by Dick Blackford

Today's children are being attacked by dinosaurs! From dinosaur dolls, balloons, T-shirts, beach toys, cookies, and even on the side of milk cartoons, children are being bombarded with dinosaurs. Pictures and replicas of dinosaurs automatically conjure up a false concept of prehistoric creatures which supposedly evolved 175-200 million years ago and became extinct 65-70 million years ago, long before man came on the scene.

Here are some things you need to know

1) DINOSAURS WERE REAL CREATURES THAT ONCE LIVED ON THE EARTH.

A trip to Dinosaur National Park along the Colorado-Utah border will reveal dino skeletons still embedded in the earth's crust. Many were huge creatures, larger than any known animal today, and some were as small as a duck.

2) EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT MAN AND DINOSAURS LIVED AT THE SAME TIME.

There are places in Arizona and Rhodesia where pictures of animals, including dinos, are drawn on cave walls and canyons by men who lived hundreds (not " millions") of years ago. How could they have known how a dinosaur looked if they had never seen one? They couldn't go to a museum, a Time-Life Magazine, or a school textbook on evolution to find out. There have been several findings of human and dinosaur footprints showing them to be contemporaries. "These tracks are widely distributed and are usually only exposed by flood erosion or bulldozers. They have been carefully studied and verified by reliable paleontologists and cannot be dismissed as frauds." (Wysong, R.L., THE CREATION-EVOLUTION CONTROVERSY, Inquiry Press, Midland, MI, 1981, p. 455.)

3) DINOSAURS DID NOT EVOLVE.

Dinosaur fossils are strong evidence for creation, not evolution. If evolution were correct, one would expect to find the small dinos in the older and deeper stratus of the earth rather than the giant, more complex ones. The facts are quite different. The very largest (Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Brachiosaurus) are found in the supposedly older Jurassic strata, not in the later Cretaceous strata. No smaller, less-evolved ancestors have been found leading up to the giants. Like many other creatures, the great dinos appear abruptly in the fossil record - without any hint they were coming!

If they slowly evolved, as evolutionists say, we ought to find transitional forms (in-between kinds) showing gradual formation of the armour plate, spikes, etc., but none are found. All of a sudden in the fossil record there is a Triceratops, complete with armour plate, spikes, and all, just as we would expect the fossil record to look if God had created him! Nowhere do we find spikes starting out as little spikes which over millions of years gradually got bigger and bigger. This is strong evidence for creation. The first time their fossils are found they are complete, with no intermediate forms leading up to them. That's because God created them that way.

4) THE BIBLE HOLDS THE KEY TO WHY DINOSAURS BECAME EXTINCT.

Over 55 different theories advanced by evolutionists have come and gone in attempts to explain what happened to the dinos. But none offers as good an explanation as that of the worldwide flood in Noah's day. It was the greatest catastrophe in history. Nothing else compares! It rose above the mountains (Gen. 7:20), which explains why fossils of sea animals have been found on mountaintops. Every living thing "in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." (7:22) The earth itself was brought to ruin. Not only did it rain for 40 days and nights, but fountains from the great deep came bursting forth. (7:11) The water covered the earth for at least 150 days. (7:24) It was almost that long again before the waters abated.

Quick flood burial would be the only way so many dinos could become fossilized in the way archaeologists have found them. (Not all dinos have completely fossilized. In some cases dinos are as much as 50% bone acids. This is a real problem for those who claim dinos have been extinct for 65 million years). Animals and plants fossilize only if buried quickly and deeply before predators, decay, and weather destroy them. In many cases the bones are crushed and piled atop each other.

There are two probabilities that would explain the extinction of dinos. After the flood the dinos which came off the ark would have become extinct because of the destruction caused by major changes to the earth's surface. Lush forests were destroyed and many forms of food would have been unavailable as a result of the world's greatest catastrophe. The post-flood climate would have been dramatically different than the pre-flood climate.

Man himself, could have killed off some of the survivors just as he has caused the extinction of many other creatures. In the last 350 years almost 400 species have disappeared, including the saber-toothed tiger and passenger pigeon. Because of his superior intelligence, man has been able to outsmart and dominate animals much larger than he. The history of the animal world has been a record of extinction. Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent and creationists point to them as natural evidence of a worldwide flood.

5) WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT DINOSAURS.

The word "dinosaur" (terrible lizard) does not appear in the Bible. But there are some biblical descriptions of such animals that would not describe any known creatures today.

The translators apparently did not know how to translate behemoth so they transliterated it. Webster's Dictionary says it was "a huge animal assumed to be a hippopotamus." But note that it had "a tail like a cedar." Did you ever see a tail of a hippo? A little curly-Q on the end of a 2 1/2 ton hip! Not very impressive. No one ever wants to photograph a hippo from the back. Some commentaries say it was an elephant. Did you ever see an elephant's tail? This creature have a tail like a cedar? It was a massive creature called "chief of the ways of God."

Concerning the cedar, DAVIS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE says it was a famous tree of Lebanon (1 Kg. 6:6) tall and stately (ÿIsa. 2:13; Ezek. 17:22; 31:3) It furnished a timber much prized in the construction of temples (2 Sam. 5:11; 1 Kg. 5:5,6; 7:1-12; Ezra 3:7). From it pillars, beams, and planks were cut (1 Kg. 6:9, 10, 18; 7:2,7); idols were hewn (Isa. 44:14); masts were made for ships (Ezek. 27:5) ...It is a large tree of dome-shaped form, with long spreading, contorted branches...." p. 129.

See also the description of leviathan in Job 41. Since these passages do not describe any living creatures today, they must describe huge animals that lived in the past but are now extinct, such as dinosaurs. Nothing else fits this description.

6) THE EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS ARGUES AGAINST DARWIN'S THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST."

Dinosaurs as big, strong, ferocious, and impressive as they were, did not survive - though many small animals that dinosaurs could have killed, did survive. There were other more important factors involved than Darwinism, such as Noah's flood.

7) MUCH THAT WE HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT DINOSAURS HAS BEEN GUESSWORK.

Scientists have not always been careful enough in their descriptions. Fossils were not found with labels and pictures. For examples, Bronosaurus has been the most popular of all dinos. But it was recently discovered that he had the wrong head, for over 70 years! It is important to realize that when scientists dig up a number of bones, usually they have less than 40% of the animal to tell them how it originally looked. Many assumptions have been made.

The next time your faith or the faith of your children is attacked by dinosaurs, it would be good to remember these things. Don't be afraid. They're harmless.

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Low now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God; he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not; he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. (Job 40:15-24)