Riding Dinosaurs

Another facebook discussion. This one I figure I should put up because parts were already deleted. The original response, shown as (deleted) below, asked about how belief can't be taken as truth. I may have butchered that, but I've already forgotten. You'll understand more or less from my response. Here it is starting with the original post: 

They do exist! This guy believes people could have ridden dinosaurs. And he tells your public-school-going children what to read! Personal view vs. observational science...

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KG: I wanna ride a dinosaur! 

JB: (deleted)

Me: Science doesn't disprove it, you're right. But there's also no proof. So I guess you could say that people once lived underwater, people were once able to fly, people were once 300 feet tall, people fought off aliens 50 times before they started to leave us alone... Get my point? 

Me: And yeah. I felt bad for that guy. Colbert gave him a few things to think about. But: "Somebody has to stand up to the experts!" -- really? Who does he think he is? Why does his personal belief overshadow people who make it their life's work looking into the intricacies of nature? He gets to tell them their observable, replicable data is wrong? 

JB: Fair enough, but it seems like there is evidence that indicates man and dinosaurs existed together (aside from what the Bible clearly teaches) such cave drawings, oral accounts from various cultures around the world, even worldwide stories of dragons (which have certainly been embellished) seem to indicate that people from various parts of the world probably encountered dinosaurs at some point. Just my thoughts 

 Me: I would be interested in seeing these cave drawings if you have links. I'm a big believer in there being some truth behind oral tradition. It's just hard to tease out what's what, meaning, unless we find hard evidence, we may never know. Our difference is that I start from scratch. Believers have a preconceived notion that they're working with which may or may not be true. However, when new evidence arises, they should be willing to adapt their world view. I don't judge anybody for their beliefs as long as they can justify them. 

PS: asinine... makes my head hurt 

RM: WOW, I am sorry but this is just plain nuts. Even in the 'paintings' exist it would not convince me. 

Me: What about this? Beginner's Bible Coloring Book! 

DM: This is the same crap in the flyers that Sarah Palin and her kooky religious friends used to leave in public toilets. 

ME: Actually. Let me go back. In 7th grade I went up to my Bible teacher. Yes, Bible. I was in a Christian school and we were obliged to have 7 periods, one being fully dedicated to the Bible. So I went up to Mrs. Smith and asked her if the Leviathan as seen in Job (Job 3:1-10) (Job 41:12-26) was actually an illusion to dinosaurs. She flat out told me no. I was ready to have this discussion with her, thoughts that I had been swirling around in my head, but she flat out cut me down. 

See, I had grown up loving dinosaurs. My room basically expressed that -- curtains, sheets, posters, etc. Then I have someone tell me that basically these creatures don't fit into my world view. One of my favorite things, and it’s not real? How am I supposed to compartmentalize this? What about all of those fossils that I've drooled over in museums? I’m thinking to myself that those couldn’t possibly be fake. They couldn't be! Dinosaurs had to fit in there somewhere. This may have been the beginning of the end for me. 

But herein lies the problem: My 7th grade teacher was willing to stake a claim on, "Oh, Leviathan is in no way a dinosaur," and right here and now, you can tell me, "Hey, the Bible clearly talks about dinosaurs!" It looks to me like we have a disagreement here. And it looks to me like the problem lies within the interpretation. We can take the Bible and get out of it whatever fits our purposes. So do dinosaurs exist? By asking two different people who wholeheartedly believe the Bible, I get two different answers. The argument can go on for centuries. And with Mrs. Smith’s response I didn’t get to talk about the age of dinosaurs at all, because in her perspective, they never even existed. 

 *Switch to science mode* Step 1: Do dinosaurs exist? "Why of course, let me show you some samples." Step 2: How old are they? "Well, these fossils lie between these two tephra layers, so they would be older than 65 million and younger than 95 million being the respective ages of the layers."

Now is there any arguing with that? Within the scientific realm, no. It's pretty set in stone. No credible scientist would argue dates that were well explained and documented which show the methods used to arrive at those dates. But do you know who does? This guy in the video does. Why? Because like my same problem with dinosaurs, he can't compartmentalize that cells could have evolved over 4.5 billion years. 

So let’s ask a few questions: Can he disprove tephrachronology? No. He deals in teeth. He probably doesn’t even know what tephrachronology is. He sounds Young Earth to me, so why would he bother to know? So if you don’t understand something, how are you going to refute it? This is my biggest concern. People are willing to naysay, they’re willing to throw out entire theories, but they don’t even bother to sit down and see what people are trying to say. Somebody has taken the time and effort to lay out how they have come to a conclusion so everyone else can follow it and he goes, “Pssh. Not what I believe, so it’s not true!” So really he’s saying that his ignorance knows more than somebody who has looked into a problem. He gives himself authority over other people based solely on a feeling or what he’s heard. It’s based solely on faith. 

It's so depressing that as science starts to explain the unknowns in the universe that people still cling onto something that was once used to explain those voids from times before technology didn't allow for it. I have a hard time understanding Christians who are scientists, but I accept them. Though I have an even harder time understanding anybody who thinks that they know better than people who have dedicated their lives to becoming knowledgeable in a subject that requires more than what's in a single Book. I can understand the idea of a deity. But to suppose that the earth is still just over 6,000 years old and to disregard all the proof that people have taken time to understand over generations and to blatantly negating that, well, that's just stubborn ignorance. Sorry. 

Study a subject before you attempt to profess any knowledge on the subject. I can go toe-to-toe with anyone who claims themselves to be an ardent Christian. They should give the same respect to science.