wow 17, you look so strong in your shirtless picture. I bet you get yourself hundreds of fml ladies everyday.

We're here, we just don't see the point in presenting arguments on FML, where they gain no ground whatsoever.

You mean you don't see the point of presenting ludicrous arguments which have been soundly debunked repeatedly? Right, I thought so.

And all matter existing in one minuscule area, only to explode outward with seemingly no trigger is so much more logical. A geological dating system half based on assumptions and with highly varied results is great grounds for disproving a written account of history which no scientist has ever been able to concretely disprove.

This is getting intense

Green bean- don't even tell me you believe that 5000 year crap...

greenie213 is right, Doc (in his first reply, anyway). People on FML arguing about religion (and, based off of the spat yesterday, politics) is the equivalent of preschoolers in a sandbox kicking sand at one another, hoping one side will eventually give up. Since it appears none of us are mature enough to express our opinions without lashing out or calling names (yes, I'm guilty too), I politely ask the mods to either automatically close the comment section on any religious/political FML, or avoid publishing them altogether.

Why does that seem like a gigantic logical fallacy to me? I was pretty sure the burden of proof rested solely upon those making said claims. "But, but, but... you can't DEFINITIVELY PROVE unicorns AREN'T real. So we must add them to the endangered species registry and teach magic creature biology as a second option to 'conventional biology'!" I'd love to see that argument presented in a court. While I am religious, I am not an idiot. Creationism is a silly belief for silly people. I usually just go with 'guided evolution'. Everyone seems a lot happier with, "Of course science is correct, but I reserve the right to believe my God may or may not have had a hand in it."

77-Yes, I do believe in that 5000 year "crap", and I'm proud of it.( By the way it's 6000 years. Not that it matters.) And I wasn't going to argue my beliefs here. But when Doc showed he had no respect for my beliefs, I lost respect for his.

Anyone who takes the bible literally or as a written account of history just show's blind faith. The epic of Gilgamesh is older then your bible does that make it true? You don't need a scientist to disprove something that common since should already have. Although some stories may be based off of actual accounts majority of them are exaggerated because history is boring enough but throw god and a talking snake and a talking tree and a virgin mother in to the mix and you got yourself a cult billions strong and thousands of years in the making. It's true because its in a book!

Dangit. I'm on my brother's account. ( This is Greenie by the way). Just pretend 84 says Greenie213.

Lifeguardlarry/Greenie - If you'd like to believe in something completely ridiculous, that's your right, and I support your ability to have it wholeheartedly. However, I never even implied that I don't respect you or your opinion on this. All I did was state my own. I don't agree with your position, but that doesn't imply a lack of respect for your ability to hold it. I only see one person who is showing a lack of respect. Go back and reread my comments - I haven't insulted anyone (surprising, isn't it?), I haven't called creationists idiots, etc. I was sarcastic, sure, but that's not disrespectful.

84- Doc didn't seem to be disrespectful. Just funny. It seems to me he was pointing out the insanity of demanding creationism be the ONLY theory taught. Religion always demands its fair shake but refuses science anything. Not fair, you know?

You don't gain ground anywhere else either, so why is that stopping you here? Anyway, point is if you apply geologic science it gives you clues where to find valuable materials and the like. If you go with the "somebody put it in the ground somewhere" theory, you have to go and dig randomly. All the big oil companies choose to hire geologists. So do the mining companies. That's generally the benefit of having the correct theory: it enables us to make correct predictions. In case of evolution it allows us to generate a coherent taxonomy, and helps us to understand diseases and adaptation to pesticides. With ID theory we get no benefit at all.

I didn't mean to post so much, but 94 made a point that made me smile and I had to let them know. Evolution saves lives.

Wait a minute. Religion is unfairly taught? Science isn't? The only thing taught in schools is science. If I pray in school out loud, I get sent home. You can't tell me religion is unfairly taught when it's a punishable offense to teach it in public school! And Doc. When you call my creationist views ludicrous, I find that disrespectful.

98- I'm sorry. Perhaps I wasn't clear in conveying what I meant to say. It is unfair that the more extreme creationists demand their theory be the only theory taught and become irrationally angry when they see someone teaching the opposite. I'm religious myself and agree that personal displays of religion in schools should be protected, but it should also never be forced on anyone. Religion is a life-altering choice, not a tradition.

98 - I'm pretty sure in most schools you're allowed to pray out loud. To send you home is discrimination and, I imagine, illegal. Maybe you have experienced things being taught unfairly but I don't think that's the usual experience. Where I come from Religious Studies is part of the curriculum - you aren't allowed to not teach it.

108- This is how the Flying Spaghetti Monster got started, you know...

No he isn't! I saw him last night! BLASPHEMY!! I cry BLASPHEMY, I say!

We all have different beliefs. None should be shamed because it's not the same as ours. And we shouldn't judge them for being different.

Pfff, yeah, what a-- Wait, what was that!? I saw Goody Sirin flying Past my house! Witchery! Goody Sirin is a WITCH! Sacrifice her to the almighty Shoe Shop!

Unicorns may be fantasy...but damnit, I want to take magical creature biology...you could never have a wrong answer on a quiz.

Sorry, that was directed at 79. Hadn't scrolled through all the replies.

63 Big bang and Evolution are not the same thing and the biggest hole in creationism is that if we're all descended from 1 man and 1 woman who had 2 boys that would be an extremely limited and very unhealthy gene pool we would not have survived even 500 years with that. Not to mention Carbon dating pokes giant holes in the 6000 years theory so does oil, diamonds and every other substance created buy pressure and time .

Actually, unicorns may actually have been a historical creature. A horned horse is entirely possible, from an evolutionary standpoint. Griffins I still question.

Science solves problems. Religion creates problems. See what I did there?

Since we don't have the option... Her are many Thumbs Up for You!

"unicorns may actually have been a historical creature." Not that its ontopic, but I've heard that the mythical unicorn is based on rhinoceros. Adventurers described it and storytellers made it a bit fancier (an elegant, white horse instead of a fat, grey thing).

Doc, what's in this latest picture of yours? What happened to this guy/girl's head?

^Read the blog to get the answer.

I'm surprised that you people forgot how Doc likes to comment on FML. Typically tongue-in-cheek. But, on some questions of medical query, Doc does answer with some seriousness.

Greenie this geological dating you claim is controversial is based on radioactive half-life which is extraordinarily stable in the time it takes to decay. The only variance you see is the margin error, and +- 1 million years for a 200m year old sample is more than enough to say earth is only 6000 years old. You should try researching from real sources rather than propaganda.

208- Kind of like how I once read in a Baptist published comic pamphlet that 'there is only enough carbon in the whole world to date back to six thousand years'. At the tender age of ten, I may have been the first to say, "what the actual, skulduggering ****?"

Do they? That'd be awesome.

Ah, the username of the OP... just noticed it. lulz.

I'm guessing the username came from OP's latest death threat calling him/her a "satanworshiper."

Evolution pretty much says god doesn't exist

Ugh. Even in the time I still was a christian, I didn't understand how every other christian I knew was so against evolution. As a twelve year old, I simply thought evolution was a fact and that God started it. Deism, isn't it? Anyway, believing in evolution doesn't mean you can't believe in some divine being.

According to the "Bible" planet Earth is 6000 years old. So. . . What am I to believe when "science" says otherwise?

According to the Bible Adam was 1000 years old. By which I want to say that it's not smart to interpret that book as being 100% accurate - a thing that some religious people sadly still do. Read the Book, enjoy the stories and keep using your brain, that's my humble advice.

Most people I know take the '7 days' to symbolize seven periods of time passing. Even if you think the Bible should be taken completely literally it's still possible that's what was meant as the situation is God attempting to convey time to humans (who make their own assumptions and pass it on to others until someone finally puts pen to paper), before time even really existed (days are based on day and night which didn't exist until God created them so how do we know how long they took to be created?). In any case, why do you think people refer to 'creationists' as their own little section of crazy? Because the majority of Christians don't actually think that way.

That is not true, you can see God's hand in evolution. Earth creation in 7 days can be a metaphor for millions of years. It's silly to take religious books literally. They are so vague, there is lots of room for interpretation.

30: No, it doesn't.

The police would be the best option. Death threats are still illegal as all hell, you know. By the way, I know quite a few religious men and women of science. Instead of wasting all of their time trying to disprove facts, they choose to see 'God' in everything they study.

For the record, I do believe in God (call him/her Allah, if you want, makes no difference to me) I've never understood the 6000 year thing. Nowhere in the bible does it actually say how old the earth is/was. This is bible scholars trying to piece things together from gleaning things about the age of various people and such. Their analysis could be wrong. The Bible was not a CONTINUOUS historical record, which is the only way you could use it to figure out how old anything is.

It's your opinion that it's the best theory of how we came to be, but I think it's sad that people send death threats to someone whose job is to reach evolution. I think you forgot that option and it's even the true one

Maybe we come up with a whole different theory in hundred years, but for now, evolution IS the best scientific theory to explain life on earth. And yes, it's his/her job to teach evolution, but it's more than just a job. Someone who teaches evolution (like myself) has to believe in it with heart and soul, otherwise it has no point.

There used to be many different hypothesis why species have developed differently in different parts of the planet, e.g. why species develop over time e.g. from something really tiny into something as big as a horse. There were ideas e.g. that individuals would pass on things they've learned during their life via their blood to their descendants. An alternative theory was that they pass on their genetic information without such improvement, but only the best-adapted individuals would live long enough to do so. That's basically the "survival of the fittest" hypothesis. Through experiments and observation we have disproved most of these hypotheses, what's left is the theory of evolution and hypotheses which can't be dis-proven because they don't make any verifiable claims. The best theory in science is the one which explains the biggest amount of the observations (ideally all) and is the least complicated which does that. So there is no scientific controversy that evolution is the best theory available to explain what we see. Everything else is either verify-ably not correct or fails to explain the observations.

103- replace science by god in your text and it makes as much sense. Also, there are a lot of facts (provable facts, such as the expansion of the universe) that support the big-bang theory. There is no such proof for the existence of a superior being. Also, I would just like to say that people who believe in the existence of a single god are about as atheist as I am since they say that the thousands of other gods who have supposedly existed are in fact.simple fictions. That is how short sighted religion is.

Evolution does make verifiable claims that can and have been proven, both in direct observation (by Darwin him self as well) and in the fossil record. Evolution is a theory like Gravity is a theory.

We can even see the mark of evolution in our cells! E.g. The endosymbiosis theory: prokaryotic cells evolved into eukaryotic cells over time. Structures such as the mitochondria and chloroplasts in plant cells were originally prokaryotes which started living in endosymbiosis with other cells. (endosymbiosis: when one organism lives inside the other in a symbiotic relationship) its pretty awesome actually, the evidence of evolution is everywhere.