By Photograph by Oren Jack Turner, Princeton, N.J. Original image cleaned/leveled by User:Jaakobou. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
My wife sent me this brilliant piece this morning. The original author is Aaron Freeman. It first appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered in 2005. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I tend to identify myself as a somewhat religious person. The professional language used here is not the one in which I’m trained, but I nevertheless find it beautiful and inspiring. I would even go so far as to say that the physicist and the minister (this one, anyway) are describing, each in their own way, the same grand mystery of ultimate reality, in which we all live, move, and have our being.
Hi Terry (nice to hear from you again),
The answer is no, the birth of a child does not involve the creation of energy. Fetuses and infants feed off energy from the mother’s body, which the mother has available to give because her energy is sustained via eating food.
This is why I don’t want a casket. My energy will be trapped in a box. Burn me then spread my ashes or dig a hole and throw me in! Put my potential energy back into nature so I might become part of another life form and slightly live again.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 
Does the 1st Law not take into account the birth of a child….would not that be the creation of energy?
Hi Terry (nice to hear from you again),
The answer is no, the birth of a child does not involve the creation of energy. Fetuses and infants feed off energy from the mother’s body, which the mother has available to give because her energy is sustained via eating food.
“…you’re just less orderly.” Or in my Christian confidence, “…more perfectly reordered.”
This is why I don’t want a casket. My energy will be trapped in a box. Burn me then spread my ashes or dig a hole and throw me in! Put my potential energy back into nature so I might become part of another life form and slightly live again.
I know this truth about energy because I have had visitations and experiences.