowman that introduced the world to Buck Rogers.

I have some eclectic tastes, but I don't want to spend all my time reading about insect biology and the evolution of insecticide resistance.

That sensation of helplessness and a need to understand could have been very compelling incentive in the development of religion.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's been awhile since I really offended learned posters.
So....
Ode to comparing God with dinosaurs....

The difference twixt those thing's colossal.
With dinos there's proof by the fossils.
And now we have birds.
Believers...mere words
from preachers & ancient apostles

You make it look like riding a bike. You never lose some skills.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Yes, the Conspiracy. I have heard about that.

You too. Know one will tell me anything about it. Apparently they can't talk about conspiracy club. You don't think that might mean it isn't real do you? I hope not. They may have cake.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

HP Lovecraft once said that the one thing that humans fear more than anything else is helplessness i think. Or maybe he was referring to the unknown.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - HP Lovecraft.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - HP Lovecraft.

Now something interesting. Fear has a value when it is not the overwhelming emotion in charge. It can also be thrilling in some situations. Horror stories for instance.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Now something interesting. Fear has a value when it is not the overwhelming emotion in charge. It can also be thrilling in some situations. Horror stories for instance.

Horror stories have never made me afraid. I think because it's in my mind that literally it is not real the threshold for media and entertainment for many things (such as horror and violence) is much higher than average. I can watch a show like Game of Thrones without flinching or being bothered over the violence (except for two scenes involving children), because it is fake and it looked amazing seeing the dragons (probably the best dragons I've seen on screen) roasting people alive and the wildfire was beautiful and breath taking. But, something like Schindler's List, which reflects people who really suffered that hatred and violence, and I'm so upset over that I sob throughout the movie.
And I know definitely, for sure, that when it comes to fear being a survival trait, I am that proverbial ancestor that realizes the rustling grass could come from a number of sources and we don't know if it's a lion or the wind unless we actually know. I know this because I have stood outside watching tornadoes. I place my "faith" in things that are the most likely probable and odds and statistics. That means dangerous outcomes get put into perspective, leaving me having no anxiety over flying but being a very nervous and anxious driver, especially on busy roads. So, I'm gonna get ate for lunch because that grass moved in a way that looked like it did when the wind blew that one time.

 

[Ayjaydee]

Childish op

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Horror stories have never made me afraid. I think because it's in my mind that literally it is not real the threshold for media and entertainment for many things (such as horror and violence) is much higher than average. I can watch a show like Game of Thrones without flinching or being bothered over the violence (except for two scenes involving children), because it is fake and it looked amazing seeing the dragons (probably the best dragons I've seen on screen) roasting people alive and the wildfire was beautiful and breath taking. But, something like Schindler's List, which reflects people who really suffered that hatred and violence, and I'm so upset over that I sob throughout the movie.
And I know definitely, for sure, that when it comes to fear being a survival trait, I am that proverbial ancestor that realizes the rustling grass could come from a number of sources and we don't know if it's a lion or the wind unless we actually know. I know this because I have stood outside watching tornadoes. I place my "faith" in things that are the most likely probable and odds and statistics. That means dangerous outcomes get put into perspective, leaving me having no anxiety over flying but being a very nervous and anxious driver, especially on busy roads. So, I'm gonna get ate for lunch because that grass moved in a way that looked like it did when the wind blew that one time.

They have aroused certain senses in me. Not terror, but something edgy and thrilling in part and a little foreboding as well. I get absorbed a bit in the story. Fear is a mental issue of emotion, experience and perception. I find some sensation of it desirable as entertainment, but of less value in practical applications. Sometimes I just recognize it as self-manufactured in response to unfamiliar situations and just move around it and follow my intellect. Familiarity and ability can quash fear very nicely. I'm not Daredevil, but overcoming fear can move us forward, but we still need a little with good timing to keep us grounded. Caution is just a more reasoned, measured and practiced application of fear.

That is an actual issue. Our fear evolved in a savanna where we were still a menu item. Moving into a technological society where our emotions have not caught up with reality can create problems for us Overcrowding can too.I

Still, I have developed a fondness for the feelings evoked by a good story. A touch of the primal propagated deep in our imaginations can be oddly pleasant. I'm finding Lovecraft is a spark igniting old childhood memories and a love of old horror movies I wasn't supposed to be watching.

I actually found three TV shows or movies I saw as a kid that left memories I had had for years. They scared the crap out of me. I was impressed that I was able to recall enough to put together a successful search. An old Night Gallery episode about a ghostly rocking horse, a movie called Cat Creature and Trilogy of Terror. With the exception of Cat Creature, I watched them again. I enjoyed them.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Childish op

Indded. Probably why we went off topic a bit.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I actually found three TV shows or movies I saw as a kid that left memories I had had for years. They scared the crap out of me.

For me, that was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when they opened the Ark. I don't remember how old I was when I first watched that, but I was terrified by it and wouldn't watch it again for awhile (so I was probably very young).

 

[Dan From Smithville]

For me, that was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when they opened the Ark. I don't remember how old I was when I first watched that, but I was terrified by it and wouldn't watch it again for awhile (so I was probably very young).

I almost forgot. One the earliest Star Trek episodes I remember seeing as a child left me scared for a long time before I could watch it again. I must have been very young as you were for Raiders. Don't laugh. It was Arena where Kirk has to fight the Gorn. It also inspired my later developing interest in chemistry. Funny how things like that work. It probably says something about the importance of childhood events in our growth to adults. A little fear is good. Trauma, not so much.

 

[sooda]

I think you have a concept of what is real or at least what is not real as you state that fossils are not real in your OP.
My definition of real may differ a bit to your's but I think we can work out one we agree upon and that makes you rethink your opinion about fossils as "not real".
For me a thing is real when it can be measured, when it has properties that can be independently verified, when it is part of the physical world aka reality. (I also have a definition of existence that includes things not real. E.g. laws exist but are not real.)
Real also has a second meaning that is more relevant to our case and that is that a "real thing" is that what it says on the label. The vast majority of fossils presented in museums are as old as they say and they are assembled to the best knowledge of the scientists.

Btw: fossils don't have to be expensive. You can get an amonite for under $5.00 on ebay or your local gem shop. And they are more intricate than any artist could make them for that price.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I almost forgot. One the earliest Star Trek episodes I remember seeing as a child left me scared for a long time before I could watch it again. I must have been very young as you were for Raiders. Don't laugh. It was Arena where Kirk has to fight the Gorn. It also inspired my later developing interest in chemistry. Funny how things like that work. It probably says something about the importance of childhood events in our growth to adults. A little fear is good. Trauma, not so much.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Even as a child I knew those worm thingies Khan used were pretty creepy. They got all up in my head, lmao.

 

[sooda]

No, dragons as represented by dinosaur fossils never existed. NO firebreathers, no flyers and sitters upon hoards of gold.

Makes me sad.

A perfect world SHOULD have dragons in it.

And Legolas.

Our distant ancestors also found fossils.

 

[Revoltingest]

You make it look like riding a bike. You never lose some skills.

At least I've never fallen off a limerick when hit by a drunk driver.
(Long story.)

 

[tas8831]

Well, the Archaeopteryx turned out to be a hoax, but we can trust our other fossils right?

Great link...

Archaeopteryx was not a hoax.

One has to be a fool or a liar to think it was.

Yes, 3 clowns (a creationist, a panspermia advocate, and an astronomer that was obsessed with static state universe) tried to claim 2 of the 8 Archaeopteryx fossils were forgeries. Their work was so shoddy it ended up getting published in a photography magazine.

This thread is silly.