Scary Thought

[Chomsky]

Re: Scary Thought

I am not sure I understand your fear, but I, as strong a fundamental Christian you could find, would never ever try to force anyone to believe anything. Someone can only be a true believer if they truly believe, not by any other means.

Why do you think there is a resurgence in fundamentalism. I certainly have not seen it.

I think the perception of rising fundamentalism is due to the very high involvement of American fundamentalists in politics, which is a recent phenomenon.

Then again, at the turn of the 20th century, only about 35% of Americans identified themselves as religious. Today it's about 65%, from what I remember from graduate school.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Scary Thought

The closer we get to observing planets capable of sustaining life, at least as we know it, would an administration of either 'party' suppress conclusive proof of life to not alienate their Christian believers' support?

This image shows the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan. The glint off a mirror-like surface is known as a specular reflection. This kind of glint was detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 8, 2009. It confirmed the presence of liquid in the moon's northern hemisphere, where lakes are more numerous and larger than those in the southern hemisphere.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca...i20091217.html

So far, the science-fiction bunch reminds me of the religious fundamentalist bunch, and even the man-made global warming bunch. They all are using junk science and outright nonsense to try to prove their beliefs.

So with the religious nuts, we have creation science which filters evidence to prove their creation belief; with the AGW bunch, we have faking and masaging of data to prove their hypothesis, not to mention the closing-off of the debate (per Al Gore and "the issue is settled"); and with the sci-fi bunch, we have this lunacy that life can exist on Titan at near absolute-zero temperature.

Let's go back to the last bunch, the sci-fi bunch. These nuts have not found so much as one single microbe of life in this solar system, but they persist in believing that life exists on Mars, on Titan, and in the clouds of Venus.

I don't fault the sci-fi bunch for their beliefs, but please, where is the hard scientific evidence? Where are the newly discovered microbes? Where are the life forms?

Yes, life can exist in exotic forms, but please, bring me one of those exotic forms from Titan or Mars or Venus?

The hard science is that nothing living or even remotely living has been discovered anywhere in this solar system. And listening into deep space outside this solar system for decades, not so much as one peep has been heard from any civilization even remotely resembling humanity.

Follow the science, not the faiths. The hard science so far is that mankind is very alone in this universe. If there is any highly-developed civilization in deep space, it must be very rare in the universe and very far away.

Then we have the issue of why NASA is pissing-away money on faith agendas like AGW and science-fiction, but I won't get into that debate now. Just witness that the money is being wasted on such agendas by Washington.

[cjppjc]

Re: Scary Thought

I think a good question to ask is, why is there life on earth? What purpose does it serve? Not, what is the meaning of life. Why is the life there, for what purpose.

[waysouth]

Re: Scary Thought

I think a better question to ask is..why this topic here?

[cjppjc]

Re: Scary Thought

I think a better question to ask is..why this topic here?

Don asked this question:

The closer we get to observing planets capable of sustaining life, at least as we know it, would an administration of either 'party' suppress conclusive proof of life to not alienate their Christian believers' support?

As with all things, the law of descent took over, and the question began to be ignored. I would say no to the question asked. But I dont expect there will be life discovered in my lifetime anyway.

[GRG55]

Re: Scary Thought

Since you believe in ETL, if you don't all ready, I suggest you support SETI@home. I have for a dozen years. Here is the link http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/index.php After many years of looking they still have not found any sign of intelligent life elsewhere. Perhaps it does not exist

Two thoughts came to mind:

1. Does the method and the available technology limit the search radius [ASH's post below];
2. If they redirected the search inward, and limited it to this planet Earth, would they find it...

[KGW]

Re: Scary Thought

Issac Asimov's work, "Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence," is a very good primer on such notions. . .

[mesyn191]

Re: Scary Thought

I remember reading somewhere, long ago, that donating your computer resources will ultimately damage your computer's speed and capabilities. Not sure if it's true or not, but probably worth researching if you plan to not replace your computer for quite some time.

Yea thats bullshit. SETI@home and other P2P distributed computing programs like F@H will only use excess cycles/RAM on your system by default unless you set them to do otherwise, they aren't very bandwidth intensive either. If you don't want to run the program anymore it uninstalls just like any other so even if for some reason you do start seeing a negative impact on system performance there will be no permanent damage to your system.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Scary Thought

If you want to worry about politicians catering to religious fundamentalists, worry about them catering to muslims, not christians. The press already is self-censoring itself with regard to muslim "sensibilities" (eg the Mohammed cartoon thing) when we are only 1% muslim here in the US. The Dutch government is trying to throw Geert Wilders in prison for pointing out the obvious truths about Islam. Muslims are dramatically overrepresented in terms of terrorist murders; in fact if you think over the last 40 years of high-profile atrocities, they were overwhelming committed by muslims in the name of Islam. Quit picking on the christians, who only believe what, afterall, almost all of our ancestors devoutly believed. Christians aren't commanded by their belief to conquer, even kill, unbelievers. Muslims are. Whether life exists on another planet is a trivial matter compared to that.

[K Carlson]

Re: Scary Thought

1. The cynicism- our elected leaders have demonstrated, along with our corporate media, that they are capable of anything, including what would be among the biggest events in humankind. (and yes, I know, the size of the universe limits any contact/definitive answer to about zero.) concealed for short term political gain.

2. anti-Christian sentiment. When I read that a large chunk of the country believes in a 10,000 year ID humanity, not to mention Noah's Ark, and is no longer a privately held belief but an aggressive politicized force in America, one hellbent on turning off the lights of the Enlightenment- that's the guys I'm worried about.

3. (Bonus response) Religion has been used as a powerful lever of control for centuries. The resurgence of fundamentalism here in America is two fold- a response to pain, confusion and fear- because we are so poorly equipped by design to have few effective collective rational responses; and the active participation of those in positions of power to encourage and channel those impulses.

Ghent12 eloquently captured the essence of Don. In light of Don's aggressive, anti-Christian sentiment, it is heartening to read the-mild-and measured responses from jiimbergin and charliebrown.

Should iTulip dedicate a special anti-Christian thread so that Don etal can rant about so-called "religious nuts"? Although not a fundamentalist Christian, I am offended by the religious intolerance and lack of civility on the part of some "enlightened" posters.

[KGW]

Re: Scary Thought

Guess you forgot about the bribes, coercion, and coups Christians In Action, et al, have subjected hundreds of millions of people to, much less death and dismemberment.

So why do Christians do this, if not by "command?"

If you want to worry about politicians catering to religious fundamentalists, worry about them catering to muslims, not christians. The press already is self-censoring itself with regard to muslim "sensibilities" (eg the Mohammed cartoon thing) when we are only 1% muslim here in the US. The Dutch government is trying to throw Geert Wilders in prison for pointing out the obvious truths about Islam. Muslims are dramatically overrepresented in terms of terrorist murders; in fact if you think over the last 40 years of high-profile atrocities, they were overwhelming committed by muslims in the name of Islam. Quit picking on the christians, who only believe what, afterall, almost all of our ancestors devoutly believed. Christians aren't commanded by their belief to conquer, even kill, unbelievers. Muslims are. Whether life exists on another planet is a trivial matter compared to that.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Scary Thought

Guess you forgot about the bribes, coercion, and coups Christians In Action, et al, have subjected hundreds of millions of people to, much less death and dismemberment.

So why do Christians do this, if not by "command?"

Could you give some specifics?

[jk]

Re: Scary Thought

If you want to worry about politicians catering to religious fundamentalists, worry about them catering to muslims, not christians. The press already is self-censoring itself with regard to muslim "sensibilities" (eg the Mohammed cartoon thing) when we are only 1% muslim here in the US. The Dutch government is trying to throw Geert Wilders in prison for pointing out the obvious truths about Islam. Muslims are dramatically overrepresented in terms of terrorist murders; in fact if you think over the last 40 years of high-profile atrocities, they were overwhelming committed by muslims in the name of Islam. Quit picking on the christians, who only believe what, afterall, almost all of our ancestors devoutly believed. Christians aren't commanded by their belief to conquer, even kill, unbelievers. Muslims are. Whether life exists on another planet is a trivial matter compared to that.

see wikipedia, search albigensian

The crusader army came under the command, both spiritually and militarily, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.
The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesar of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, several hundred years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own."

islam is about 600 years younger than christianity. think about what the christians were doing in 1500 or thereabouts. e.g. spanish inquisition established 1478 [not the monty python one, either].

[KGW]

Re: Scary Thought

I am not actually questioning your faith, jiimbergin. Rather those who are nominally christian who have pursued the policies I mentioned. Those are the people you should be questioning.

Could you give some specifics?

[don]

Re: Scary Thought

Don asked this question:

The closer we get to observing planets capable of sustaining life, at least as we know it, would an administration of either 'party' suppress conclusive proof of life to not alienate their Christian believers' support?

As with all things, the law of descent took over, and the question began to be ignored. I would say no to the question asked. But I dont expect there will be life discovered in my lifetime anyway.

Thanks, Jersey, for at least approximating my original intent, which, albeit clumsily stated, was to contrast a scientific discovery for the ages with our craven political 'leaders' willingness to do anything for personal gain.