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Question (from Yuchen):
I would like to know better about dinosaurs (like when did they appear)?
Answer:
As a Christian, I should always make it my practice to view the world through the lens of scripture. In other words, I want to have a Biblical worldview. The other option of course is a non-Biblical worldview (sometimes called a materialistic or naturalistic worldview). One begins with truth, the other is based on the fallible ideas of humans. Therefore, I would recommend that we look to the Bible to see if there are some clues that can get us started with answering this question.
 In Genesis chapter one we read that all land animals were created on the sixth day of the creation week. In addition, man was also created on day six (Gen. 1:24-31). Just in case there is some doubt about the creation week being a normal week consisting of normal days, we can read Exodus 20:11 and see that the context is an ordinary week. Since dinosaurs are classified as land animals, we know that they must have been created the same day as man - the sixth day. Now we have our Biblical foundation upon which we can properly interpret the physical world as it relates to these fascinating reptiles called dinosaurs.
Based on this, we should expect there to be evidence that dinosaurs and humans lived together. We should also find evidence that suggests that dinosaurs lived recently, rather than millions of years ago. As expected, this is exactly what we find. As for evidence of humans and dinosaurs living together, there are many ancient drawings of dinosaurs which were drawn long before anyone began studying the fossilized remains of dinosaurs. Man did not start studying dinosaur fossils until the mid 1800's. Yet there are drawings and carvings of dinosaurs that go back to 1100 AD and beyond. In Cambodia, ancient temple carvings perfectly depict stegosaurs in stone. How did they know what they looked like? Most of the dinosaur fossils found in the rocks are not complete skeletons, but are in pieces. Are we to believe that these ancient people just somehow knew what a stegosaur looked like from pieces of fossilized bone? It would make more sense to believe that these people saw a living stegosaur and that is how they knew what they looked like (not their bones, but what they looked like with their skin on - which is how the stone carvings are depicted).
There are other drawings that suggest that ancient peoples seen living dinosaurs such as the cave drawings in the Hava Supai region of the Grand Canyon. There are also dinosaurs carved in brass on the tomb of Richard Bell in England. Bell was buried in 1496. Again, dinosaur remains were not studied until the mid 1800's. Exactly how did these people know what sauropods looked like in 1496 unless they had seen one?
Other than drawings, is there any evidence that dinosaurs lived more recently, rather than millions of years ago? Yes, there is. On the north slope of Alaska, the Liscomb Bone Bed has thousands of frozen, unfossilized dinosaurs bones - some of them have the ligaments still attached. It takes a lot of faith to believe that these bones have survived for 65 million years without either decaying or becoming fossilized (and fossilization is a rare process we are told). A better explanation is that the bones are not millions of years old. Perhaps thousands, but definitely not millions. Bones simply cannot last that long in a non-fossilized state. If we put this into a Biblical framework, we know that the flood of Noah would have buried any dinosaur that was not on the Ark and that this event took place about 4,500 years ago based on the genealogies found in scripture. This means that the dinosaurs to whom these bones belonged to died no more than 4,500 years ago. It makes more sense that a non-fossilized bone can survive in the permafrost for several thousand years. It does not make sense that even a frozen bone would last for 65 million years. Even frozen bones will still decay over time!
Not only do we find non-fossilized dinosaur bones, but it has been discovered that many fossilized bones still have soft tissue inside of them. This is remarkable. To think that soft tissue could survive for 65 million years requires a huge amount of faith. It makes more sense that these bones are only thousands of years old, not millions. Since the first soft tissue was discovered in a dinosaur bone, there have been many more discovered. Scientists just did not think to look for it, but now they do. Soft tissue is now found in many types of animals, birds, and reptiles which are supposedly millions of years old. Personally, I do not have enough faith to believe that soft tissue can survive that long. It is interesting that the one thing that scientists are not discussing about the soft tissue is how it could survive for millions of years without decaying completely away! It is just believed on blind faith that somehow it happened.
Another evidence which points to dinosaurs being a part of Earth's recent history is that of Carbon-14. All living organisms take in Carbon-14 while they are alive. After an organism dies, the Carbon-14 is not replenished and the C14 that is present at the time of death begins to break down into Nitrogen 14. This is a relatively quick process. In fact, scientists tell us that once an organism dies, after about 60,000 years there should no longer be any C14 in the organism. Obviously, something must become fossilized if it has a chance of remaining on Earth for 60,000 years after death. But even when becoming a fossil, this C14 breakdown process continues to operate until all of the C14 is depleted. Consider the fossilized dinosaur bones found all over the globe. Since these fossilized bones are considered to be at least 65 million years old, most scientists would not even consider performing C14 testing on them as all of the C14 present in the animal when it died should be completely gone within 60,000 years. However, some scientists have performed C14 testing on fossilized dinosaur bones and what do you suppose they found? They found ample amounts of Carbon-14! Now, if you believe that dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, how do you explain the presence of C14 within dinosaur bones? One explanation that has been developed is that C14 somehow washed into the bones through acid rain. But if this is true, then all forms of radiometric dating (not just C14) is also subject to radioactive elements washing in and out - so no one can trust radiometric dating at all. This would mean that the extremely old ages derived from radio dating rocks must not be accepted. But scientists still accept the old ages derived from radio dating, so they must also accept the ages derived from C14 dating of dinosaur bones. You cannot have it both ways. But the most elegant explanation as to why C14 still remains within fossilized dinosaur bones is that the bones are less than 60,000 years old. In fact, they must be much less than this as they seem to have ample amounts of C14. If you have a Biblical worldview, then you are not at all surprised that C14 would still be found in not just dinosaur bones, but the fossilized remains of all organisms found within the rock layers. This also ties in very nicely with the fact that soft tissues are also often found within fossilized bones of various organisms within the rock layers. There are other items that also contain C14, but according to a naturalistic worldview they should not contain C14 at all (such as diamonds and coal).
As you can see, it matters which lens you use to view the world. The same soft tissue, same bones, same drawings, same C14 measurements can be viewed by those with a Biblical worldview and those who have a secular or naturalistic world view. Both have the same evidence, yet very different interpretations of that evidence. But only one interpretation can be true! Based on the evidences above (and more not listed here), it seems to me that the Biblical framework better explains the evidence.
For more reading…
Angkor saw a stegosaur? http://creation.com/angkor-saw-a-stegosaur
Dinosaur questions and answers (what exactly are they, when did they live, and how did they die?): http://creation.com/dinosaur-questions-and-answers
What really happened to the dinosaurs? http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/what-happened-to-the-dinosaurs#fnList_1_48
Bishop Bell's brass behemoths! http://creation.com/bishop-bells-brass-behemoths
Still soft and stretchy - dinosaur soft tissue find, a stunning rebuttal of 'millions of years' http://creation.com/still-soft-and-stretchy
Dinosaur soft tissue and protein - even more confirmation! http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue-and-protein-even-more-confirmation
Dinosaur soft tissue found in T-Rex http://www.literalgenesis.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25:dinosaur-soft-tissue-found-in-t-rex&catid=2:paleontology&Itemid=3
Birds evolved from dinosaurs - or is it the other way around - or is it NEITHER? http://www.literalgenesis.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:birds-evolved-from-dinosaurs-or-is-it-the-other-way-around-or-is-it-neither&catid=2:paleontology&Itemid=3
Hadrosaur soft tissues - another blow to long ages myth http://www.icr.org/article/hadrosaur-soft-tissues-another-blow/
Archaeopteryx fossil shows 'striking' tissue preservation http://www.icr.org/article/archaeopteryx-fossil-shows-striking/
Fresh tissues from solid rock http://www.icr.org/article/fresh-tissues-from-solid-rock/
http://www.icr.org/article/carbon-dating-undercuts-evolutions-long-ages/
Radiocarbon in diamonds confirmed http://www.literalgenesis.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9:radiocarbon-in-diamonds-confirmed&catid=4:geology&Itemid=3
Doesn't carbon-14 dating disprove the Bible? http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible
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