/sci/ - Science & Math

I'm doing a little independent study of my own on various topics in chemistry. This week I am focusing on electrochemistry, and I hope that I can ask you /sci/entists a few questions. This is NOT homework or any assigned grade.

First question:

Why is water used to balance oxygen atoms in half-reactions rather than just using oxygen ions?

>>2056624
I'm not the one who told you Catholicism = paganism, but I have to agree, and it seems obvious to anyone who wasn't raised on "the bible tells us we're monotheists" bullshit.

Here's how your religion's pantheon breaks down.
You have three head gods, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Ghost.
You have other beings that have become divine, and are worshipable and capable of being prayed to: Mother Mary, saints, etc.
You have a fourth being (that in any non-Judeo/Christian religion would be called a god); the malevolent deity Satan.
You have legions of demi-god like supernatural beings, such as angels and demons.

All that is different between Catholicism and any other pagan religion is the semantics. You have a similar worship structure, you go perform your magical rituals, and then you call yourselves monotheists and pretend you're better than the rest. But it's a false title.

Here's the thing you are missing. That's not the answer many rational people would give as to why they don't believe in god.

Here's my answer. I was not born knowing anything about god. God, as a theory to explain existence, was introduced to me. If you introduce a new theory to me, you must convince me of it. God, as a concept, does not explain much, and tries to explain some things that are much more easily explained by observable phenomena. God's not the simplest solution, and the simplest solution is usually correct.
God, as couched in the terms of any specific religion, conflicts with observable data.

Nobody has given sufficient reason for me to accept the god theory, so I haven't.

The theory that there are atoms explain quite a bit of observable phenomena, there have been no more elegant theories to explain these things, and the theory does not conflict with any data that I'm aware of. Therefore, the theory of atoms are useful and acceptable. If new data came to my attention, for which the theory of atoms sucked and other theories better explained, my belief about atoms could change.

>>1962390
I'm an atheist, and I'm not offended by your comparison. I think there are a vast ocean of differences in the details between religion and science. Fundamentally, however, these are schools of thought where you take certain ideas as given truths (religion: my book is true; science: my senses are true), and develop a cosmology based on what you can conclude from these givens through a logic that is always tainted by subjective interpretation. I think science's objective truth is a lot more likely than the religifairytales, and I think scientists logic tends to be much more objective and rigorous than the clergy... which is why I don't participate in religion... but same fundamental process.

>>1947884
A) There is inherited guilt; read your bible. It's just doesn't work in combination with modern common sense, so Christians tend to ignore it, despite it being all over the bible.

B) God didn't _have_ to do anything, if he is all powerful. He simply could have made us capable of it without his overcoming it, or taken away our inclination toward it.

C) God, again being all powerful and all-knowing, could have helped a bro out and not created a need for us to be that way, but grow the way he wants us to. Did his masterplan need to require a sinful people? Couldn't he figure out a way around that, or was he just not smart enough?

D) Even if we had to be mad this way for some reason, and he did need us to overcome the inclination toward sin for whatever reason... why would he have put us in a world where all rational inquiry and observable data indicates that his story, like a thousand other conflicting god stories, were just a cultural creation of primitive people that has no bearing on reality? Why would he do that? That would be the ultimate epic troll.

E) Reality is that which remains, even if you stop believing in it. If we were to eliminate all of our scientifically acquired knowledge, the laws of the physical universe would remain and rational inquiry would still find them. If all knowledge of Christianity was gone, humanity would do what it's always done and come up with bullshit creation myths that conflict with each other and with empirical data. We'd not guess at the Jesus story again. Hell, Christians of today are so different than Christians of 100 years ago, who are so different than Christians of 1000 years ago, we don't even need to eliminate the knowledge to get rid of this religion. You fuck-ups just create a different religion every time it culturally suits you.

F) I'm with the Hail Prometheus guy. Seems like a better god, and a much more interesting story.

>>1871784
>>we should be focusing on fixing ourselves spiritually

My friend, you're on the wrong board. This is /sci/. If you do not like the advance of technology prior to the perfection of spirit, feel free to join an Amish community. People have been making this argument for many decades, long before the internet was around, so perhaps you should find your way out of 4chan and go fix your spirit, dumbass.

So how could you explain this? smartass

would you be open minded to the idea of me being able to read minds?

no you'd call bullshit and with good reason.

the only reason ppl respect ridiculous, unproven nonsence is because so many hang on the rock that is blind faith. and because we have been doing it for so long

we used religion and the supernatural to explain things we didnt understand, like lightning and such.

but now that we know what everyting is really about, i dont see why we need religion in the first place