There Are Some Things We Can All Agree On

When I was a kid, I loved dinosaurs. I think maybe I've blogged or written about it somewhere before. Anyway, dinosaurs were like the chief driving force in my life for several years, like when I was about age 4 to 10 or so. Going to see Jurassic Park in a theater was a religious experience for me.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. My mom always got this magazine called Home Life, which was about preserving the sanctity of the Christian Home or something like that. On several occasions mom would save articles from Home Life to show me, and on at least one occasion, these articles were about dinosaurs. Apparently there is some disagreement between theologians and scientists as to when dinosaurs actually lived and became extinct. There are many (or at least some) Christian-type folks who believe that dinosaurs walked the Earth when people did, and that there are instances in the Bible where dinosaurs appear. For example, they point to books like Job 41, which talks about a "leviathan" whose "back has rows of shields tightly sealed together," which I don't know about you but that sounds an awful lot like a dinosaur to me. The whole reason for this dinosaur theory, I believe, is to discredit carbon dating and "prove" that God exists, as if somehow proving the world is only 6,000 years old would confirm it was divinely wrought.

Of course, scientists disagree, explaining that, based on clear fossil evidence, dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, well before homo sapiens appeared. Leave it to the heathen scientists to put a stop to our fun.

So anyway, the point: there is one thing that I know scientists and Christians can agree on. I know they agree on this because every person I have ever talked to about this matter has agreed. What is it that we all agree on?

Dinosaurs are fucking awesome.

Regardless of when dinosaurs might have existed, we can all agree that dinosaurs are epic, and we can at least have a rad discussion about who would win a fight between a stegosaurus and a triceratops. In the end, it doesn't matter so much whether God made dinosaurs or dinosaurs made themselves.

Edit: fixed typos, expanded 2nd & last paragraphs, and added awesome Dinotopia picture.