imamom – Ok, let’s break this down a bit. First off:
The point is that IF a person is a shomer Torah u’mitzvos, then they conduct themselves accordingly and ask shailos, so why would one say that such a person is a machasheifa and an oved avoda zora, just because their work involves something that one doesn’t understand?
Well, that wasn’t really your original point, was it? Here’s what you said originally:
Chas v’shalom that we should be saying that a Shomer Torah u’mitzvos is a machasheifah or oved avodah zorah (lashon hora on the internet! moderators, where are you?)
The response is simple, if it is ossur (and there are other potential issurim involved besides kishuf and avoda zara; nichush is one example) then to say that what she does is ossur is not loshon horah. Your starting point is “Well she’s frum, so…” which is the wrong place to start. Never look at the individual, always the actions.
Next.
I don’t understand electricity, but I know that it works! Is my electrician a machasheifa or an oved avoda zora? I don’t think so.
Now this is just silly. Come on. There is no way you can seriously be equating something which has very flimsy pseudo-scientific rationale, which has zero experimental proof, which is pretty much universally not accepted by people with the necessary knowledge to a phenomenon that we know all the scientific basis of to the last electron, that has hundreds of years of experimental data, that we can observe how, when and why it works. Seriously?! Gosh. Talk about an agenda…
The books I listed indicate that “energy” is all around us, all the time. This is a scientific fact (thank you, Albert Einstein).
Now this is one of the most egregious distortions of special relativity I’ve ever seen. All e=mc2 means is that energy and matter are equivalent, that is that one can be converted to the other proportionally. It means that conservation of mass and conservation of energy are linked. Nothing more than that. It does not mean that some kind of wishy-washy “energy” with mysterious powers is all around us waiting to be controlled by those with “the gift” if they can “balance” it correctly (whatever that’s supposed to mean).
No agendas, either. Rational science.
So, the group which uses standard scientific experimental techniques, and is basing their theories on actual scientific knowledge has “an agenda” and is not using “rational science”, but the group who does not and bases their claims on gross misinterpretation of pretty basic science apparently is using “rational science” and has “no agendas”. Seriously, you think these people have no agenda whatsoever, they are simply doing it for the good of mankind and the furthering of human knowledge and not to sell books and services. Ok…
Btw, this is a mature and adult conversation too, or at least I am trying to make it so. Putting forward views to which you are opposed does not make it not so.