Take THAT religious nutters!

[trev]

To the best of my knowledge, there is no contradicting research on the presence of dinosaurs existing till relatively recent times, certainly an absence of fossils is not evidence, considering certain deep sea fish have been found in recent years after missing from the fossil record for many millions of years, also the Wollemi Pine tree in Australia which was thought also to be extinct for a very long time.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by trev

It is providing a description of 2 dinosaurs which matches with fossils found by palaentologists. Although written poetically, the description is real enough to imply that the writer was familiar with dinosaurs as a living animal (surely an observation of animal life that has some validity from a scientific point of view).
The essay I referenced from St John of Damascus also is written from the viewpoint of a person who has knowledge of dinosaurs from personal observation. Both sources confirm the fossil record that such animals existed in the past, but they go further and suggest that at least some species of large dinosaurs existed until the 8th Century AD.
The question is why is this evidence that dinosaurs only became extinct after 8th Century AD ignored and students routinely taught instead the falsehood they became extinct 60 million years ago. Their existence 1300 years ago cannot be disproved, there is writing that refers to such animals as being alive at that time, there are also numerous myths and legends that speak of dragons (essentially a synonym for dinosaurs) coexisting with humans and terrorizing humans and humans fighting back killing dragons.
The available evidence from writings and legends strongly suggest that dragons/dinosaurs existed until about a 1000 years ago. This correct information should be taught in schools, not dismissed for no good reason.
For those who say legends of knights going out and killing dragons should be ignored, it is well known that legends do generally have a factual base behind them, even if distorted a bit and therefore if correlated with other evidence as they are should not be excluded as relevant to scientific investigation.

W...T...F?

Dinosaurs existing until the 8th century AD

Did you ever consider the things that you think are being described are in fact lizards and other reptiles...perhaps the Komodo dragon?

[trev]

Did you ever consider the things that you think are being described are in fact lizards and other reptiles...perhaps the Komodo dragon?

The Romans measured the serpent to be 120 feet long, ie about 40 metres, a very big Komodo dragon?

[BeBMan]

There's lots of evidence for the "dinos died long before" thing which is contradicting the "dinos lived until ca. 8 AD or so" idea. Given that the latter can only dig out some pieces in texts, that even can't be attributed surely to existing dinos (after all read some ancient or medieval sources and there's lots of "monsters" appearing), it's quite clear to me which approach has more merits.

Sure, like any research one could turn it all around *if* dramatic new evidence would show up proving the dinos still walk amongst us , but until then it seems more a matter of belief to me.

[BeBMan]

Let's all blame DinoDoc. Had he done his job, dinos would be still alive

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by trev

The Romans measured the serpent to be 120 feet long, ie about 40 metres, a very big Komodo dragon?

You're off your tits dammit man!

[Cort Haus]

Yeah well there are 'UFOs' in the Bible too, according to some interpretations. Doesn't mean it's true.

[David Floyd]

In other news, Vampires do, in fact, exist, since we have legends telling us so, and even describing what they look like

[trev]

Your replies are ignoring the evidence, in particular the evidence of the most famous Roman historian Dio Cassius, who has a solid reputation as someone who checked the facts to the best of his ability before writing his 80 volume history of the roman Empire and Republic.
St John of Damascus also wrote about science as well as his many theological writings, they are people who writings are regarded highly.
What they say should not be disregarded just because it disagrees with your opinions.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by BeBro
Let's all blame DinoDoc. Had he done his job, dinos would be still alive

I was a big believer in euthanasia during those days.

[Traianvs]

Yeah trev, but he didn't precisely identify the creature. It might have been some now exctinct creature, who knows, but it was probably not a dinosaur.

Don't forget that some ancient people had never come into contact with certain large animals. Consider the elephants for example. The first time Romans dealt with them when Pyrrhus brought them over, soldiers were terrified. When Romans brought unknown creatures in the arena for wild beast hunting shows, people were similarly amazed.

In fact Dio Cassius says in your quote: THE LENGTH OF WHICH IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FEET

'of which is said'

He doesn't really say his source. It was probably a large beast of some sorts.

The bagradas river is in North-Africa, which was a bountiful region back then. Surely other writers should have mentioned this peculiar giant beasts then, if they were so special. Pretty much all of north-Africa up to the desert was well known in ancient times, so...

Yet, it's very well possible that many large creatures were extinct. The Romans made a lot of wild species extinct because they wanted so many shows in the arena. But dinosaurs: unlikely

[Provost Harrison]

What evidence? Against, we're talking about writing in a book! Perhaps he had been on something strong, you know what those Romans were like for their drunken debauchery and revelry

[Traianvs]

Dio Cassius? Not likely

He was quite the work-a-holic and preferred the traquil life in his villa at his home town instead of Rome

[Provost Harrison]

Miserable gob****e. I'd be in the vomitorium if I were him!

[Zanarkand]

Because it is just a piece of text, it doesn't reference any evidence or observation. Legitimite articles will reference actual, repeatable observations and experiments.

You've never read the Bible, have you? If you had, you'd most likely know that The Bible describes several historical event, which have also been proven scientifically. The Bible also mention many historical people. And if you haven't read it, you really can't talk about whether or not The Bible is just a piece of text.