Sometimes we can look at the fossilized bones of long dead dinosaurs and get an idea of what they looked like in life. But consider this – the most recognizable and distinctive features of many of God’s creatures of today are parts that would not fossilize. For example, the trunk and ears of an elephant; mane of a lion or the distinctive color pattern of a skunk. There’s no reason to believe that dinosaurs were devoid of such non-fossilizing features. Yet many of us accept artist’s renditions of dinosaurs and think they are accurate. The truth is that we don’t know anything about the appearance of the parts that have not been preserved. We cannot know the fleshy features of a Tyrannosaurus let alone what color it was or how it behaved. Did it have distinctive folds of flesh over its short front legs? Was it dark gray in color or did it have bright orange stripes. Was it a predator or a scavenger? We speculate, but we don’t know and may never know.
In addition to all that, paleontologists don’t always agree on how fossil bones fit together and occasionally they even change their minds. Such things can affect the conceptualized appearance of a creature rather dramatically.
We find images on some ancient pieces of pottery or scratchings on cave walls of creatures drawn by some ancient human – presumably depicting something they’ve seen. Occasionally someone will see the ‘unmistakable’ image of a dinosaur in such graphics.
But I’m skeptical. Here’s why. The depictions of the ancient observers are almost always seen to be just like those of a modern artist’s conception. But the modern artist has never seen any of the creatures and cannot know what the living animal really looked like. If the ancient depictions were actual observations they would certainly include parts that were distinctive but didn’t fossilize. So why then would the ancient depictions match the modern ones? I believe it’s far more likely that the ancient “dinosaur” images were actually long eroded images of more common creatures – perhaps a snake eating a rat or a deer playfully pronking in a meadow.
I think it would be wonderful to find cave drawings of an apatosaurus with long dangling dewlaps. That would be much more convincing. If we want to honestly promote the idea that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, then we should do it with information we can trust – not imagination.
Similar logic also applies to the depiction of ancient flying saucers. If the aliens are intelligent enough to build and fly such craft, why would the ancient craft look just like the modern depictions from a movie production? If such craft actually existed in the far distant past, the normal progression of things would suggest that there would have been design changes in the last few thousand years?
The bottom line is this – we sometimes make assertions about things or events to bolster Christian beliefs. But when those assertions come from the edges of our knowledge, we should try to be as factual and accurate as possible to avoid damaging not only our own credibility but the reputation of Christ. See Titus 2:7-8
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Each of us is a unique spiritual being. We are born individually, die individually and stand before God every moment of our lives as an individual. No matter how large a group we are in, our relationship with God is one on one. Therefore our worship and each of our styles of worship must be accordingly unique. That concept is developed and expanded in the book “Worshiping Alone” available on Booklocker, Amazon or Barnes and Noble If you haven’t read it, please consider getting a copy and reading it.
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