Talk:Religious perspectives on dinosaurs

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To-do list for Religious perspectives on dinosaurs: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Describe Old-Earth creationist stance on dinosaurs (they often counter YEC in favour of the scientific view)
  • Add information about the views of other religious groups. It's particularly important that we reflect the views of non-Christian groups, where they differ from scientific consensus.

Contents

[edit] Purpose of this article

I have created a stub article here based on discussions on the Dinosaur article Talk page. Essentially, the consensus was to relocate detailed information about religious perspectives on dinosaurs into a forked article. Killdevil 00:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This article makes people seem really stupid. These ideas can't be real, please tell me this is all a joke. H2P 08:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To do list

Please help to expand this. We need to try to capture not just Christian creationist views but those of other religious groups with specific understandings of dinosaurs that differ from the interpretation favored by mainstream science. Killdevil 00:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's start by formulating a to-do list here.

Answering your call to "Add information about the views of other religious groups. It's particularly important that we reflect the views of non-Christian groups, where they differ from scientific consensus.", I have added a short passage about the religious perspectives on dinosaurs from a pastafarian perspective. This has certainly to be refined, but I share your concern that leaving out the views of any religion on this important question is not an option. For now, I have respectfully appended this view at the end, but if you feel it would fit in better in another position in the article, please move it as I am not familiar enough with some of the other religious beliefs presented to make an educated guess where it would righfully belong. Please feel free to comment. --Ministry of Truth 16:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this should be in here, especially since FSMism is officially a joke. --InShaneee 16:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. What do you have in mind when you say it is a joke rather than a religious belief ? --Ministry of Truth 16:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
For starters, it says its a parody in the first sentence of the article. --InShaneee 17:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Be that as it may, there is a rather complete demonstration how Pastafarianism meets all the criteria of a religion on the primary source I quoted.[1] Unless you can demonstrate how it does not meet standards required to be included here, I am confident that you will tolerate different belief systems, even if you do not feel comfortable with their doctrine. --Ministry of Truth 17:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Please see WP:POINT, given your edit last week [2]. — Matt Crypto 18:45, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I tried to start a debate by the comment you're referring to, without result. Reductio ad absurdum is a powerful tool and it could help to keep all participants in this kind of disagreement intellectually honest by forcing them to look at the underlying principles rather than their personal point of view. That might have been part of the problem in earlier discussions. I am all in favor of an articulated debate, and therefore don't consider the POINT criticism to be valid in this particular case. --Ministry of Truth 19:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
While I consider myself to be a Pastafarian as well, I agree with other users that FSM-related beliefs should not be on this page. Most Pastafarians don't really believe in FSM teachings, and just use it as a humorous way to express their atheism. Inclusion of FSM beliefs on dinosaurs in this article only serves to detract from the credibility of the page as a whole. --Ruebrylla 21:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

FSM clearly doesn't qualify as a religion because its adherents don't actually "believe" in it. It is an amusing spoof on religion, not a religion in itself. Doc Tropics 22:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This article title states religious perspectives on dinosaurs. But, as it is the focus seems to be on only one noise-making fundamentalist christian group: YECs. Until the article is developed to include the full range of christian denominations, as opposed to just the grandstanding fundamentalists, and more importantly the views and positions of other world religions - it is POV. Also, if a particular group or sect has no published opinion or doctrine re: dinos, that also needs to be pointed out. Any group that accepts or agrees with the scientific evidence and interpretations also need to be specifically mentioned. I am not talking about popular polls based on the blather of the noisey few. What is needed is factual references to the doctrine and beliefs of the mainstream religions. Until this has been achieved, the page is seriously POV and ripe for afd. Vsmith 00:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir here, Vsmith. We all want to include more information on different religious perspectives; YEC is the obvious one, of course. Help us out. Currently, I'd say the article is incomplete, not POV. We're not deliberately excluding information on other religious viewpoints, you know. Here's a reference to dinosaurs in the Quran, for starters: [3]. — Matt Crypto 09:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Some Jewish views: [4], [5], [6]. — Matt Crypto 10:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I am going to put a merge tag on this article, suggesting that it be merged with the Young Earth creationism article. This is partly because the article, as it stands, should really be named "Young Earth creationist perspectives on dinosaurs. If you feel there's enough material to show various religious viewpoints on dinosaurs, the please add it and delete the tag. –Shoaler (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As time permits, I'd like to add more. I don't think this needs to be added to an article that is already far too long (YEC). agapetos_angel 16:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
As it stands the merge is obvious, but it might be better to expand this. However, since nobody has after a bit of time, it seems unlikely in the near future. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 19:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this could be a great standalone article with a little more research. As is pointed out in the article text, dinosaurs constitute a popularly-understood and serious challenge to religious interpretations of natural history. Because of this, more than one faith group has specifically addressed dinosaurs.
I suggest letting it stand for now. Perhaps somebody more Wikipedia-skilled than me could advertise in the appropriate places that this is a religion article that needs help? Killdevil 22:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree for many of the reasons stated above. It's a separate topic from YEC if 'religious perspectives' are discussed (a stub is not necessarily a reason to merge). Maybe if it's not expanded, in say 30 days, it should be merged with dinosaurs instead? agapetos_angel 03:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Agapetos, the backstory on this article is that it was created to resolve an ongoing controversy over at the Dinosaurs article. Basically, it was decided over there that religious groups' perspectives needed to be forked into a separate article -- this was a compromise of sorts. If we move it back then a several-months-long debate will reignite. So I'd be very much against merging with the Dino article. 24.63.83.203 20:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Exactly--MWAK 09:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
There are exactly two articles with "Religious perspectives on ..." in WP, the other one being about Jesus. Now either we are in an urgent need to produce more articles such as "Religious perspectives on Archeopteryx" or any other random fossile that might daringly fail to line up with various religious beliefs - or not.
Creating this article to get rid of a debate in the dinosaurs article was a Bad Move and merging it back there would obviously make things worse. Instead, whatever worthwhile content lives here should be gently integrated into the article of the religion in question and this article then quietly join the fate of the dinosaurs before this page gets nominated for whackiest article in WP. --Ministry of Truth 22:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other religious perspectives

could we have some non-Judaeo-Christian perspectives? if there are any, that is.

[edit] Does this belong?

"Young Earth Creationism is, according to critics, a form of the appeal to authority fallacy. [7][8]." I think this sentence belongs in the Young Earth Creationism page, not the dinosaurs page. This article is dedicated to beliefs of other religions on dinosaurs; it seems that a critique of just one view, the YEC theories, is out of place, especially on the main article. I will thus delete this sentence.

not to get into a deep theological arguement over the fact that dinosaurs co-existed with man, but prehistoric caveman had drawings in the caves of dinosaurs. prehistoric cavemen weren't archeologists and didn't dig to find fossil records of these dinosaurs, but still knew about them and what they looked like. So they had to have been able to see them first hand.

Midevial times had stories of fire breathing dragons, and many knights were sent out to slay the dragons. If these are real stories, and they weren't sent out to kill dinosaurs.... i dunno what they were sent out to kill.

Also there are still dinosaurs living on earth today. Crocodiles and alligators are types of dinosaurs which have survived to this day.

For those people who do believe the Bible, if they read Job 40 and 41 they will read about 2 creatures (behemoth and leviathon) who have characteristics of creatures that if you look at all the characteristics, they describe a brontosaurus and a pleseosaurus.

Granted all of these evidences are based on faith, but then again that's what religion is....... having faith in things you cannot see.

There's a few problems with your statements:
i) Dinosaurs were NEVER represented in cave art. You probably have them confused with mammoth or woolly rhino. And not to nitpick, but archaeology and paleontology are two entirely different things.
ii) It's very possible that legends of dragons and monsters could have originated from fossil discoveries, or tales brought back from far-away lands of giant lizards, snakes or crocodilians. People in medieval times believed loads of things that we would find totally crazy these days.
iii) Crocodiles and alligators are NOT dinosaurs. Close relatives, yes, but not dinosaurs. Dinosaurs do survive though, in the form of birds.
iv) The idea that Behemoth and Leviathan were living dinosaurs has been floated, but is subject to much controversy. Depending on your reading of the passage, they could just as well refer to modern-day living creatures; refer to the Wiki pages on Behemoth and Leviathan.
Hai ren 19:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Dinosaurs HAVE been seen in cave art! One that I have seen on video is in an Australian aboriginal cave painting. rossnixon 01:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Any pictures to back up your claim? Even if the art does resemble an extinct dinosaur (or pterosaur, or plesiosaur, or whatever), we cannot discount the chance that the art is based on a complete skeleton being suddenly exposed through erosion. One doesn't have to dig deep to find dinosaur fossils; sometimes one just has to be in the right place at the right time to find relatively intact fossil skeletons exposed at the surface.
Anyway, I say that whether or not prehistoric man encountered dinosaurs is of no relevance to religious perspectives on dinosaurs. Hai ren 18:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] good evidence that dinosaurs and man coexisted

I believe there is a large amount of evidence pointing to dinosaurs and man coexisting. I think this information should be included in the Wikipedia article:

- Trained scientists reported seeing a dinosaur.[9]

- 1,000 people had seen a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang accrording to the Chinese publication, China Today (see: Lai Kuan and Jian Qun, ‘Dinosaurs: Alive and Well and Living in Northwest China?’, China Today, Vol. XLII No. 2, February 1993, p. 59.) [10]

- An expedition which included, Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph that pointed to dinosaurs and man existing [11][12]

- The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology." [13]

- The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, appears to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. [14]

- On May 13, 1572 a dinosaur may have been killed by a peasant farmer in Italy (pg 41 "The Great Dinosaur Mystery" by Paul Taylor ISBN 0-89636-264-7) [15]

- It has been stated that dinosaurs are in the Bible. [16][17][18]

- There is other evidence that dinosaurs and man coexisted.

Of course humans and dinosaurs coexist. Something like 8,800–10,200 living species. See Aves. Guettarda 05:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)



  • HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA --128.135.60.87 10:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I actually can't believe I wasted a good 30 seconds reading this drivel. I must be bored or something. I'm not even sure why this article exists, except to keep it off the well-written articles on Dinosaurs, Evolution etc. OrangeMarlin 18:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA." I'm in full agreement. --RWyn 20:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel Words

The article uses a fair number of these, the main culprit being 'some people' without specifying who. If there's no objections I'll clear up the introduction to briefly explain the major groups that disagree rather than being vague. Anyone have an issue with such a change? --Davril2020 13:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

Why not religious perspectives on trilobites? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 00:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

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