Asteroid might not be the dino-killer afterall

[slartie]

I've heard of that - as a theory towards what brought the end to the Roman Empire and brought on the Dark Ages.

Nah, the Romans failed because of poor management. They lost a series of strategic hot spots in the east (Turkey/Greece or some such I think) and were instead focusing on what might or might not happen with Attila the Hun.

There's a terrific documentary with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) where the fall of the Roman empire is covered in great detail. Looking at it today, it seems astounding that the empire was even able to last as long as it did.

[Gauntlet]

I've heard of that - as a theory towards what brought the end to the Roman Empire and brought on the Dark Ages.

Nah, the Romans failed because of poor management. They lost a series of strategic hot spots in the east (Turkey/Greece or some such I think) and were instead focusing on what might or might not happen with Attila the Hun.

There's a terrific documentary with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) where the fall of the Roman empire is covered in great detail. Looking at it today, it seems astounding that the empire was even able to last as long as it did.

The Roman Empire was a victim of its own success, was it not?

[nebula]

How is the human race a more suitable replacement?

Humans were made in the image of God. That is what makes us different.

You should know this.

Humans are a fallen race despite having been made in God's image. I don't think this is a cynical view. It's realistic view. The Passion of Jesus illustrated with brutal clarity just how fallen we really are.

Ah - but is there evidence that God came down in the form of any animal to redeem them?

[nebula]

I've heard of that - as a theory towards what brought the end to the Roman Empire and brought on the Dark Ages.

Nah, the Romans failed because of poor management. They lost a series of strategic hot spots in the east (Turkey/Greece or some such I think) and were instead focusing on what might or might not happen with Attila the Hun.

There's a terrific documentary with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) where the fall of the Roman empire is covered in great detail. Looking at it today, it seems astounding that the empire was even able to last as long as it did.

Yes, I'm familiar with this perspective. I don't believe the fall of the Roman Empire had any one single factor.

But, if you take a crumbling empire and add in a major natural disaster, one that has devastating affects on food production, what do you have left?

Rome could remain in power as some political entity so long as a more powerful army did not overcome it - the way Babylon, the Medo-Persians, and the Greeks were. This is one difference between the fall of Rome and the fall of other empires - it wasn't replaced by anything (unless you consider the Roman Catholic Church - but that's a different kind of entity). Instead, all technological advancement came to a standstill, history went pretty blank, the whole works.

So it's not so much the fall of Rome so much as "the entering of the Dark Ages." If food production is devastated, the intellectuals and the soldiers and everybody else that keeps a society rolling are down in the gutters with "the common folk" trying to find and produce food. Thus there is a lack of scholarship, innovation, recorded history, the whole works seen after this time.

Make more sense what I mean?

[Gauntlet]

How is the human race a more suitable replacement?

Humans were made in the image of God. That is what makes us different.

You should know this.

Humans are a fallen race despite having been made in God's image. I don't think this is a cynical view. It's realistic view. The Passion of Jesus illustrated with brutal clarity just how fallen we really are.

Ah - but is there evidence that God came down in the form of any animal to redeem them?

No, the whole of our faith hinges on the idea of God-as-Man.

Imagine an infinite and eternal God shrinking Himself down, humbling HImself, compacting Himself so that He would fit inside a suit of human flesh and bone ... the infinite making Himself finite.

[nebula]

Not understanding what you are arguing here, Gauntlet.

[Gauntlet]

Not understanding what you are arguing here, Gauntlet.

I'm not arguing anything. I'm making a statement.

[Dog House Bill]

Here is my "Theory" on the subject: Multiple actions. based on what these science channels have been spouting off, I am getting the idea that there was a mass cataclysmic episode involving crashing Asteroids, Super-Volcanoes erupting, and moving tectonic plates occurring at approximately the same time. One Asteroid could not cause the necessary blockage of the sun to occur on both the Northern AND the Southern Hemispheres. The upper Jet stream would prevent the debris cloud from venturing south of the impact latitude. Therefore, a multiple event is more plausible which has occurred on both hemispheres.

Then there is the real truth, the Dinos were killed off in the flood described in Genesis. so much for evolutionary fables.

[MorningGlory]

So can I assume that the "soul" is not the reason for the presence of evil?

Why? Animals are incapable of evil and they don't possess souls. Only man is the target of satan's plan.

Oops. I think you've made a boo-boo, MorningGlory. Chimps, like humans, work to extend their territory. Males go out on raiding parties and kill chimps of other clans that they find alone and unprotected. They also commit murder within the clan to gain power. There is actually a lot more to these types of attacks than I have told you here. Researchers studying chimps in the wild claim to see the same kind of social manouvering for power and control that is fequently observered in human societies. Chimps form complex alliances and exhibit very human like manouvering in their power struggles -- including murder (I am not talking about Bonobos here, their social structure is quite different).

Animals don't commit 'murder'; their killing is aimed at survival of the species. People kill because of jealousy, greed, hate. control or even religion. Not the same thing. Animals are not capable of hate.