I always like it when the professional crazies weigh in.

  • Infynis@midwest.social
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    5 months ago

    I mean, yeah, this did happen. People hundreds of years ago found scary-looking bones, and imagined what they could be from. Dinosaur translates to basically Terror Lizard for a reason. That doesn’t mean that they were dragons though lmao

  • Murvel@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Lmfao, well yes, it’s indeed very likely that people of ancient times have found dinasour bones and assumed it to be of a since long gone mystical creature such as a dragon.

    There is nothing remotely insane about the assumption. It’s, in fact, highly probable.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      There are also a number of large lizards - komodo dragons and other variations of monitor lizards, alligators and crocodiles, pythons and other large snakes, and the various members of the iguana family - that have visual characteristics of mythologized dragons. Add in the human propensity to exaggerate and you end up with a series of increasingly dramatic artistic reinterpretations of a real animal.

    • NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      ??

      What’s insane about that assumption? People had very limited information in the past. You see this, you think giant vicious fierce carnivore. You see this or this, you think giant one-eyed human.

      And those are the skulls of hippos and elephants. What would you imagine when you see this then?

  • then_three_more@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Well, yes. You find a sharp tooth that’s as long as someone’s finger you’re going to make up some kind of creature for it to have come from.

    • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Okay, yes. But also: dragons originated from pre-radiation Africa. Every culture has it because they all had distant contact with that one.

      Iirc, it’s thought that the original dragon was a flying feathered serpent and also a storm god.

      Edit: sorry I was falling asleep and high while writing this.

      Edit2: okay, I’m sober and awake now, so I guess I should revise my statement a bit. It is my amateur understanding, as a nerd who is not in any way a scholar of mythology, that there is a theory for the origin of mythological creatures known as dragons. I cannot attest to how well-founded this model is, but I believe it goes as such: a human culture, in Africa, existed prior to homosapiens leaving the continent. This culture is believed to have had storm deity that was a feathered serpent, and that deity was the basis of all dragon myths held by cultures that left the continent and the descendants thereof.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I hate that people act like we just discovered dinosaurs and dragons can’t be related. The bones have been there longer than we.

  • BougieBirdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    When I was a kid I got this book from a garage sale. It was really neat, the illustrations were fire, and the author presents a theory on how dragons could have existed despite there being no physical evidence for them.

    The gist is that dragons were actual creatures that were hunted to extinction in the iron age. But over the years the accounts turned to myth, and the mythological dragon is quite different from an actual dragon: essentially a hydrogen blimp with toxic blood that melts its bones shortly after it dies.

    However, even as an eight-year-old I knew this was just a thought exercise. And as much as I think dragons are neat and would have liked to drink the koolaid, I guess I just don’t have what it takes to be a professional crazy.

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Yes and dragon hunters had to be in peak physical condition which is why they often trained with kettlebells that had pictures of dragons on them as seen here.

  • xep@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    As a child I often did wish for dragons to be real, so I think I can understand the feeling.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      I see what you’re saying, but I have this very generous interpretation of a vague passage in the bible that says otherwise.

        • yrnttm@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I don’t think their are any contradictions on the leviathan and it gets a whole chapter in job 41.

            • yrnttm@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I’ve heard that before. Maybe it was artistic language but they talk about smoke and fire coming from its mouth, not something crocodiles are know for.

              Lol The leviathan and the behemoth mentions in Job were probably my favorite parts of the Bible growing up. When I was bored at church as a kid I would reread them from the pew Bible.