I understand your beliefs a little more now, thanks for sharing. Can I assume that you are familiar with the scientific process then? I don't see how you could suggest that there is not more empirical evidence for evolution than creationism. Evolution even according the scientists who study it on a full-time basis is not a complete science. No one claims that it is fully understood, but that does not take away from the science of it. We don't fully understand gravity, but you don't see any sane person religious or not questioning it. If you believe in neither creationism nor evolution, do you have an alternative hypothesis?

Yes, I am quite familiar with the scientific process, and much like everyone else on these threads, believe that there is a deeper understanding of scientific theory, and a higher degree of accuracy now than there's ever been before. However, I think there is a necessity for a line to be drawn when it comes to conclusions of the past based on the observations of today. And - also, there as been, and will continue to be a great amount of deception and mis-information diseminated from the world of evolution - as much has there has been in the word of religion. Just as there are hundreds - if not thousands of "false prophets" in religion - using it as a means to their own ends, so too are there hundreds, if not thousands of scientists who's very livelyhood requires that evolution be "accepted" - despite whether it's true or not. This is where the subtlety of "conjecture" turns into "universal truth". Some prime examples of this are Haeckels Law, long proven to be a hoax, yet still included in every science book taught in schools, Lucy and the "imagined" models created from a torso of which only 40 % of it's parts were found, Piltdown man, Nebraska man (in reality, a tooth of a pig) - and the list goes on.

I just don't see any emperical evidence for Evolution, and I don't find the premises for dating an old earth to be acceptable. Too many unanswered questions to believe that dating anything older than 5 or 6 thousand years is even possible. It's just "wishful thinking" that "given the premises to be true" of materials "believed" to be ancient were in fact what they are claimed to be when they were in their "original" (or parent) state, given the observation of the daughter status.

My position on Creationism is from the mere perspective of observation (seeing the world outside my front door) and the complexity of life. Though I have never, and will never claim there is "evidence" for a creation - I see no reason to think it is disprovable. I do, however, think that many claims of evolution are disprovable. Due simply to the fact that the continued experiments to transform one species (or kind if you will) into another has a zero percent success rating. Also - despite the fact that we can observe mutation _within_ a species, it has yet to be shown, under any circumstance, that any DNA information has been ADDED within these mutations. It's only been demonstrated that information is lost.

I don't think that any of the alternative theories (UFO's for example, or alien hosts) are any more plausable than either Evolution or Creationism, and need a great deal more "faith" to believe in them than either of the main two that are discussed. I think the option lies with Abiogenisis or Creationism, and either one is only true on a faith based level. Three's just no means to take it beyond that using either science - or empirical evidence.
It centers largely on one's world view, and how they determine to interpret the facts. some see fossils and precieve them to be within the tree of evolution, and millions of years old, others see a fossil and believe it was created, and no more than 6,000 years old. Science can do nothing to prove either of them correct, as too much information is missing which can never be recreated, or accumulated to insure the accuracy of interpretation.

And I don't think that belief in one - negates the other. Just because one erson has belief in one world view does nothing to discredit belief in the other.

Yes, I am quite familiar with the scientific process, and much like everyone else on these threads, believe that there is a deeper understanding of scientific theory, and a higher degree of accuracy now than there's ever been before. However, I think there is a necessity for a line to be drawn when it comes to conclusions of the past based on the observations of today. And - also, there as been, and will continue to be a great amount of deception and mis-information diseminated from the world of evolution - as much has there has been in the word of religion. Just as there are hundreds - if not thousands of "false prophets" in religion - using it as a means to their own ends, so too are there hundreds, if not thousands of scientists who's very livelyhood requires that evolution be "accepted" - despite whether it's true or not. This is where the subtlety of "conjecture" turns into "universal truth". Some prime examples of this are Haeckels Law, long proven to be a hoax, yet still included in every science book taught in schools, Lucy and the "imagined" models created from a torso of which only 40 % of it's parts were found, Piltdown man, Nebraska man (in reality, a tooth of a pig) - and the list goes on.

I just don't see any emperical evidence for Evolution, and I don't find the premises for dating an old earth to be acceptable. Too many unanswered questions to believe that dating anything older than 5 or 6 thousand years is even possible. It's just "wishful thinking" that "given the premises to be true" of materials "believed" to be ancient were in fact what they are claimed to be when they were in their "original" (or parent) state, given the observation of the daughter status.

My position on Creationism is from the mere perspective of observation (seeing the world outside my front door) and the complexity of life. Though I have never, and will never claim there is "evidence" for a creation - I see no reason to think it is disprovable. I do, however, think that many claims of evolution are disprovable. Due simply to the fact that the continued experiments to transform one species (or kind if you will) into another has a zero percent success rating. Also - despite the fact that we can observe mutation _within_ a species, it has yet to be shown, under any circumstance, that any DNA information has been ADDED within these mutations. It's only been demonstrated that information is lost.

I don't think that any of the alternative theories (UFO's for example, or alien hosts) are any more plausable than either Evolution or Creationism, and need a great deal more "faith" to believe in them than either of the main two that are discussed. I think the option lies with Abiogenisis or Creationism, and either one is only true on a faith based level. Three's just no means to take it beyond that using either science - or empirical evidence.
It centers largely on one's world view, and how they determine to interpret the facts. some see fossils and precieve them to be within the tree of evolution, and millions of years old, others see a fossil and believe it was created, and no more than 6,000 years old. Science can do nothing to prove either of them correct, as too much information is missing which can never be recreated, or accumulated to insure the accuracy of interpretation.

And I don't think that belief in one - negates the other. Just because one erson has belief in one world view does nothing to discredit belief in the other.

Yes, I am quite familiar with the scientific process, and much like everyone else on these threads, believe that there is a deeper understanding of scientific theory, and a higher degree of accuracy now than there's ever been before. However, I think there is a necessity for a line to be drawn when it comes to conclusions of the past based on the observations of today. And - also, there as been, and will continue to be a great amount of deception and mis-information diseminated from the world of evolution - as much has there has been in the word of religion. Just as there are hundreds - if not thousands of "false prophets" in religion - using it as a means to their own ends, so too are there hundreds, if not thousands of scientists who's very livelyhood requires that evolution be "accepted" - despite whether it's true or not. This is where the subtlety of "conjecture" turns into "universal truth". Some prime examples of this are Haeckels Law, long proven to be a hoax, yet still included in every science book taught in schools, Lucy and the "imagined" models created from a torso of which only 40 % of it's parts were found, Piltdown man, Nebraska man (in reality, a tooth of a pig) - and the list goes on.

I just don't see any emperical evidence for Evolution, and I don't find the premises for dating an old earth to be acceptable. Too many unanswered questions to believe that dating anything older than 5 or 6 thousand years is even possible. It's just "wishful thinking" that "given the premises to be true" of materials "believed" to be ancient were in fact what they are claimed to be when they were in their "original" (or parent) state, given the observation of the daughter status.

My position on Creationism is from the mere perspective of observation (seeing the world outside my front door) and the complexity of life. Though I have never, and will never claim there is "evidence" for a creation - I see no reason to think it is disprovable. I do, however, think that many claims of evolution are disprovable. Due simply to the fact that the continued experiments to transform one species (or kind if you will) into another has a zero percent success rating. Also - despite the fact that we can observe mutation _within_ a species, it has yet to be shown, under any circumstance, that any DNA information has been ADDED within these mutations. It's only been demonstrated that information is lost.

I don't think that any of the alternative theories (UFO's for example, or alien hosts) are any more plausable than either Evolution or Creationism, and need a great deal more "faith" to believe in them than either of the main two that are discussed. I think the option lies with Abiogenisis or Creationism, and either one is only true on a faith based level. Three's just no means to take it beyond that using either science - or empirical evidence.
It centers largely on one's world view, and how they determine to interpret the facts. some see fossils and precieve them to be within the tree of evolution, and millions of years old, others see a fossil and believe it was created, and no more than 6,000 years old. Science can do nothing to prove either of them correct, as too much information is missing which can never be recreated, or accumulated to insure the accuracy of interpretation.

And I don't think that belief in one - negates the other. Just because one erson has belief in one world view does nothing to discredit belief in the other.

6 or 7 thousands years falls within the ancient Egyptians and definitely within the existence of mankind, but I've never seen a hieroglyph or cave painting of a dinosaur. Now I don't really believe in aliens, mostly because I have never seen one, but there are drawings and hieroglyphs that could be interpreted as something extra terrestrial. As far as I know there has never been any evidence at all of any kind of an early human reference to anything that could be interpreted as dinosaurs.

hum.......

DRAGON.

6 or 7 thousands years falls within the ancient Egyptians and definitely within the existence of mankind, but I've never seen a hieroglyph or cave painting of a dinosaur. Now I don't really believe in aliens, mostly because I have never seen one, but there are drawings and hieroglyphs that could be interpreted as something extra terrestrial. As far as I know there has never been any evidence at all of any kind of an early human reference to anything that could be interpreted as dinosaurs.

As I always point out you would have to ignore ancient China in order to believe in a young earth because their culture and writing goes back to about 6000 BC which is too old for a young earth. Also there is NO mention of a flood in ancient china so you would also have to throw that theory out.

Evolution is more plausible because because there is evidence all around us in nature.

What is wrong with humans coming into existence through the process of evolution? What is the big deal about that?

Who was Charles Darwin and what did he say?

missing the point anyone?

Faith vs. Fact

sigh

There are numerous examples of hieroglyphics and cave paintings of dinausaurs from all over the world. These are documented in secular writings and in magazines from the New York Times to Scientific America. However - that isn't really a proof of anything, for we've only but a few Rosetta stones to glean any type of interpretation from, and no means of corroborating the interpretation of the Rosetta stones in the first place - let alone the key to the Hiero's they supposedly give meaning to. Nothing definitive any way.

"Dinosaurs" are referenced in the bible, and other ancient writings.
Naturally - since the word dinausaur did not come about since the mid 1800's, you won't find the specific word "Dinausaur" in any of these writings. Dragon, Behomouth, and Leviathon are the terms used in ancient writings. Non-the-less, they're dinosaurs according to our understanding of the term.

Exactly. Evolution is a faith based religion. Nothing scientific about "Origins of the Species" and what that has become. There is no evidence for the reality of Abiogenesis at all. It has essentially - been disprven.

You're taking an unhistorical document and comparing it to historical documents and you're not even giving a fair account of the historical documents. Your description of the ancient Chinese religion makes it sound like a monotheistic religion, but it was the opposite. It was clearly polytheist Shang-di was the ruler of all the gods much like Zeus.
"Ti was in charge of all the gods and spirits in the pantheon. The Chinese had spirit gods that represented things found in nature, from specific mountains and streams to the stars in the sky. There were also two gods of the earth, "the God of the Soil," and "Sovereign Earth." They were subject to Ti. "

"Ti had a royal court in heaven made up of all of the worthy ancestors who had died. These ancestors served Ti and helped him govern. The Chinese worshipped their ancestors, who acted as intermediaries between the gods and humanity. They believed that after death, they would experience a celestial court life very much like the court life they lived on earth. Some of the kings of the first dynasties wanted to bring their servants and officials with them to the afterlife to ensure that their quality of life would be the same. Accordingly, servants and officials were often sacrificed at the funerals of their lords."
http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/china/religion1.htm

I have been away but watching the thread.....the Chinese references are the first I will deal with.

The Earliest Chinese Theology and Worship of God

In looking at the Chinese history in light of the Book of Genesis, it will be helpful to look first at the earliest known religion in China. Later, we will see how this ancient religion fits in with the Biblical account of ancient history.

The earliest account of religious worship in China is found in the Shu Jing (Book of History of Book of Documents), the oldest Chinese historical source. This book records that in the year 2230 B.C., the Emperor Shun “sacrificed to Shangdi.” That is, he sacrificed to the supreme God of the ancient Chinese, Shangdi meaning Supreme Ruler. This ceremony came to be known as the “Border Sacrifice,” because at the summer solstice and Emperor took part in ceremonies to the earth on the northern border of the country, and at the winter solstice he offered a sacrifice to heaven on the southern border.

The Chinese have been called one of the most history-conscious and tradition-conscious peoples of the world. This is seen in many aspects of Chinese culture. Perhaps it is seen most of all in this very Border Sacrifice which the Emperor performed twice a year. This ceremony, which goes back at least to 2230 B.C. was continued in China for over four thousand years, up until the fall of the Manchus in A. D. 1911. Even though the people gradually lost an understanding of what the ceremony was all about, and Shangdi was obscured behind all kinds of pagan deities in China, nevertheless the worship of the one God, Shangdi, was continued faithfully by the Emperor up into modern times.

The oldest text of the Border Sacrifice that we have dates from the Ming Dynasty. It is the exact text of the ceremony that was performed in A. D. 1538, which was based on the existing ancient records of the original rituals. Let us look at portions of the recitation script that the Emperor used

So, in the earliest records of Chinese religion, we see that the people worshiped One God, Who was Creator of all. We also see that the original people of China looked at Shangdi with a sense of love and a filial feeling. The Emperor continued his prayer: “Thou hast vouchsafed, O Di, to hear us, for Thou regardest us as a Father. I, Thy child, dull and unenlightened, am unable to show forth my dutiful feelings.”

As the ceremony concludes, Shangdi is praised for His loving kindness: “Thy sovereign goodness is infinite. As a potter, Thou hast made all living things. Thy sovereign goodness is infinite. Great and small are sheltered [by Thee]. As engraven on the heart of Thy poor servant is the sense of Thy goodness, so that my feeling cannot be fully displayed. With great kindness Thou dost bear us, and not withstanding our shortcomings, dost grant us life and prosperity.”

These last two recitations, taken together, bear the same simile as found in the Prophecy of Isaiah in the Bible: “But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our Potter and we all are the work of Thy hand” (Isaiah 64: 8).

In general, reading the text of the Border Sacrifice reminds one strongly of the prayers of the ancient Hebrews as found in the Old Testament: the same reverent awe before God, the same selfabasement, humility and gratitude before His greatness. For us Christians, these most ancient of Chinese prayers to God are strangely familiar. Why is this? It seems that the most ancient Chinese religion and the ancient Hebrew religion are drawn from the same source. And that is indeed the case, as we will see.

The Book of Genesis and the Beginnings of China

Let us begin at the beginning. Adam and Eve, as we know from the book of Genesis, were cast out of Paradise, and Cherubim with flaming swords guarded the East Gate of Eden so that Adam and Eve could not return to it. Paradise, according to tradition, was on a high place, like a mountain. Adam and Eve remained near to Paradise, “over against” it according to the Greek (Septuagint) version. They remained on a high place, viewed Paradise from afar, and lamented what they had lost.

The Great Flood occurred, according to the Biblical reckoning, in approximately 2348 B.C. It was a global Flood which wiped out the entire earth and all human beings except for Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives (8 people in all).

The Bible says that, when Noah got off the Ark after the Flood, the first thing he did was to offer sacrifice to God, just as his forefather Adam had once done. In fact, before the Flood Noah had brought on the Ark with him some animals which were specifically meant to be offered in sacrifice, in addition to all the other animals that were on the Ark. So, the religion of Noah, which he had received from his forefather Adam, included the sacrifice of animals.

Only 101 years after the Flood, evil abounded again; and therefore, as the Bible tells us, “the earth was divided.” This occurred at the Tower of Babel, when God confounded the languages, and people began to be scattered about the earth. The Tower of Babel incident occurred at about 2247 B. C . And it is soon after this point that Chinese history begins.

The original people of China were undoubtedly a group of people (of unknown number) who traveled to China from Babel. It is probable that most of the people living in China today have descended from this original group.

Many Christians who have looked into this question have suggested that, in the Genesis “table of nations” chronicling the language groups migrating from Babel, the “Sinite people” (Genesis 10: 17) could refer to the group that became the Asian peoples.

Whether or not this is the case, here is a very interesting fact to consider: According to the Chinese records, the establishment of China’s first dynasty, the Hsia (Xia) dynasty, occurred in 2205 B.C. Modern scholars ascribe a somewhat later date of between 2100 and 2000 B.C. Therefore, depending on which reckoning one accepts, the establishment of China’s first dynasty occurred anywhere from 42 to 205 years after the approximate date of the Tower of Babel incident. That was the time it took for the proto Chinese to migrate to China from present- day Iraq (the site of the Tower of Babel) and already begin their dynastic civilization.

From the Bible we know that Noah lived 350 years after the Flood. So the founding of China’s first dynasty occurred while Noah was still alive.

The first people of China could have heard about the creation, the Fall, and life before the Flood from Noah himself. And Noah, as we have said, could have learned about these things, through one or at most two intermediaries, from Adam himself. This gives us an idea of how close were the first Chinese people to the first man, Adam.

We know that when the original settlers of China came to their new land, they brought the religion of Noah with them. We know this from the Border Sacrifice of which we spoke earlier. The Border Sacrifice was like the sacrifices of Noah, which were like the sacrifices of Adam. And, as we have seen, the God that was invoked at the Border Sacrifices was the One God, the Creator of universe, that both Noah and Adam worshiped. The prayers that were at the Chinese Border Sacrifice bear remarkable similarity to the prayers of the ancient Hebrews because both come from the same source: the religion of Noah.

An interesting point to ponder is why the Chinese called their sacrifices “Border Sacrifices,” and why the Emperor traditionally performed them at the border of the Empire. We know that Adam would have performed his sacrifices outside the borders of Paradise, probably as close as possible to Paradise, outside the Gate that was guarded by the Cherubim. It is possible that the Chinese Border Sacrifice were based on the tradition of a “border sacrifice” from the time of Adam.

Adam had offered his sacrifice outside the Gates of Eden, the Second Adam offered His Sacrifice outside the Gates of the Holy City of Jerusalem, when He was taken outside the city to be crucified.

Christ fulfilled what was prefigured by the sacrifices of Adam and Noah, and by the Border Sacrifices that were offered by the Chinese from the very beginning of their history.

Chinese Recorded History in Light of the Bible

Let us go back now and look at the recorded history of China in light of what we’ve just been talking about, that is, in light of the Biblical history of the world.

We’ve already mentioned the oldest book of Chinese recorded history: the Shu Jing, or Book of Documents. This book was written in about 1000 B.C. and was based on material from the Shang Dynasty, which began in 1700 B.C. (1700 B.C., by the way, is 200 years before the time of Moses, who wrote the book of Genesis.) Even if we assume that the original materials for the Shu Jing came from the beginning of the Shang Dynasty in 1700 B.C., this means that at least 500 years would have passed from the beginning of China to the first written record of its history.

The first thing that students of Chinese history learn is that Chinese history began with a Flood. This is not surprising, since we know that ancient peoples from all the continents of the world have a story of a Great Flood which covered all the earth as a judgment on man’s sin. In many cases, the details are remarkably like the details recorded in the book of Genesis. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia, for example, speak of a global flood and how only eight people escaped it in a canoe.


Noah with his family, having come out of the Ark,
offer a sacrifice upon an altar. The flood story was the most pervasive of all the other legends in ancient China. The Shu Jing records: “The flood waters are everywhere, destroying everything as they rise above the hills and swell up to heaven.”

Since the Shu Jing only begins with Chinese history, however, this statement does not refer to the global Flood, but rather to the local flooding that was caused in China by the remnants of the Great Flood. The Shu Jing speaks of how, after the Great Flood, some of the land was not yet habitable because the flood waters were still inundating the land. This was certainly possible. The time between the Flood and the founding of the first Chinese dynasty was as little as 143 years, and we would expect that huge pockets of water would have been on the land at that time, which are not there today. This phenomenon of post- Flood water- pockets is described in the book Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, written by a geologist, Steven Austin. Dr. Austin is a believer in the Biblical account of the Flood, and in this book he posits that Grand Canyon was formed by a huge pocket of water that was left over from the Flood, and which broke loose over the land. Since the layers of sediments had recently formed during the Flood and the land was still soft, the leftover Flood waters were able to carve out the magnificent Grand Canyon.

Going back to ancient China: These leftover Flood waters made parts of the land uninhabitable. At that time, according to Chinese history, there were the first righteous Chinese Emperors, Yao and Shun: the first emperors to offer the Border Sacrifices to Shangdi. To a man named Kun given the task of ridding the land of the flood waters, but he was not able to do so. It was not until Kun’s son, Yu, devised a new technique to channel the waters out to sea that the land was eventually made habitable.

Yu the Great

It took nine years for Yu to channel the waters out to sea. He became a hero because of this amazing feat. As a result, Shun turned the rulership over to Yu. Yu became emperor, thus beginning China’s first dynasty, the Xia. After that, China’s dynastic culture lasted almost another four thousand years.

Indications of Ancient Chinese Knowledge of the Creation and the Global Flood

So, now we have looked at Chinese history in relation to the Bible. If we start with the most ancient record of Chinese history, the Shu Jing, we find that the history of ancient China matches very well with the history of mankind as recorded in the Bible. (The Shu Jing, by the way, was the source of Chinese history used by Confucius, considered by him to be the most authentic source of Chinese history.)

About the Evolutionary Explanation of the Origin of the Chinese People

Now that we have gone this far in our examination of Chinese history in the light of Genesis, a few questions may remain. First of all, it may be objected that, according to secular scientists, the first inhabitants of China were actually hominid ancestors of man. About thirty years ago, it was generally believed by evolutionists that the hominid ancestor of Chinese man was the Asian Homo erectus, otherwise known as “Peking Man” or Sinanthropus (meaning China Man). Sinanthropus was supposed to have lived from a million or two million years ago in China. Today, however, some scientists disagree that this Sinanthropus is really an evolutionary ancestor of today’s Chinese people. In fact, the whole field of paleoanthropology is becoming more and more confused as time goes on. The paleoanthropologists can’t agree on the evolutionary tree of man, and different parties among them have heated fights over this question. Now it is generally thought that there is not an evolutionary tree at all in relation to man, but rather a confused “bush.”

If we look at the so- called ancestors of man, we can see that, in some cases they are extinct apes, and in some cases they are human beings. Sinanthropus, whose skulls have been found in China, is a case in point. What is this Sinanthropus? Clearly, he is a human being, probably one of the early settlers in China after the dispersion at Babel. He did not live two million years ago, which is an inconceivable amount of time. All over the world, recorded human history begins no earlier than about 2,400 B.C., which is the approximate date of the Flood. The radiometric dating methods that are used to get ages of a million or a billion years are based on untestable and unprovable assumptions, as the scientists who believe in them will admit themselves. (As an indication of hypothetical nature of these methods, rocks known to have been formed in volcanic eruptions within the last 200 years have yielded radiometric dates of up to 3.5 billion years.)

Many secular and even evolutionist scientists today say that the distinction between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens (human beings) is an artificial one: Homo erectus, including Sinanthropus, is nothing else than a human being. This claim has been made by paleoanthropologists both in the West and in China (such as Wu Xin Zhi at the Institute of Paleoanthropology in Beijing).

Chinese Dragons

Another question arises: If, as we believe from the Biblical account, the earth is only several thousands and not billions of years old, and if Adam lived only two or three thousand years before the first Chinese dynasty, then how do we account for the dinosaurs, which supposedly became extinct seventy million years before the first man appeared on earth?

This is a very fascinating subject to discuss, especially in relation to China. What about dinosaurs? Were there dinosaurs in China? The Censer Dragons, of course, are depicted everywhere in Chinese culture. But these are only legendary creatures, some will say. No, not at all. Later depictions of dragons, to be sure, contained fanciful elements, because they were drawn by people who did not see dragons themselves but had only heard about them from others or from historical sources. But dragons did live contemporaneously with humans in the history of ancient China. Dragons are written about in ancient Chinese annals, and not as imaginary creatures, but as real live animals. It is known from Chinese history that certain parts and fluids of dragons were used for medicines. And one historical account even mentions a Chinese family that bred dragons to be used to pull the Royal Chariot during Imperial processions!

What the ancient Chinese wrote about dragons fits in with what ancient people all over the world had to say about them. In all the ancient cultures of the world, people wrote about seeing dragons or killing dragons. They painted pictures of them or, in the case of some Central American cultures, made statues of them. Many of the historical descriptions and depictions of dragons match precisely with the physical features of known dinosaurs such as Triceratops or Tyrannosaurus Rex. They were not called dinosaurs then, because the word “dinosaur” was not invented until 1841 (by the way, it was invented by a Christian scientist who believed the Biblical account of origins).

When the army of Alexander the Great (356- 323 B.C.) went through India, they went to see a dragon living in a cave, which the Indians worshiped as a god, bringing it sacrificial food. This is only one of many historical accounts of dragons from places in the world other than China. One of the Holy Fathers of the Church, St. John Damascene (A. D. 674- 750), wrote of dragons as actual creatures that still existed in his time in small numbers. When people with an evolutionary frame of mind read of such things, they automatically think of them as legends. But it is very hard to explain why peoples from all over the world have spoken of dragons as real, living creatures. From these accounts from all over the world, we know that some dinosaurs went onto the Ark with Noah (probably as babies). There is much evidence that, after the Flood, the climate and conditions of the earth became harsher; and thus the dinosaurs had a more difficult time surviving (hence Alexander the Great’s army saw one living in a cave). They did spread all over the earth, since people from China to South America tell of seeing them. But they were much more rare than other creatures, and they eventually died out due to the new conditions of earth and also, undoubtedly, to the fact that people killed them because they saw them as a threat.

To the ancient Chinese, dinosaurs or dragons were a symbol of power. It was natural that they would be fascinated with them and make them such a frequent subject of their art, because of all the land creatures that ever lived, what was greater and more powerful than a dinosaur?

In the book of Job, chapter 40, God calls Job’s attention to his greatness by reminding him that He created the great and powerful creatures of the earth. And the land creature that God mentions is the behemoth, which has a tail like a cedar tree. The Biblical description of the behemoth matches no other creature than a sauropod dinosaur. Not only Chinese history, but even Chinese sayings and the Chinese lunar calendar, make it clear that the Chinese have traditionally regarded dragons as real creatures.

Here’s an interesting story, which indicates that a few winged dinosaurs may have survived in China into relatively recent times. At the end of the 19th century, a Russian Orthodox saint named St. Barsanuphius was stationed in Manchuria to pastor the Russian soldiers during the Russian Japanese War. From there he wrote in his journal: “I happened to hear from soldiers that stand at the posts at the Hantaza station, forty miles from Mullin, that two years ago they often saw an enormous winged dragon creep out from one of the mountain caves. It terrified them, and would again conceal itself in the depths of the cave. They have not seen it since that time, but this proves that the tales of the Chinese and Japanese about the existence of dragons are not at all fantasies or fables, although the learned European naturalists, and ours along with them, deny the existence of these monsters. But after all, anything can be denied, simply because it does not measure up to our understanding.”

As mentioned earlier, the Chinese people are one of the most tradition- conscious and history- conscious peoples. So it should not be surprising that they, of all peoples, should be the ones to have retained such a strong cultural memory of dinosaurs. Their records showing that dinosaurs lived alongside man, and not in an “age of dinosaurs” ending 70 million years earlier, further supports the Biblical account of the world’s history.

When the world was inhabited by people groups coming out of Babel, some groups retained more awareness of the original religion Adam and Noah, and some retained less awareness. The Chinese, as we have seen, retained more than most other cultures. They have retained it up until modern times in the Imperial Border Sacrifice. Also, with the great value they place on history, they have preserved a knowledge of their own past which matches in its essentials the history of the world which is given in the Holy Bible.