Dinosauria and design

I have a lifelong love for dinosaurs - they absolutely fascinate me. The only 'down side' to my passion for them is that it means that I never miss an opportunity to visit a natural history museum. Invariably, when I choose to do so will be a day when many children are there for the same purpose... and to children I have no addiction whatever. Recently, I was quite delighted when a museum staff member let me hold a T. rex's tooth!

I have no gifts for science in the least, but it is amazing what can cause awe for me. (I'll devote other blog entries, I'm sure, to how I felt when viewing the pictures of the planets and their moons, and when I saw the diagram of DNA.) Looking up at those massive skeletons (my favourite is Triceratops), and recalling how these majestic creatures ruled the Earth for millions of years longer than mankind has existed, gives me further awe for the vastness of creation.

I often have thought how thrilling it must have been for the early paleontologists (less than two centuries ago) to have found the first dinosaur fossils. Yet I must smile, knowing that, for everyone who was inspired at the time, there were at least 2 Victorian minds saddened by becoming aware of these monstrosities (sorry, Creator!) :) whose discovery shook up the concept that earth was 6,000 years old - who became extinct, a horrifying thought in the days when it was assumed that God created each species individually, and with the characteristics it needed to survive - and that these animals seemed to have no purpose.

Part of the reason that I love dinosaurs, I suppose, is that they are a reminder of just how little we do know and understand.

On another note (but one related), I saw an embroidered pillow once which read, "Of all the things I've ever lost, I miss my mind the most." I wonder if that was made by another middle-aged scholar? Lord have mercy, do I miss the quickness I once had - the fluency in all the languages a musicologist studies, where, sadly, I barely remember all that much about music now - the analytical sense.... Sigh! I'm hoping I take ever my mother's family, because, if so, I'll have another 40 years ahead of me. I hope that nothing happens to interrupt my resuming my scholarly pursuits - and that, before my ashes are scattered in St James' Park, I have the mental ability that I had a quarter century ago, before I embarked on the (I thought then, temporary) hated years of business management and telecommunications.

In my day, I did love philosophy - but it is difficult resuming this again. (I doubt I actually know more than I did then... in truth, I know less for all I have forgotten.) I was extremely sad this year, because (for reasons I'll not mention here) circumstances prevented my sitting my exams for my divinity degree. I hope to do so next May, and, as a 'head start,' (I normally do two exams - but perhaps next year I'll do three) I've been studying Philosophy of Religion. I'm rather embarrassed - people young enough to be my children probably are having an easier time - and, in my case, I've studied most of this in the past. Yet I do enjoy looking through it all, now that I am at the age that could be the beginning of wisdom. Is any one of the arguments more complex or difficult than 'divine simplicity'? :)

Yet my musing on my beloved dinosaurs led me to smile. Yes, I respect Paley and others for their efforts, but the design argument was never intended to be a science or history text. :) Who (well, besides Hume... but he predated Paley by about 30 years anyway... I suppose Paley just ignored his objections..) would have thought that it would seem a blow to faith to consider that species could become extinct?

I believe that anyone studying theology needs a background in the philosophy of religion. It is valuable training in reason, and, after all, none of the philosophical arguments can do more than, at best, concede that (to use design as an example) a creative intelligence is more likely than not. They certainly cannot prove the existence of a God who has all of the attributes with which Jewish and Christian belief would endow him, much less one who became Incarnate.