Welcome lou4000,
An excellent introductory statement.
Looking forward to your perspective on various scientific topics.
Welcome susan,
All people here on CFI forum are mostly harmless … 
But deleting your own entrance is truly unusual… 
1 Like
We don’t bite. Well, that’s wrong. We do bite food, but we don’t consider humans food. Of course, if you started your own intro thread, in this section, that’s cool too.
Hi everyone,
I joined this forum a few years and now re-reading Outgrowing God.
Just about me - I work in IT - I was a sworn Christian for years and now embracing science lets say.
Theres one or two things I can’t quite grasp or understand from the Outgrowing book regarding the science aspects in the latter part of the book so hopefully someone can help me along, and vice-versa.
Cheers for now
Matthew
Welcome. Not familiar with that book. You might need to summarize your question or find a link that does so
Hey all, Steve Daut here
I’m a retired geologist, and since retirement have written a couple of books and gotten very involved in storytelling. I very much believe in the power of storytelling to help people see themselves in a way that they could never see if they are simply confronted about their beliefs. I think that will become my focus in CFI discussions, but of course, I’ll see what happens…
1 Like
Welcome Steve,
Looking forward to your contributions.
My name is George Kunzman and I am a Christian. I guess that makes me a troll. I first became acquainted with atheists on Ray Comforts facebook page Atheist Central. I am a chemist. I pointed out that God gave me a vision that I could produce petroleum from fats and oils. I looked in my chemistry books, but they said that the decarboxyation of fatty acids was not practical. The thought kept coming to my mind so I decided to look up the original chemical literature. I was shocked. The original literature was designed to fail. There was no way that it could have not failed. Most of the atheists on the page were biologists, but I believed that they would have had enough chemistry to spot the flaw in the chemical literature. However, none of them was willing to look at the literature. Therefore I conclude that at least those atheists were not dedicated to science and reason. I request that a chemist on this website who has access to a college or university look up the two articles, The decarboxylation of fatty acids. I will also add that according to my textbook, sodium salts of carboxylic acids decompose between 300-400 degrees C. I would like to converse with an atheist who believes in science and reason. If I receive an email that indicates that there is a response to this post, I would be happy to respond.
Welcome kuonrat1910
From your opening post it is clear you are a serious person.
I cannot advise you on chemistry but hopefully another member might take you up on your question.
Let me ask you if you have been able to produce “petroleum” from the ingredients you mention and if so, have you applied for a patent?
It would also help if you posted a link to the failed chemistry literature you refer to, so that we can clearly understand what you are talking about.
As of this date in the University of Iowa Science Library, if you type in " The Decarboxylation of Fatty Acids" in the library computer the two chemistry journal articles will show up and one can print them off to llook at at ones leisure. I added the decomposition temperature of sodium salts of carboxylic acids as that may not be in every organic chemistry book one reads.
I have consulted an attorney about applying for a patent, but was told that there was no way to patent a chemical reaction. I was told that the only way to protect it was as a trade secret.
I have not had complete success in running this reaction. I have had success two times by accident. After a long period of time I became discouraged. I cried out to God and asked him to let it work if it was going to work. It then worked twice in a row and then it stopped working. As evidence that it worked the only things in the reaction flask were soap (sodium salt of a fatty acid), a small inorganic salt, and distilled water. On heating the soap became liquid which did not freeze when I put the flask in my refrigerator. The only thing that it could possibly be was petroleum. I regret that I did not get a GC/MS analysis performed at that time as that is proof that you would accept.
On consulting a local chemist, I told him that my soap was greasy. That indicated that I had not removed all of the glycerol from the soap which is necessary for the reaction to work.
The chemist suggested an old method of purification called dialysis. I will use that to separate the soap from the glycerol the next time I perform this experiment. I will not be able to make soap until April when it warms up. My new wife has breathing problems and I am concerned that the small amount of fumes from the hot lye solution would hurt her,
If the chemist on this website does not have access to a college library with a computer or Chem Abstracts, I would be happy to post all pertainent information about the 2 articles so that he may access them. I think that it is interesting that the other atheists that I communicated with would not even consider looking at these two scientific journal articles. They clearly had no respect for science and reason.
My purpose in sharing these articles is to show that one cannot always trust scientists. The college where the first paper was done gives evidence as to why they wanted this experiment to fail. In my organic chemistry textbooks written in the 1970’s this failed experiment was referred to. I think that it is likely that it is referred to in modern textbooks as on the surface this appears to be a likely way to produce petroleum.
I have three other examples that indicate that one cannot always trust scientists. I have a fourth one that is up to date concerning covid. I will share these at a later dates. Thank you for getting back to me and being courteous. If you know of a chemist on this site, Please refer him or her to me and I will share specific information. I wish you a good day.
Everyone is welcome. We have moderators. Behaviors will get a reaction, not beliefs. Just defend yourself with data and respect the opinions of others.
The scientific methods are designed so it’s the data, evidence, and methods that can be trusted, not individuals. Experts help interpret and if they disagree, then we need better data.
The closest thing CFI has to investigating is the paranormal challenge. Since you prayed to get your results, they might look at it
As Annie Laurie Gaylor, of the FFRF says, “Nothing fails like prayer.” Keep rolling the dice and you’ll soon find that prayer is nothing more than the luck of the draw. Science, on the other hand, is more reliable.
Hello, my name is Jonathan Gresham. I recently became a GED graduate and now aim to become some sort of writer. However, science is very interesting to me. I particularly like phylogenetics and taxonomy but also evolutionary biology in general. I do not know a lot about these fields but I have bought some textbooks concerning them. I have one on biology another on the phylogeny of primates, and a third one on genetics. I have a fourth textbook being delivered tomorrow on biogeography.
I love reading. I read 100 pages of God is Not Great last night and aim to finish it only to tackle either a book by the great Richard Dawkins or one of those textbooks. But I primarily aim to write about my reading experiences: things I’ve learned and explain a few things to people who don’t know that which I will know then.
1 Like
Welcome Jonathan.
It sounds like you are well on your way to “discovery” and be assured, wonders will reveal themselves to you as you get deeper into the “way things work”.
Allow me to recommend a few videos that will give you some fundamentals on the science of evolution of minerals, eventually leading to abiogenesis.
I’ll start with this wonderful informative , yet entertaining lecture by Dr. Robert Hazen
Start viewing the video @ 12:00 to avoid a lengthy introduction.
After that, a whole new world will open and allow for greater understanding of the “emergence” of complex organisms and life itself.
I have changed my mind on posting detailed sources of the two scie6tific articles. I will only talk with a biologist or a chemist. In the book form of Chem Abstracts one can look under the heading of decarboxylation and the subheading of fatty acids to find the articles. I will say that one is from the 1940’s and the second is from the 1960;s. If one is in a modern library one can type in “The decarboxylation of fatty acids” to the search engine to find the articles. I learned how to use Chem Abstracts in college sophomore chemistry in the 1970’s so it seems likely that a science student would know how to access these articles using one of these two methods.
The weather has gotten much warmer here in Iowa. Therefore I will perform the first step in this synthesis which is making soap, tomorrow. Within three weeks I will either have my products or I won’t. If I have it, I probably won’t have GC/MS analysis by that time, but I will have it soon.
As I said, the soap must be free from glycerol. Up until now I have tried separating the soap from the glycerol using a saturated salt solution which is the standard method in modern textbooks. That did not do the job so that may be another indication that science books are not always reliable.
I will post again when I have purified the soap with dialysis. I know now that the soap must be hard and brittle and not greasy to give evidence that it is free from glycerol.
I have other evidence that scientists cannot always be trusted. For now I ask a biologist or chemist to look up the two articles with the guidance that I have given. I ask you to note the location of the college where the first article was written. I believe that it will show a motive as to why they did this experiment that was obviously designed to fail. Good bye for now.
I don’t understand the point of having others track down these articles. Why not simply present your research, show your sources, then data from your work?
I have a feeling he needed advise more so than announcing a discovery.
Greetings to all.
I was moved to join because of the depressing and deflating effect that religion has on American society, schools, and politics. I now have resources to help counter that. Rather than preaching to the choir, my inclination is to support “recruitment” (for lack of a better term) of impressionable minds (ages 17-23 or so). Let them know that atheism/agnosticism is valid, moral, and growing more acceptable and prevalent. Can folks recommend the best programs/funds for such an effort?
Thanks.
Vito
It is warming up in Iowa so I may be able to perform the first step of my experiment sooner. I promise to post the results if the experiment succeeds or fails. When I was visiting Ray Comfort’s Atheist Central facebook page, one atheist recommended reading Richard Dawkins book, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” He said that this book would provide evidence for evolution. I read the book and wanted to make some comments on it. I was ridiculed as they believed that I could not critique it because I was not a biologist. From this it was clear that though many of the atheists claimed to be biologists, they were not scientists and had no respect for science. When I got my chemistry degree, I was required to take considerable course work in mathematics, biology and physics. If one studies the history of science, one will find that scientists of many disciplines worked on a scientific problem each scientist from his own perspective. My primary comment concerned Richard Dawkins use of algebra. Many if not all scientist use algebra. Anyone who uses algebra clearly assumes some things on general consensus belief without evidence, proof or reason. In other words if one uses algebra, some things one takes on faith. I will test you to see if anyone on this site knows algebra and can verify that this is true. If no one can answer this, it is safe to say that no one knows basic science. I will wait a few days and then come back to answer my statement if no one else can.