A Debate Evolves

I recently read a discussion here that was spurred by a New York Times article there. I read only a fraction of the hundreds of comments on the NYT article and, as expected, they were not all as polite or well-stated.

I am tolerant of other people’s beliefs, but I bristle when they believe that non-scientists should be able to decide what is taught in science classes. For me it is no problem if a science class and a religion class [or one's school and one's church or home] teach information which is contradictory and incompatible. They are different approaches to our attempts to understand the world and our place in it. I would even go so far as to say it is important to learn about things you do not agree with — you’ll have to deal with people that disagree with you all your life, you might as well try to understand their point of view. [I hesitate to use the "agree to disagree" phrase because I've worked with too many people for whom that is code for "I disagree with you and therefore don't have to listen to your point of view" -- NOT the same thing at all.]

Anyway, I was surprised by a comment that stated:

Noah may have brought some dinosaurs with him on the Ark.

That was a new one on me. The commenter went on to explain, “I believe everything incapable of surviving a worldwide flood was preserved aboard the Ark.” Okay, I see how believing that statement could lead to the previous one. [I do not, however, consider either statement to be scientific.] But I wonder then, what happened to the dinosaurs after the flood? Does he believe they were hunted to extinction?

Regrettably, I didn’t see the discussion until a couple weeks after it was posted. I asked the question anyway, but I’m not hopeful I’ll get an answer there. How about here? Anyone have similar beliefs?

Jenn says:

2008/09/15 at 22:46

I was going to try to come up with something reasonably witty about how global warming and feminism killed the dinosaurs, but instead was reminded that the National Museum of Creationism just opened up in your home state. And that several of our colleagues follow a creationist ideology. And that my own Church, while certainly riddled with problems of its own, embraces evolutionary theory.

Have you read about The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

I think there is nothing wrong with a little bit of incompatibility in a belief system, and I’d like to say that I respect other people’s right to think whatever they want, but the idea of dinosaurs on an ark–or, frankly, a literal ark in the first place–does beggar a certain amount of disbelief.

mary says:

2008/09/16 at 19:37

oh dear. dinosaurs on the ark?

well. i don’t take science or religion literally so i don’t believe in dinosaurs or the ark.

well…i believe there were animals which we call dinosaurs. our theories on how they looked, hunted and were hunted, and eventually died off are just theories, open to interpretation. so, technically, there could have been dinosaurs on an ark built by a guy named Noah. but then technically, before we went to outer space and proved otherwise, the theory that the moon was made of cheese could have been true.