Wow, I thought I was providing an example of energy to mass, not explaining the universe LOL

Have you ever seen lead or gold?

Fusion reactions (like those that power the sun and H-bombs) up to iron are exothermic – they release energy. Elements higher on the periodic table can only be created in endothermic fusions – those that consume energy. Supernova explosions drive the creation of those elements, mainly.

Also, high-energy photons (energy) can and do decay spontaneously into electron-positron pairs (matter). Such pairs of particles are randomly created and destroyed all the time by the so-called zero-point energy - the potential energy in the very fabric of vacuum space. This is the "quantum foam" I referred to earlier. A big-enough random fluctuation of this foam could create an endless number of universes without the mind of any deity driving the process.



Well, indeed, I’d like to study the god-thingy directly, but that is apparently not possible, given that the god-thingy doesn’t exist in the physical world in any measurable way. Because I don’t have direct access to the god-thingy, I am forced to scavenge clues about the god-thingy from other sources that I will call “books”.


The first “book” is the Book of Scripture – in the case of the xian god-thingy, the bible. It is so riddled with contradictions, unlikelihoods and impossibilities that it has little scientific value to one honestly seeking to understand the god-thingy. I could go into great, long and exquisite detail here but unless someone asks for it I’ll avoid that for now, as many would find that too painful and faith-shattering to bear. The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible is a good place to start, if one is interested in more.

In addition to the logic problems, the actual text of the bible paints a picture of a god-thingy that hates families (for example, see Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” – Jesus - and I know of at least 2 dozen other examples of familial hatred in the Gospels alone, all from Jesus himself, with no real counter-examples), hates homosexuals, hates women, and hates people like me who doubt that this fine fellow is worthy of my obedience (Luke 19:27 – “But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.” - Jesus)


As the second “book” of the god-thingy, I look to the Book of the Actions and Thoughts of those who profess to believe in the god-thingy. Again, great detail is possible here, but after all the accounts of misbehaving priests, religious wars, and religious groups trying to deny health care to AIDS patients, let us just say that I am unconvinced that a human belief in the god-thingy is a positive thing for humanity.

The thing that gets me the most, though, is not the very public misdeeds of xians, but rather the day-to-day actions of the xians around me – which seem to bear no relation at all to the actual teachings of their faith. Two conservative xian women I know have hobbies of banging married men, but both say they would NEVER date an Atheist, because “it just wouldn’t work.” One conservative xian man refuses to give to charity, because “being poor is God’s punishment for sin.” Despite their shining examples, I doubt that the xian faith is right for me, or anyone, for that matter.


As the third “book” of the god-thingy, I look to the Book of Nature. Nature seems to do just fine without the god-thingy, and adding the god-thingy explains nothing more about Nature than Nature without the god-thingy. Nothing in Nature needs the god-thingy to continue, and the god-thingy never interacts with Nature in any measurable way.


As the fourth “book” of the god-thingy, I look to the Book of Human Progress. Islamic science was the flower and envy of humanity until about the 14th century, when an Imam declared that the learning the Koran was superior to any and all science (which he declared unimportant). Western religions put up a long and losing war of attrition against scientific progress, which has driven the purview of the god-thingy from a daily superstition to the very edges of the observable universe, where still the god-thingy is irrelevant.


As the fifth book of the god-thingy, I’ll Consult the God-Thingy Itself: “Hello there, god-thingy – is it Mr. god-thingy or Ms? Anyway, just wanted to let you know, you are welcome to visit me or even just show me a minor miracle whenever or wherever it may be most convenient for you, and I’ll be HAPPY to change my stance on your non-existence. Anything? ANYTHING?? Come on, god-thingy, it can’t be that tough for an all-powerful being to annul a physical law or two, can it? ANYTHING? ANYTHING?? My toe is tapping, god-thingy. Come on, come on. I’ll write about it, I promise I will. ANYTHING? Nope? Oh, well, you never did make that much difference anyway.”



I’d have to disagree – if the belief in, and worship of, a god-thingy leads to evil things, then what sane, moral person could condone it? If the god-thingy says through his loyal followers that killing and raping children is a good thing, then that god-thingy deserves only contempt, not worship. Until the god-thingy shows his ugly mug and accounts for these crimes, we have only the acts of his followers to judge his moral character by.



Just so. If there were one (or any) god-thingy active in the world now or ever, then there should one and only one religion – why would we have or need any other than the one true one? Yet, there are thousands of distinct religions, most of which are mutually exclusive – and this chaos is exactly what one would expect if there was no uniting divine power behind human religion. Fear leads to chaos, after all.

Shellyf34 – Nope, I haven’t read “The Courage to Be”, but I’ll keep an eye out for it.

I'm personally a catholic. I like to go to church every sunday. I like to give money to the church. However, I keep this at only one corner in my mind. I keep sience at another corner.

I think about religion when I like to be good to others and I think about sience when I like to analyse things around me. I don't use the Bible to know how good or bad low carbohydrate diet is!

Samuel -

I tried hard to partition my thinking like you have, and found I could not - my doubts kept tearing at me until the only way I could be true to my honest self was to abandon religion.

I live in the bible-belt, so this decision was not an easy one. I lost family, friends, lovers, and jobs because of it.

Yet, I would not change my decision. I could not face myself in the mirror in the morning if I had kept up the lie that religion made good sense to me.

I hope you worship and give money in some place where the bishops have been vigilent in policing the behavior of their priests.

Well, If you give me your e-mail address, I maybe able to solve this problem for you. I don't think this website allows us to discuss topics beyond Low Carb dieting.

Hi Samuel,

This site asks you to please not post email addresses. Therefore asking for email addresses is also not permitted. Once you have 25 posts, you and Gotbeer are welcome to continue this discussion by private message, or you are welcome to start another thread in the "Everything Else" forum.

Rosebud

Then we better close this subject. I don't like to discuss this subject further in public. Religion teachs us morality and we cannot live without it. Meanwhile, when someone analyse something with science, We should not complicate things with him.

I don’t think we’ve left the low-carb discussion at all.

The original question was, since low carb diets draw scientific support from the theory of evolution, can a creationist be comfortable with this WOE?

That leads naturally to a discussion of scientific authority vs. religious authority. That naturally leads to a discussion of the presence (or lack thereof) of some god in the real world. Samuel has extended the discussion further, adding a claim of moral authority (and hence, actual utility of religion), which relates back directly to original question.

We don’t always have to focus the minutiae of low-carbing; the larger moral and societal issues related to low-carbing matter as well.

Samuel, the light of reason shines best when discussions are open.

Ok Gotbeer! You get major points for knowing what the original question was. Not that the discussion isn't interesting, it's just gotten way over my head with the physics and stuff.

I guess I just don't have the luxury of separating things the way some folks do. Sometimes I wish I could.

Geez Cori, looks like your thread was hijacked by some gasbaggers!!

Wouldn't ya just love to go out to dinner with these folk???

I adore a thinking person but thinking also, hopefully, means you remember to include THE PERSON WHO STARTED THE FREAKING THREAD

Sheeseh!
Jink

Gosh, I guess I'm lucky I did!

In a way, Cori, you and I are facing the same dilemma: dealing mentally with the contradictions between science and religion.

Because we are rigorously honest with ourselves, we realize that we cannot abide both. In my case, I computed the value of science and the value of religion, and decided to side with science. Your evaluation was different from mine, and hence, you wound up supporting religion. That different people might have different values is not a bad thing - we don't have to think alike to love alike.

Others appear to be able to make mental accommodations that allow both perspectives to co-exist. Those accommodations appear to be fundamentally dishonest to me. They seem to fall below the radar of critical review – “hypocritical”, in other words.

Both science and religion hinge on effective critical reviews: science tests and retests theories; religion, at its best, has us focus on our own sins, the logs in our own eyes.

Someone who lacks this facility – critical review of either data or self – will excel at neither science nor religion.

The long held "scientific" view that eating lots of carbs is good survived only as long as people resisted efforts to review it critically. Once honest scientific studies began to report results, it started to crumble like a stale cracker - and the red-faced hypocrites that had bought into it are choking on the truth.

I love you GotBeer. Will you have my baby?
Jinx

You know, the day may come when men can carry babies. Non-uterine pregnancies via the abdominal wall are not unheard of.

The transplantation of fetuses from women to men will transform many of the social issue debates that burn so brightly today.

I hope I live to see that day come to pass.

Yep gotbeer - that's my dilemna! (why do they spell that word with an n?) Anyhow, I digress.

I can't bring myself to believe wholly in the purely scientific theories of evolution. But I can't reconcile my faith with the things I see to be true. That's not an eating issue, that's just a personal faith issue.

I actually had a "religious" man tell me that the empirical evidences (dinosaur bones, other fossils, much of science) were just fabrications by old lucifer himself. That I definitely can't swallow.

My biggest problem with allowing science to override faith is my sincere belief that most of the basic tenets of Christianity are things that make the world a better place. Unfortunately religion has twisted everything so badly that the truth is rarely seen or spoken.