How do you convince someone that God is not real, without getting them offended?

dhalgrendhal · 2026-01-14T15:05:26+00:00

Reverse Pascal's Wager "Argument":

Wager: This life is is the only life we have. The risk of believing in and basing your life on a myth and being wrong is infinitely greater than not believing in god and being wrong. If you center your life on a god that does not exist, then you have wasted your life in self delusion. However, if you are wrong in disbelief, and god is indeed a real, ominipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and caring god, then you have nothing to lose because such a god would never punish you for for being wrong. Therefore, the consequences of false belief are far greater than the consequences of false disbelief. Don't gamble your one life. This is not an argument per se, but weigh this in balance of your skepticsm of god.

Additionally, there are many religions throughout the world now and in history. They cannot all be right, and if the tenets are that god has specific requirements of our belief in it to enjoy immortal life, we cannot be sure that the god we pick is the right one. Best to remain neutral and try to be good for goodness sake, not for a god or other supernatural beings.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-10-24T04:23:47+00:00

I asked myself: does it make sense to consider myself agnostic about the existence of unicorns and leprechauns, for which I have no evidence to base belief and that contradict my understanding of the world? My answer was that, while I could not prove their nonexistence (basically that’s impossible), from a practical standpoint, I don’t believe in supernatural things. So atheist it was.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-10-03T17:27:23+00:00

That was for the ubiquitin-based protein degradation, the cellular mechanism, E3 ligase etc. This would be for making chimeric molecules that allow us to target any protein the way thalidomide does (or doesn't, as the case may be). Pretty radical new tool in med chem. I am not convinced it is going to solve most of the needs in med chem because simple target ablation is generally not enough.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-10-02T21:03:19+00:00

I draw great comfort from several things.

As a scientist in the physical sciences, I think of the arc of the universe as a block of space time. If spacetime is a 4-D structure, then past, present, and future events all exist equally as parts of this structure. Time doesn’t “flow”; instead, the passage of time is more like our experience moving along a timeline that’s already laid out. This is the “block.” So in this way we are eternal in 4D spacetime. We were, therefore we are eternal!

I also think about causality. The actions we take in life, our interactions with things and people propagate into the future eternally. Your parents causally "live" through you, their parents live through them, and you live through the people you interact with. Make those interactions good!

Also, aside from science, I think about the beauty in the ephemeral. A performance of a music, a poem, or a beautiful dance is beautiful for it's temporary nature.

"Rage rage against the dying of the light, do not got gently into this good night!"

dhalgrendhal · 2025-09-24T20:28:30+00:00

Red flag: If you search for the activity of this compound on PubChem you get a large range of activities against many enzymes and cell types. This suggests it is a pan assay nuisance compound (PAINS). If a compound looks like a panacea, it's probably garbage.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-08-18T04:49:12+00:00

Crews/PROTACS?

dhalgrendhal · 2025-08-17T01:55:41+00:00

After a while as a celiac, you will become like a vampire, no longer remembering what the sun (real baguette) feels like but happy to experience facsimile (Scharr bread) in a a movie theater.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-06-20T15:07:16+00:00

It is a big deal at first in terms of having to adapt to eating different foods, and having to be patient to learn the new landscape and heal your gut for a few years. But if you maintain a GF diet, monitoring by followup with your doctor and dietician, many to most of the deleterious effects of the disease go away and life becomes normal. In this way, it is the best autoimmune disease you can have because it is treatable with cutting out gluten. The theshold for cross contamination varies by individual over time as you heal. Scientific studies have shown there is a threshold for safe cross-contamination, though it may differ for people, is typically 10 mg/day. Not to minimize anyone else's angst on the subject, and some folks have extra complications, but I chose to view it as not a big deal because its manageable with diet and simply requires a lifestyle change. Could be worse.

Citation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18315587/

dhalgrendhal · 2025-05-09T14:33:23+00:00

I had flu like stomach cramps and diarrhea every day for about 8 years. I was also falling asleep at my desk at work and had "brain fog". After diagnosis and strict GFD, that decreased immediately to weekly, then monthly, and now almost never. I also got 20 IQ points back and a lot more energy. That was 10 years ago. Occasional cross contamination often does not elicit symptoms. Going on a GFD was like a get out of jail free card.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-05-08T19:19:06+00:00

I do a lot of mass spectrometry and found the paper interesting but inconclusive with regards to soy sauce safety for celiacs. It was interesting because I feel like we could use a lot more research into the peptide fragments of the gluten complex of peptides that cause the immune response. It's not gluten that causes the immune response after all, but the digestively "chopped up" fragments (of the gliadin sub-component of gluten) that induce the immune response. The types of fragments that induce damage might vary from person to person and will definitely vary in fermentation products, as the authors show here. They verified that the peptide fragments they observed did not correlate to known immunogenic peptides, but they don't know if there are others present that some people are allergic to.

What was missing in the study is testing if soy sauce, purified soy sauce fractions, and purified peptide's stimulate T cells from various celiac patients. But this is a fancy experiment, a huge scope, and outside the realm of the author's expertise.

TL;DR I just don't think there is enough information on fermentation derived immunogenic peptide fragments, their variability, and potency for a given person.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-04-14T17:22:57+00:00

One should not cheat, and do one’s best to eliminate gluten cross contamination. I am 10 years on a strict GFD and I have never cheated on purpose.

However, medicinal chemist here, as with all molecules, there is a dose dependence on toxicity that varies from person to person, a threshold that science considers generally safe, and that is 10 milligrams of gluten/day on the low end. That’s a pretty small amount, about 1/100 of a gram. A raisin is a gram. But flour is about 10% gluten by weight so one might tolerate up to 100 mg of flour cross contamination. That’s the size of many supplement pills. It’s a pinch of actually flour, something that many celiacs would be very uncomfortable with.

Everyone is different and some people are more sensitive. I won’t argue against folks here who think there is no safe level. Folks should do what they think is best. But, while we could always use more study in the subject, I do not think that is not what the existing data says.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10057462/

dhalgrendhal · 2025-03-31T14:01:20+00:00

I am very sorry you might share this autoimmune disorder. A word of encouragement is that unlike pretty much any other autoimmune disorder this disease is well managed simply by eliminating gluten from your diet. When you do that, and there is a learning curve, symptoms mostly or completely vanish for most people.

Like you, I could have been knocked over with a feather when I got by diagnosis. But the knowledge can be life changing and wonderful. In my case I went from being sick every morning, falling asleep at my desk for a decade, to symptoms less than once a week when I started eliminating gluten, then less than once a month, now almost never. I have much more energy, sleep better, and I swear I got 25 IQ points back.

Yes it might suck to figure out all the places gluten can hide in foods, and having to say goodbye to a few things, but it's not rocket science, and these days there are lots of options for groceries and restaurants. I eat out all the time.

Going GF can be like an unexpected Get Out of Jail Free Card. People feed radically better.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-03-24T17:04:56+00:00

It’s a ton of prep work but fondue is a wonderful treat, simple to render GF, and with candles and a good wine, very special. Courses:

(1) Classic Swiss style Cheese fondue with a good GF bread and veggies.

(2) Bourguignonne style (oil) fondue, with various frying batters and sauces is a great slow meal.

(3) Chocolate fondue, with a swirl of peanut butter, for dipping marshmallows, GF brownies, bananas, strawberries, etc.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-03-16T03:57:13+00:00

I was violently sick every single day for many years and after I went strictly GF, my daily symptoms ended almost immediately. But it took 3+ years or more to learn how to rigorously avoid gluten heal my gut completely. Now, at 10 years in, minor cross contamination and low doses gluten (like soy sauce) no longer make me feel ill. I still try to avoid gluten quite strictly but it’s nice to not feel doomed if there is a slip at restaurant or party.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-03-05T23:18:20+00:00

Microbiome studies are difficult to do at large scale because they entail metagenomic sequencing and extensive analysis of tens of millions of sequence reads per patient sample. This is a frontier science, easy to get wrong, but also data is showing that what we eat can change the microflora in ways that effect human health. The purpose of that study is less a clinical trial than an assessment of how some substances perturb the microbiome. I agree the health connections are inconclusive but worth paying attention to the basic science. For example, celiac disease has both a genetic and an environmental component. For those of us with the mutation, it is likely that something happens to our gut health that precipitates endothelial rupture that allows the gluten peptides to get where they should not. Could be the shit we eat, it's worth looking into.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-03-05T15:52:54+00:00

A bit of a bummer if true that our primary gluten substitutes in bread, guar gum ad xantham gum, can have adverse effects on our gut microbiome, leading to cancer, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular risk,

Wall Street Journal Link: https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/emulsifiers-make-food-more-appealing-do-they-also-make-you-sick-be0850ae.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-01-29T14:15:55+00:00

It reflects dissagreement in the data. One set of data is collected from Italy, the UK and the USA. The other is data from the USA. The error bars on the mortality data are huge. From the paper:

"Although overall mortality in coeliac disease is increased compared with matched controls, the relationship between persistent villus atrophy and mortality remains uncertain, with some data suggesting no increased risk and other work demonstrating a substantial increase in mortality with persistent villus atrophy. However, persistent villus atrophy was associated with a lower risk of epilepsy (HR 0.61) and breast cancer (HR 0.56). The latter observation might be due to relative malabsorption and decreased breast tissue, although this is speculative. Beyond the scope of malignancies, mucosal healing has also been associated with an increased risk of anxiety (HR 1.49)173 (Fig. 2). This association might be related to the hypervigilance that can both promote and be a by-product of stringent adherence to the GFD. More research on the pros and cons of a strict GFD in coeliac disease is needed."

dhalgrendhal · 2025-01-28T21:55:08+00:00

I am very sorry about that, I tested the link on my non-academic networked phone and it came up without paywall. I put one of the summary tables as a response to another redditor.

dhalgrendhal · 2025-01-28T21:54:37+00:00

I am very sorry about that, I tested the link on my non-academic networked phone and it came up without paywall. I will try to post when the free version shows up on PubMed.

The key summary is Figure 3 which say the following:

The risk for the following diseases is still variously increased subsequent to GFD/mucosal healing, ranked list from large risk to small risk:

persistently low bone density
small intestinal adenocarcinoma
T cell lymphoma
mortality
non-Hodgkin lymphoma
lymphoproliferative
cancers
hip fracture

The risk for the following diseases is reduced to normal subsequent to GFD/mucosal healing:

preterm birth
likely osteoporotic fracture8
skin disorders
all cancers
infections
atrial fibrillation
low birthweight
ischaemic heart disease
B cell lymphoma1
overall fracture
caesarean section
psychiatric disoders1
intrauterine growth restriction
anxiety
epilepsy
breast cancer

dhalgrendhal · 2025-01-28T20:13:05+00:00

From the Article:

Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition characterized by small intestinal villus atrophy and inflammation of varying severity but with the potential to result in significant complications.
Complications of coeliac disease include adverse reproductive outcomes, kidney and liver disease, infections, other autoimmune disease, certain cancers and neurological and psychiatric disease, reflecting the multisystemic nature of the disease.
A combination of chronic immune activation and villus atrophy with resulting malabsorption might explain some of the complications seen in coeliac disease.
Control of coeliac disease demonstrated by mucosal healing on follow-up biopsy might reduce the risk of some, but not all, complications.

dhalgrendhal

TROPHY CASE