Water cannot be transformed into good wine

[Spock]

Without actually quoting all of you, here is the answer to all of your criticisms. Many believers assert that God is also the author of the laws of logic, and not just the author of the laws of nature. As such God is supposed to be able to violate all the laws he created, and thus your objections are null and void. If God is not the author of the laws of logic, in other words, the laws of logic are binding on God, then the laws of logic are superior to God. No matter which one you choose you are in an uncomfortable position.

The speed of light is a physical constraint, just like a temperature of absolute zero. Can God create a carbon atom where the atomic mass is different from “6”? The answer is again: no - since it would not be a carbon atom any more. Any “miracle” would violate the law of identity, which is just as inviolable as the law of non-contradiction. If God could violate the law of identity, he could also violate the law of non-contradiction.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Why not? Is he afraid? Impossible. He can pass any test I can devise.

Simple. There are no miracles. Show me a properly conducted, double blind experiment which results in a “miracle”. Better yet, show it to the James Randi Foundation, and you can win one million dollars.

Well, I am. If God can pass the test, that is all fine and dandy. If he keeps playing “shy”, it is no skin off my nose. You believers say that God “wishes everyone to be saved”, and to get saved it is necessary to submit to him and to worship him. But that is impossible if I cannot be absolutely assured that God exists. Obviously God does not “really” wish that I would be saved. If he really wished it, he could provide me with the necessary evidence. You see, you guys and gals painted yourself into a very tight corner.

No, we didn’t, and neither did God.

You only ASSUME that it is impossible to submit to a God that you are not ‘absolutely assured’ exists. Millions, billions of people have done so, many of whom certainly far exceed me in intellectual brilliance and some who probably even put you to shame, Spock. . .so it is not IMPOSSIBLE to submit to God even if you, personally, on lord knows what criteria you will ‘accept’ as absolute assurance of existance, think He hasn’t sufficiently proven Himself to YOU even though you ‘outgrew’ Him.

Your personal assumption that you CANNOT submit to what you are not assured of is itself flawed. You could more accurately say that you WILL not submit. . .and yes, as I am just now reading in Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth (check pages 35-40), the current ‘view’ which demands the kind of fundamental ‘proofs’ and ‘reason’ and presumes to set oneself ‘above’ God and demand HE prove Himself to His creation, demonstrates this.

Why did you come to a view that puts God ‘in the dock’ to humanity, BTW? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

 

[greylorn]

My, probably wrong, understanding of absolute zero is that the particles should stop vibrating at that point. And once they stop vibrating it is no longer possible to measure any further decrease in temperature - because what do you measure when the vibrating particles stop vibrating. So I think its a logical problem more than a physical one.
Physicists can start laughing now at my explanation.

You’ve not written anything laughable. Your comment is well considered.

The interpretation of the Third Law of Thermodynamics is often explained in terms of particle behavior, but was derived from what are essentially analog, rather than digital principles. It applies to non-material forms of energy.

Your application involves its application to matter, and is something I’ve wondered about as well. Do electrons stop orbiting a nucleus at 0 Kelvin? If that happened, they would (seems to me) collapse into the nucleus, where the negatively charged electrons would annihilate the positively charged quarks within protons, and considerable energy would be released. I do not believe that anyone knows what would happen, but since 0 Kelvin cannot be reached, does anyone care?

The issue reduces to another version of, How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The Third Law of Thermodynamics is actually a very subtle principle with deep theological implications, and as such is far more than a conventional physical constraint and boundary condition.

 

[Abba]

Spock I am going to respond to your post above later.

For now, I wish to address the point with you of the value of scientific knowledge which, of course, connects back to the OP.

Why limit the knowledge human beings can obtain about themselves and the universe and existence to the scientific method? Why do that? I studied a little bit of anthropology and linguistics and I was very impressed to learn that the Aborigines of Java do not think linearly like we do, neither did some tribe of the native American Indians. The Indians thought dimensional and the aborigines thought/think in the present versus like us; past, present and future. Pretty extraordinary, right? Are there other ways of thinking and knowing?

Also, consider the knowledge of the Egyptians and the Mayans. Did you know that when the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered a lot of people died that entered the tomb. Through history people passed down the belief of the curse of the tomb of Tutankhamen which went that whoever enters it will die and the Egyptians developed it even further to add that Egypt would sink to the sea. Upon it’s discovery and when people started dying the Egyptians wanted to close and recalled the curse.

Well, it took a while for scientist (like from Yale University) to figure out what was going on. Spock, those ancient Egyptians had come to know of a microscopic bacteria that would go dormant for thousand of years without oxygen and upon being exposed to oxygen and being harmful to humans would kill the human being. Pretty extraordinary…and without modern science. Are there other ways of learning such a thing without a microscope?

I leave you with a comment of Pope Benedict XVI. You may not accept him as the Vicar of Christ on earth, but, you have to reckon with him as one of the top intellectuals of our time.

Pope Benedict XVI:

In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: “It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss”.[13] The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...vi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

 

[greylorn]

Without actually quoting all of you, here is the answer to all of your criticisms. Many believers assert that God is also the author of the laws of logic, and not just the author of the laws of nature. As such God is supposed to be able to violate all the laws he created, and thus your objections are null and void. If God is not the author of the laws of logic, in other words, the laws of logic are binding on God, then the laws of logic are superior to God. No matter which one you choose you are in an uncomfortable position.

The speed of light is a physical constraint, just like a temperature of absolute zero. Can God create a carbon atom where the atomic mass is different from “6”? The answer is again: no - since it would not be a carbon atom any more. Any “miracle” would violate the law of identity, which is just as inviolable as the law of non-contradiction. If God could violate the law of identity, he could also violate the law of non-contradiction.

I regard the principles of logic and mathematics to be not “superior” to, but independent of a Creator. In a null universe in which nothing whatsoever existed, the principles of math and logic would still be valid. However, in the absence of entropy violators to discover them, these pure abstractions would remain undiscovered.

Secondly, your example is poorly chosen. You forgot about Carbon-14 and other shorter-lived isotopes wherein the normal 6-proton, 6-neutron Carbon-12 nucleus gets a few extra neutrons, thus increasing its atomic mass.

I realize that this objection is irrelevant to your point, which could be better made via another physical analogy, but is valid nonetheless. I figure, no sense giving the nits something else to pick on.

 

[Spock]

You only ASSUME that it is impossible to submit to a God that you are not ‘absolutely assured’ exists. Millions, billions of people have done so, many of whom certainly far exceed me in intellectual brilliance and some who probably even put you to shame, Spock. . .so it is not IMPOSSIBLE to submit to God even if you, personally, on lord knows what criteria you will ‘accept’ as absolute assurance of existance, think He hasn’t sufficiently proven Himself to YOU even though you ‘outgrew’ Him.

I am not responsible for the behavior of those “billions” of people. I was serious when I said it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to submit to an “alleged” God, just like it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to sumbit to an alleged “leprechaun” and his supposed “wishes”. Even if I were absolutely assured that God exists, I would not be forced to submit to him. Let’s be precise, the absolute assurance about God’s existance is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of my submitting to his will.

Your personal assumption that you CANNOT submit to what you are not assured of is itself flawed. You could more accurately say that you WILL not submit. . .

I sure would appreciate if you did not try to speak for me. It is insulting to try to put words into my mouth. When I say I cannot, I mean I cannot.

…and yes, as I am just now reading in Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth (check pages 35-40), the current ‘view’ which demands the kind of fundamental ‘proofs’ and ‘reason’ and presumes to set oneself ‘above’ God and demand HE prove Himself to His creation, demonstrates this.

Sorry, the opinion of the pope might be binding on you, but it sure is not binding on me.

Why did you come to a view that puts God ‘in the dock’ to humanity, BTW? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

No, it should not be the other way 'round. Let me remind you, it is you (the believers) who assert that God wishes everyone to be saved. If he wishes ME to be saved, he MUST come to my court, and submit to MY requirements. If he does not care about my salvation, he is under no obligation to help me (obviously). But in that case he does not care enough about MY salvation. Yes, you are still between a rock and a hard place. Either God wishes everyone to be “saved”, me included, and then he is obliged to meet MY requirements, of he does not care if I am saved or not, and then he is free to disregard MY requirements. You cannot have it both ways.

 

[Heuchler]

First just to clear up everything, no one believes that God can miraculously create contradictions because that would mean God lied at one point as you pointed out. C.S. Lewis and many others have pointed it out over the years.

Now to the main point of this post.

If I’m reading everything right, I believe that we are seeing that Spock’s opinion is that He doesn’t believe in God because He can perform miracles, and because God doesn’t come by every night to say, “Hey I exist is there anything I can do to prove it.” God wants your love. I don’t think you are going to be married if you use these standards. If I make my future wife do things all the time to prove that she will be there the next morning and that she will still love me, that isn’t love on my part. We have the logical evidence like the arguments for the existence of God which convinces us I’m sorry if you have convinced yourself otherwise. But we aren’t going to sit there and test God to make sure he’s still there and loves us and is what He says He is. That isn’t love. We have seen enough, we don’t need elaborate tests. If your heart is hardened and you still can’t find evidence for God then there is hardly anything that will convince you. For as Plato said, “Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.” You don’t want to believe and unless you are open, you won’t. You have to seek to find. If you come to forums like this with the prideful goal to enlighten us from our foolishness your will never gain anything from this site. I’m sorry but it really isn’t worth it because this will change nothing. You aren’t open to our opinions and you will gain nothing from our views. Sorry.

 

[Spock]

I regard the principles of logic and mathematics to be not “superior” to, but independent of a Creator. In a null universe in which nothing whatsoever existed, the principles of math and logic would still be valid. However, in the absence of entropy violators to discover them, these pure abstractions would remain undiscovered.

We could have a wonderful conversation about this subject. Maybe we shall, but in a different thread. Suffice it to say (without going into details) that I consider the concept of “abstract objects” an ill-conceived idea.

Secondly, your example is poorly chosen. You forgot about Carbon-14 and other shorter-lived isotopes wherein the normal 6-proton, 6-neutron Carbon-12 nucleus gets a few extra neutrons, thus increasing its atomic mass.

Yes, you are correct. I could and (should) have chosen a different example, like contemplating a “hydrogen atom” with 25 protons, 13 electrons and 199 neutrons.

I realize that this objection is irrelevant to your point, which could be better made via another physical analogy, but is valid nonetheless. I figure, no sense giving the nits something else to pick on.

True. A valid observation.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

The speed of light is a physical constraint, just like a temperature of absolute zero. Can God create a carbon atom where the atomic mass is different from “6”? The answer is again: no - since it would not be a carbon atom any more.

I am not an expert on science but i know logic and metaphysics. You obviously don’t understand the principle of identity.

That the atomic number of 6 correlates with the qualitative experience we call carbon, is a contingent truth. It just so happens to be the case. You cannot determine that any particular “atomic number” necessarily corresponds to the existence of any particular holistic nature as we experience it. It could have just as well have been the case that carbon had a different atomic number, and iron was in fact that which has the atomic number of 6. That we have discovered it to be otherwise, alone is not evidence of its logical necessity. It is not the same as saying there cannot be a temperature lower than absolute zero.

For example that there is no place outside of what we call space is not just a physical constraint but it is evidently a logical constraint. However it is not evident that a rose has to be red. It just so happens to have the appearance of red; it could have been the case that all roses are blue or black.

"The atomic number of an element indicates the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom of that element. For example, an atom of carbon has 6 protons in its nucleus so its atomic number is 6. No other element has atoms with 6 protons in their nuclei. The atomic mass of an element indicates the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom of that element. A proton and a neutron have almost the same mass. Scientists use atomic mass units (amu) to report the mass of atoms. Protons and neutrons each have a mass of 1 amu. On the periodic table, the atomic mass for carbon is listed as 12.011. If you round this figure down to 12, then it indicates that carbon atoms have 12 protons and neutrons in their nuclei. Since we know that carbon has 6 protons from its atomic number, then we can calculate the number of neutrons by subtracting the atomic number from the atomic mass (atomic mass - atomic number). In this case, carbon has 6 neutrons in its nucleus. So why is the atomic mass of carbon listed as 12.011 on the periodic table? Most elements consist of two or more isotopes. Isotopes are atoms of the same element, but with different atomic masses. Carbon has three isotopes: carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14. All of these isotopes of carbon have atoms that contain 6 protons in their nuclei. The difference between these isotopes is the number of neutrons in their nuclei. Carbon-12 atoms have 6 neutrons, carbon-13 atoms have 7 neutrons, and carbon-14 atoms have 8 neutrons. Any sample of carbon will contain all three isotopes. This is why the atomic mass for carbon is 12.011."

 

[Abba]

My favorite theory is that God created sex to give man a reason for putting up with biological incarnations while cunningly tricking him into procreating the human race, and then created booze by way of compensation for the inevitable discovery that the sex was just one of those things that seemed a good idea at the time.

My enormous codpiece

Enormous?

Sir, you frequently come very close to passing the line of vulgarity. I like to remind you that there are children who read these threads and youngsters and ladies. Please go easy on that parsnip wine especially if you are going to be posting in a Catholic forum.

 

[Abba]

No, because I was not stupid 20 years ago and had been engaged in the applications of computer technology to physics for 30 years before then. Just because you are ignorant of the difference between chemistry and nuclear physics does not imply that everyone else is, unless there is new evidence that ignorance can be transmitted like swine flu.

Argumentum ad hominem.

Just like a lot of your posts including when you were offensive to Abu and called him a liar. I still remember. Why do you think that you can just offend people?

 

[yppop]

Dear Friend—

I herewith defend myself against the Wiki-head slur. I love Wikipedia. It is an unparalleled source of scientific research, opinion, and dynamic speculation. Far superior to scrounging around for tidbits of data in university library stacks, especially when the nearest university is two hours away and I lack a stack permit.

I assure you that this WFW thread is entirely of my own making, but would be surprised if fewer than 200,000 people had not already thought of it. I assume that’s the basis for your Wiki jibe. Someone may have already tossed out the same argument on CAF. I don’t imagine that ideas which are new to me are necessarily new, absolutely.

However, when I present ideas proposed by others, I make it a point to credit the others when I know of them. IMO if we are not all engaged in a search for understanding, what is our point of being? And over the long term, credit is irrelevant. Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein and others have my admiration for their awesome insights, but I can’t buy one of them a beer to show my appreciation.

I love your chemical analysis! I’d send you a bottle of parsnip wine in appreciation if I’d not polished it off already. (After 20 years in the bottle, you’d have been surprised!)

I like the pointy-eared guy. If not for Leonard Nimoy’s simple, imperfect, but consistent characterization of the embodiment of pure logic, Star Trek would have been Star Blecch. Subsequent Star Trek knockoffs have been pretty much techie trash for lack of any actor capable of fulfilling that subtle role, with the exception of Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest.

Our incarnation is IMO one of the good guys. Pointy ears are cool, pointy heads— not so much. He’s chosen a handle appropriate to his style, as have you. This thread is my first opportunity to engage him, and I am glad of it.

I thought that I started this one as a possible relief from writer’s block, but your challenge to get my work done got me doubting the truth of that, and a few shots of vodka cleared the b.s. I’m terrified of publishing again. My other book cost me my wife, fortune, job, spine, and a wrist, leaving me permanently crippled, and it was trivial by comparison with my coming book. I’m not looking forward to my post-publication future, despite my yammering about the value of the material.

Thanks for providing the opportunity to get in touch with feelings. Honestly. I hate feelings, but when recognized for what they are, they can be overcome. Back to work Sunday. Keep your pacemaker battery charged,

And, thank you!

GL Ole Buddy,
Wiki-head is not a slur, I happen to be one. IMO if we wanted to improve education in this country I would scrap all the enormous waste of paper that our pin-headed education bureaucracies call textbooks and replace them with wikipedia. Save a lot of money and trees. I have read over 150 science books in my lifetime and have over 50 in my own library that I tell my wife I need as reference material (I’m an incurable bibliophile) but if I want to research something I go to wikipedia with all its convenient links.

With that out of the way, back to the OP.

Whether water to wine requires a fission process per the OP or a synthesis (fusion) process per post 32, the point you are making is that the amount of energy required or expended makes the story an impossibility. But isn’t that what we mean by a miracle, something without explanation, at least without explanation in the scientific view of reality that uses a litany of abstractions such as energy, mass, gravity, and others to describe at an explicate level what God created at the implicate level (the ground of reality). At the implicate level, my supposition is that God operates with information instead of energy, discrete space instead of continuous space, and with algorithms instead of mathematical equations. Since all of this occurs within the mind of God, it is a simple matter for Him to change water into wine.

Parsnip wine, you’ve got to be kidding? Once I drank tomato wine and believe me you don’t want to regurgitate something like that, kinda like eating Mrs. Murphy’s chowder.
Yppop

 

[GEddie]

I’m not sure that a nuclear process was needed at all. Sure, water contains no carbon, but the water was likely kept in stone jars, probably CaCO3, plenty of carbon there. If the water was in a wooden barrel, so much better, wood is cellulose, (C6H12O5)n.

The chemical rearrangements needed are endothermic, not exothermic. The energy could be extracted from environmental heat (plenty of THAT in Israel!) if you are someone who can redirect or overcome entropy, as HE later proved with HIS own body.

It’s really a redirection of energy, no more outlandish than quelling the storm off Capharnaum, and much less so than HIS resurrection!

ICXC NIKA.

 

[tonyrey]

Thank you kindly bro, allow me to return the compliment about your hypothesis . But you’re far too generous calling it my idea when most if not all neuroscientists also say a person is purely material, just as an mp3 player is purely material.

It is not **my **hypothesis but a rational belief held by the vast majority of human beings since the dawn of history and implicit in the universal legal presumption that a person is morally responsible for his or her behaviour - unlike material objects which lack intelligence and self-control. Neuroscientists do not claim that a person is “purely material” but seek to explain specific aspects of human activity with reference to neural phenomena. Only materialists who exceed their scientific brief attempt to draw unsupported metaphysical conclusions from their limited empirical observations…

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I am not responsible for the behavior of those “billions” of people. I was serious when I said it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to submit to an “alleged” God, just like it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to sumbit to an alleged “leprechaun” and his supposed “wishes”. Even if I were absolutely assured that God exists, I would not be forced to submit to him. Let’s be precise, the absolute assurance about God’s existance is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of my submitting to his will.

I sure would appreciate if you did not try to speak for me. It is insulting to try to put words into my mouth. When I say I cannot, I mean I cannot.

Sorry, the opinion of the pope might be binding on you, but it sure is not binding on me.

No, it should not be the other way 'round. Let me remind you, it is you (the believers) who assert that God wishes everyone to be saved. If he wishes ME to be saved, he MUST come to my court, and submit to MY requirements. If he does not care about my salvation, he is under no obligation to help me (obviously). But in that case he does not care enough about MY salvation. Yes, you are still between a rock and a hard place. Either God wishes everyone to be “saved”, me included, and then he is obliged to meet MY requirements, of he does not care if I am saved or not, and then he is free to disregard MY requirements. You cannot have it both ways.

With respect, WHY must God 'come to your court and submit to your requirements if He wishes you to be saved?

That’s what I don’t understand. Why is submission to YOUR requirements (which may differ from my requirements, and from greylorn’s requirements, etc. etc.) necessary for God? Why isn’t submission to HIS requirements necessary for you instead?

You’re setting up a “God MUST do this in order to do what He says He wants”. . .as if your announcing it makes it so. I don’t see any reason why God MUST meet your requirements in order to bring you to salvation. Your salvation doesn’t depend on God meeting YOUR demands, but rather, upon your finding out from Him what to do. . .and then doing it.

 

[Abba]

Your attempts to proselytize are off-topic and inappropriate. Kindly thump your Bible in private, or on CAF sections devoted to reiterations of dogma. This is a philosophy section.

Pardon me? This is a sub-forum of a Catholic website. We are talking about what God can or can not do here. God is the topic and I can write about God in the way that I know him. I can comment and recommend a ringtone.

Who is proselytizing?And, not just proselytizing but doing so about a concoction of atheism.

I propose that you, like many others, might be afraid of the very ideas you claim to seek, and thus shy away from them. For good reason. IMO you will not like them. Your “heart” seeks the assured comfort of religious belief, while your mind demands reason and honest logic. That’s not happening. You’ll not find a car with the comforts of a Cadillac and the handling of a Maserati.

I apologize if you find this post too personal and promise not be offended if you inform me that I’m F.O.S.

That’s quite an ending.

Now, love and purpose are other matters. I know that you would like to attribute these higher properties to a non-physical soul, and in turn, I would like to attribute them to a non-material but physical version of a similar kind of entity.

However, life experience has taught me that virtually all of what humans regard as purpose is merely an assortment of commonly shared programs running through their brains, and that most of what passes in us for “love” is just brain-induced horniness plus the need to find someone else to “complete” our own shallow personality and trivial skill set.

I admit that every now and then I get a twinge of some inner feeling of something vaguely reminiscent of those shy moments of briefly shared human affection, but these most often occur when I am looking through a telescope, or microscope, or reading a book (Michael Behe) or technical report on some awesome, mysterious aspect of creation.

But, you can promote your views…

Have you had your I.Q. checked lately? It could be getting dangerously low.

These argumentum ad hominem abound in your posts.

 

[Julia_Mae]

In order for water to be changed into wine, etc…

I thought physics was part of your religion? It’s a quantum level no-brainer.

 

[wheels10]

In order for water to be changed into wine, carbon atoms must be created. Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen— H[sub]2[/sub]O. Ethanol, an essential ingredient in all booze requires carbon. Its formula is C[sub]2[/sub]H[sub]6[/sub]O. But wine is more than a mix of alcohol and water— it includes complex tannins, esters, and unidentified exotic hydrocarbons, A fine wine will contain more than 1000 different chemicals, all sensitive to temperature and pressure. As any pretentious snob knows, fine wines will be destroyed by excessive temperature.

It is chemically impossible to manufacture ethanol from water because water has no carbon. However, it is atomically possible. Three water molecules could supply the necessary atoms. If two Oxygen atoms (each with 6 protons and electrons) were stripped of a pair of protons and electrons, they would become two Carbon atoms (4 protons and electrons). Unfortunately the extra parts do not disappear into la-la land, but will probably end up as a pair of Helium atoms, plus the excess binding energy which held the original Oxygen atoms together.

That excess binding energy is described by the simple equation, E=mc[sup]2[/sup].

Much of this excess energy will be released as ordinary heat. It turns out that the splitting of Oxygen into Carbon and Helium will have a similar effect as the splitting of Uranium-235 or Plutonium into other stuff. This will cause a sudden and violent release of nuclear energy, commonly referred to as nuclear fission, as what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the nuclear reduction of only a few pounds of material.

A 10-gallon cask of water, enough to finish off a good party if it was transformed into wine, would weigh about 83 pounds. I’m too far away from my last atomic physics class to do the calculations, but given that a good wine needs at least 10% ethanol, converting 10% of a 10 gallon (83 pound) keg requires the nuclear fission of about 8.3 pounds of matter, roughly the amount in the Nagasaki bomb,

The heat would have surely ruined the wine.

When you can provide an answer to the question below you will have the answer to the question above:

How does “Nothing” turn into an atom?

P.S. For the Catholics out there, my favorite explanation is that the water blushed when it saw Jesus!

 

[Julia_Mae]

I regard the principles of logic and mathematics to be not “superior” to, but independent of a Creator. In a null universe in which nothing whatsoever existed, the principles of math and logic would still be valid. However, in the absence of entropy violators to discover them, these pure abstractions would remain undiscovered. .

The scientific community had long ago defined the orders of life according to type, as in mammals which had hair, were warm-blooded and give live birth. So, obviously, when the sailors came home form the sea and described the hairy warm-blooded, duck-billed, egg-laying creature, they were laughed at.

You, of course, believe you know something. Like the scientists of former centuries, you do. But your something is only enough to describe the parts of reality it describes. You’ll have to expand your mind a bit to explain the rest of reality. Or, like the senior scientist contemplating the platypus brought back a few years later, you have to say, “There ain’t no sech creature,” and walk away.

This is what atheists do. Here is the issue: there are all kinds of things we call “miracles” - well investigated and proven that happen, well, pretty much all the time. But you don’t know that. So you want to explain “scientifically” that water can’t become wine. And, no matter who has investigated, you change your standard of belief. This is because you practice atheism the way you accuse others of practicing religion: you believe all kinds of things you have never seen yourself and have faith in the validity of experimental results of experiments you haven’t done yourself, because it fits what you want to believe.

But if you are informed of rigorous investigations into scientifically inexplicable healings, for instance, you just refuse to believe. You want to look at xrays yourself, or take them yourself, or you explain it away as lies. Like all atheists do.

The fact is, your science is correct, but your reality is limited.

And, BTW: Metaphysics is part of philosophy. We all get to say the “G” word ITT. OTOH, I’m not sure chemistry is.

 

[benedictus2]

In order for water to be changed into wine, carbon atoms must be created. Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen— H[sub]2[/sub]O. Ethanol, an essential ingredient in all booze requires carbon. Its formula is C[sub]2[/sub]H[sub]6[/sub]O. But wine is more than a mix of alcohol and water— it includes complex tannins, esters, and unidentified exotic hydrocarbons, A fine wine will contain more than 1000 different chemicals, all sensitive to temperature and pressure. As any pretentious snob knows, fine wines will be destroyed by excessive temperature.

It is chemically impossible to manufacture ethanol from water because water has no carbon. However, it is atomically possible. Three water molecules could supply the necessary atoms. If two Oxygen atoms (each with 6 protons and electrons) were stripped of a pair of protons and electrons, they would become two Carbon atoms (4 protons and electrons). Unfortunately the extra parts do not disappear into la-la land, but will probably end up as a pair of Helium atoms, plus the excess binding energy which held the original Oxygen atoms together.

That excess binding energy is described by the simple equation, E=mc[sup]2[/sup].

Much of this excess energy will be released as ordinary heat. It turns out that the splitting of Oxygen into Carbon and Helium will have a similar effect as the splitting of Uranium-235 or Plutonium into other stuff. This will cause a sudden and violent release of nuclear energy, commonly referred to as nuclear fission, as what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the nuclear reduction of only a few pounds of material.

A 10-gallon cask of water, enough to finish off a good party if it was transformed into wine, would weigh about 83 pounds. I’m too far away from my last atomic physics class to do the calculations, but given that a good wine needs at least 10% ethanol, converting 10% of a 10 gallon (83 pound) keg requires the nuclear fission of about 8.3 pounds of matter, roughly the amount in the Nagasaki bomb,

The heat would have surely ruined the wine.

You claim to be a theist.

So you believe in a creator God.

With this post, you have practically stated that converting water to wine is far beyond the capability of the God who created the universe out of nothing.