dragons: just a thought

[deicruxified]

i have always been a fan of fantasy and myth so i was fascinated by the discovery channel "fictional-documentary" about dragons which was at the same time contested by national geographic. the show made a lot of viewers believe that dragons really did exist...

of course i'm not part of them... but the thought that have always been bugging me is that how ancient myths have an idea of one reptile that flies/swims & spits fire? i was thinking of oral traditions as a possibility but i was als considering geography as a hindrance for peddlers and bards to cross borders.

what do you think?

[banzai]

Either way, I hope so... because dragons are badass.

[rwyatt365]

I saw that documentary and really liked it. It was well done and I can see where someone might start to believe in dragons because of it.

To your point, might there be some plausible "root cause" for dragon-myths around the world? Well…suspend disbelief for a moment and consider whether some large, flying, reptile-like creature could be that root cause; a large pterodactyl that survived into human pre-history? All it would take is for that creature to be "imprinted" on the human psyche in some manner for the "myth" to take hold and flourish for so long. We all now that people have a long history of embellishing stories, so a flying creature with bad breath could easily become a fire-breathing dragon.

As a species, we've made up wilder stories!

[ShaiGar]

God for instance.

[AnandaMeansBliss]

Have any of you read The Cosmic Serpent and the Origins of DNA by Jeremy Narby? This issue is addressed in the book. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[Duncan Cade]

I actually have a 150 page book about dragons, written by Peter Dickinson.
This dude really BELIEVES dragons háve existed, and he has arguments on every thinkable aspect. While reading, I couldn't come up with any counter because he was simply right about everything. Details, the big picture, it just all fitted.

It still wasn't enough to convince me though.

[deicruxified]

God for instance.

i was thinking about it a while ago as a parallelism. hahaha

[OneBadMother]

Well, they did discover dinosaur bones, if not a living dinosaur. :P Not every culture has flying dragons either. The European vision of the dragon may well have been derived from the Chinese version.

[Blacklustre King]

My only response concerning this subject is a flaw in the natural process of our planets food chain.

Humans have no natural predators, nothing that is openly stronger or smarter that can keep their populations in check and thus they spin wildly out of control. A better question did humans ever have a natural predatory and eliminate it, did that predator just adapt to a changing world and become symbiotic, or has a predator of humanity yet to make its appearance?

Dragons as far as legend goes should be powerful and intelligent enough to control human population either through war or predation. However one can also say by eliminating humanities predator(s) it ultimately weakens an extremely adaptable species. Without something to cull their populations Humanity reaches a static point in evolution. Say we lived in a world where there were beings able to hunt and kill humans effectively without succumbing to our weapons and strategies, it would drive humans to evolve faster and faster, perhaps pushing the evolution of their predator as well until finally you have a planet divided by two near super races constantly at war.

In any event the idea of dragons is at the very least a sensible one.

[Tsuru]

of course i'm not part of them... but the thought that have always been bugging me is that how ancient myths have an idea of one reptile that flies/swims & spits fire? i was thinking of oral traditions as a possibility but i was als considering geography as a hindrance for peddlers and bards to cross borders.

what do you think?

I have a pet theory that dragon myths came about from ancient people finding fossilized dinosaur remains. It's fun to think about. ^^

[Tarrick]

I have a pet theory that dragon myths came about from ancient people finding fossilized dinosaur remains. It's fun to think about. ^^

Why not live ones? :)

[Sylvanus]

I have a pet theory that dragon myths came about from ancient people finding fossilized dinosaur remains. It's fun to think about. ^^

I saw something on THC or Discovery or something and I don't even remember what it was about (probably dinosaurs or dragons). There was a point where they were in China talking to an old man who was a "healer" and he used ground up "dragon bones". He showed the archeologists where he found the bones, and it turns out they were really dinosaur bones. But no manner of 21st century knowledge would convince this old man that these were dinosaurs. He was absolutely convinced they were from dragons.

[Nadrigol]

Dragons are gods. No other way to say it. well... except "urathear darastrix"... if anyone actually gets that we should probably be hanging out more...