Bushidobillyclub pretty much nailed everything I wanted to say (by the way, I'd love to have a chat with you sometime billyclub).

However, I wanted to touch on a topic the original post brought up.

It's been quite some time since I've seen anything related to What The Bleep Do We Know (WTBDWK). However, it is best described as pseudoscience (and I'll be more than happy to take a look at it again if you feel my points are invalid).

WTBDWK attempts to draw conclusions from quantum mechanics that simply aren't scientific. I recall their coverage of the famous dual-slit experiment at the quantum level and they suggested the particles knew they was being watched to add a layer of mystery to it. The problem with this line of thinking is *no one* knows why things behave the way they do at the quantum level. It's true that the wave function of a particle collapses to a single value when you measure it (instead of retaining its superposition of values) but we don't know any more than that. We just know it happens. So WTBDWK's attempts to include QM into a spiritual mindset don't pull it out of the realm of new age philosophies.

I don't mean to say you can't use QM or science in general in your spiritual beliefs, I'm just saying you can't call it scientific.

I'm a physics student and currently in the process of studying quantum mechanics (though I am really just getting started in this area) so I might be able to offer a *little* insight.

Due to conservation of mass and energy, the mass that composes any given atom must be accounted for. Or rather, it can't just disappear. However, I don't think this is what you were originally asking.

I think your question is does an atom with X protons and Y electrons stay with those respective numbers forever or does it lose them or gain more.

If you were to isolate a stable atom from the rest of the universe, it would stay as it is. However, anything from another particle smashing into the atom or interactions with light can change properties of the atom.

On the other hand, unstable atoms will deteriorate until stable atoms are present.

As a fun aside, it's not entirely proper to think of quantum particles like electrons and protons as having a nice, defined area it resides, like a cup on your desk might.

Hello all,

This is my first post and I think I might like it here. A very brief background on me--I'm a science student so I tend to look at topics like this from a science angle.

In questioning why most people seem to *have* to believe in a god, I think there are two main relative points:

1) The number one determining factor of what religion someone will be is what religion their parents belong to. Sure, people convert but the parental religiosity is still the best way to predict someone's religion.

2) Many (if not most) cultures in our planet's history have had some sort of superstitious belief system. Even when isolated, it seems our species comes up with something. While believing / not believing certainly isn't a gene that gets flipped on or not, it does suggest that it is related to our genetics. Though probably just a by-product of our intelligence and creativity.

So I'd say most people *have* believe in a god because our minds are likely predisposed to the idea and social pressures combined with training from parents reinforce the idea.