about a devoutly Christian space explorer who was on a team that found what remained of the Star of Bethlehem.

He was crushed when they discovered the light was from the final explosion in a war that wiped out the planet.

It is about the first manned mission to a known inhabited planet. There are Jesuit priests as part of the mission. Really good, if you are into that sort of thing.

and the synopsis corrected my faulty memory.

Here in the West, we start a conversation with: "So, what do you do?"

In the middle-eastern cultures, they start a conversation with: "So, where are you from?"

Here in the West, it's about the now, it's about the person itself.

In the Middle-East, it's about the past, it's about the land, it's about the culture. The "now" is secondary. They rightaway ask for the big picture if they want to get to know somebody.

and they mean high school.

I think there are great regional differences in the US, but I don't know that much about the Middle East.

In the south of the US, it is very much about where you are from and who your family is. It's about the culture and the land. Interesting that it may be more like the middle east than other parts of the country.

I wasn't really good at making my point.

I wanted to emphasize how many things you have to keep in mind in the Middle-East:
Where are you from geographically?
Where are you from culturally?
What is your religion?
What about your family?

In the Middle-East, social life has much more levels. More levels for animosities, but also more levels to connect to each other. There's always a bigger world out there that has to be taken into account and I think that mindset reacts positively with a curiosity towards space.

One thing that makes non-believers uncomfortable in the bible belt is the attention to which church you attend.

Are you making the point that people from the middle east are more likely to be supportive of space exploration? Perhaps historically, but now?

And the historical age of Islam being invested in science has been over for a long time. Muslims in the Middle-East were a major contributor to science, but then a radical movement came to power. They didn't like the concept of laws of nature, because their existence implies that God cannot do whatever he wants. So they crushed the muslim scientific community over the next decades and centuries and that's that.

The Gulf-states are rich as hell with oil-money. They could buy the best equipment, hire the best people. Their countries have not much to offer but oil and sunlight, so why no diversion? They could turn into an international powerhouse of science by simply buying and hiring everthing they need.
Why don't they do this?
Where are their research-centers?
When was the last time you heard about a discovery coming from the arabic scientific community?

I wonder about brain drain. Many of the middle east's brightest come to the US or other countries.

That may be because of the lack of support for science, but I don't know.

"One thing that makes non-believers uncomfortable in the bible belt is the attention to which church you attend."

Do you know this for a fact or are you just speculating?

It's something that I have personally observed, experienced and seen reiterated many times here.

Any other questions?

You are really digging to find something wrong with that statement, bvf. Why don't you just hold off until you get something you can really get your teeth into.

you seem remarkably comfortable doing THAT EXACT THING.

Just kidding.

James S.A. Corey's 'The Expanse' series has a hilarious bit in book 1 where this incredibly massive worldship that the Mormons were building to boot scoot off to a nearby star system to colonize it, gets carjacked by the good guys to use it to deflect an incoming alien attack that was headed near earth.

The whole scenario was both ridiculous, and ridiculously plausible at the same time.

I think the writers listened to it too much, or it came on the radio when they were working on the final episode script.

from Scooby-Doo. Not surprised you haven't heard of it.

I didn't know.

...you were watching TV.

managed to do a bit of both. I hadn't gotten my pHd in math by age 14, but I did have a life.

So how much do you sit at your computer nowadays clicking "refresh" and looking for things here to respond to instantly, instead of "studying and researching"?

...when you post to them?

...solicitations are not welcome.

And to get off my lawn.

Use the ignore feature or leave if you don't like it.

Thanks for confirming.

I'm just amused by people here who always seem to be replying within 10 or 15 minutes, at any time of day. And who always have to drag a thread out to eternity. Makes me wonder what they do with their actual lives.

Are you sure you're not related to someone here? It sure doesn't seem like you could actually be the way you're seeming to be.

Some of us were studying and researching while...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=168336

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Typical offensive personal remark.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Dec 11, 2014, 09:27 AM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: FFS
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: What is this I don't even
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Why is someone giving stone space shit for not watching Scooby Doo? While this is a ridiculous topic to get snarky about (this Scooby Doo watcher has no idea what BSG is, btw), the reply in this post is completely appropriate, given the prior posts in this subthread.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: If you are offended by this, you should spend less time watching TV and learn to be less melodramatic.

The Scooby Doo crowd sure is touchy.

I actively chose not to watch it, and my fears were totally confirmed when I learned of the ending. All the humans landed on one planet, never mind the killer self-aware robots that nuked humanity down to less than 30k survivors. Then set their ships to fly into the sun, and eschewed technology thereafter.

Up until then they were doing really well but that lazy, pandering-to-the-great-unwashed ending fucked it up completely. And made no sense within the logic of the story. Just awful. Made even less sense than the "robots were listening to Hendrix hundreds of thousands of years ago" plot device.

take it, because they got the feels about a robot race that had practically accomplished extinguishing the human race, and was still nibbling away at what was left.

Because winning an existential war on the defense is immoral... or something.

Last edited Thu Dec 11, 2014, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

It is a Catholic college. The Marianists founded it. We had to have more science credits to graduate than did students of Ohio State.
I aways wondered what religious people would do if it were proven that there was intelligent life on other planets. How would that square with Jesus coming to earth to save us. Did he also go to the other planets or maybe those folks didn't need saving.
Questions like that lead me to the idea that religion is a superstition.

There have been a number of articles about it lately.

I think it would mirror the religious role that has occurred in other historical explorations. There are some who support it and some who find it really threatening.

I'm not sure how this issue alone would lead to the conclusion that religion is a superstition.

the story of earthlings needing salvation so the god of the universe came to earth and is coming back and that some earthlings are god's chosen people.

Just because the story doesn't talk of others, it doesn't mean that it couldn't include others.

I think your assumptions are a leap.

What religious texts or teachings rule out the possibility of other life?

There are a zillion things not in the bible and their not being there is no support of what is there.

Or any major religious text?

If the whole universe and all it's inhabitants were under the auspices of one god the book of that god would say so.

The book(s) don't necessarily say everything. If there was a god, s/he probably knew that humans would go to the moon one day, but s/he never said so.

These seem to be your beliefs and not necessarily reflective of the beliefs of others.

I recommended one of my favorite books above - The Sparrow. It's about jesuit priests going to the first known inhabited planet. Fiction, of course, but very insightful.

They come from my observations. I don't need a text to think for me.
Read Immanuel Kant's answer to what is enlightenment.

dictates how others will respond to something?

It's not about a text thinking for anyone. Your observations are necessarily limited and because of that, I think your conclusions may be faulty.

lead me to the truth or that I can determine truth for anyone else. My observations involve observing many causes and effects over my lifetime. And my acting on those observations and seeing the outcomes of those actions. No I do not claim any monopoly on truth nor do I think I have truth to explain or teach to someone else.

So I guess i don't understand where your original position, that seems to predict how people who see the world entirely different than you do based on their own life of observations and effects, comes from.

I think one of the things that bothers me the most in some of the conversations I have here is the assumption by some that they are the enlightened ones, that they hold the truth.

When a nonbeliever can make this kind of statement about something they don't even believe, it might indicate that they do, in fact, think they have the truth.

I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college. In each I was given a set of ideas that I tried to find support for through my observations rather that take them on faith as I was instructed to do.
I can't find support for them thus I started on a path of discovery for myself. What I found was that we don't need another person to hand us the truth. We have the ability to discover it for ourselves. Our senses are limited and can lead us in the wrong direction but I think we can on another level experience some relationship with what makes up a portion if the truth. By observation of cause and effect and outcomes. We can never discover the whole truth but I think we can know enough of it for this life time without religion or teachers.
On edit:
I think this path of discovery is something you do for yourself by yourself. If you find people in agreement that is nice but our jobs are not to discover truth for others.

Everyone does that to some extent. The assumption that those that reach a religious conclusion are wrong and you are right is what is distressing.

History is rife with stories about people who took much harder paths than you or I could ever imagine and came to completely different conclusion.

Your truth is only your truth. It is not the truth.

I find this just as troubling when it is a position taken by a believer or a non-believer.

I said I think religion (the religion I was brought up on) is superstition and was invented by man to explain the unexplainable. Now I don't think you can be born in this world and accept a creed that was in existence before you arrived and then claim you came to it on a path if self discovery. That is a contradiction. Accepting a ready made creed is faith.
And I made it very clear that my truth is my truth and not to be taken as truth for anyone else.

The creed I was taught, seems to me to be superstition. Does that mean it is untruth?
I think it was invented by man. I don't accept it as what is truth. It isn't a moral judgement or meant to be judgement on someone else. For me it is untruth.

As long as they are not used to judge or condemn others, then they shouldn't bother anyone.

in his church. Everyone stood up and recited the Apostle's Creed. I did not recite it though I know it from memory. I don't believe it is truth. I imagine everyone else there takes it on faith that it is truth.
I can't do that.
I did not tell any of them what I think about that creed. I would not let them try to convince me it is truth either.

I am glad that no one is trying to convert or deconvert anyone else.

I was raised in the church. My father is a Protestant minister. Although not one of the faithful, I don't mind going to a church service from time to time. I think most beliefs are entirely sincere, including your own.

believes. We are close and we are brothers and that is what is most important not what each of us believes.

It's been a pleasure talking to you, upaloopa. I hope to see you again.

Why do you do that?

What is Enlightenment? – Immanuel Kant


Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] “Have courage to use your own understanding!”–that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.


Much more:
http://www.artoftheory.com/what-is-enlightenment_immanuel-kant/

...our own existence would negate their religious beliefs?

To me religion is an invention of man to explain the unexplainable. The more we know the more we understand that.

We are talking about an invention of an alien species living elsewhere in the universe.

I'm not sure I'm prepared to pass judgment on their religions without having some idea of what they are all about, first.

When I signed up as an atheist, the job description only mentioned denying the Gods of earthly religions. Denying the Gods of extraterrestrial religions was never mentioned, and is way above my pay grade.

I have no idea what they even look like.

I would not call myself an atheist because I do think there is a higher power but I can't describe it or define it only that I think I have a some ability to relate to it.

I would deny the existence of some of them, and be in militant opposition to other earthly Gods whose physical existence is indisputable and cannot be denied.

That's a difficult position for me to take regarding any Gods of extraterrestrial religions of species we have yet to discover.

be contradicting yourself.

...but agnostic when it comes to extraterrestrial Gods.

Here on earth, I just call myself an atheist, since nobody cares much about extraterrestrial Gods.

Calling myself an earthly atheist / extraterrestrial agnostic seems like TMI for most conversations I get involved in while living on this planet.

...my position and become an extraterrestrial atheist once I've had time to learn more about them and their Gods.

Who knows?

What do you call yourself when you're off-planet?

...agnosticism with respect to any Gods they may have, at least until they tell me more about the nature of their Gods.

It seems unreasonable for me to take a stand one way or the other at this point, as I have had very, very few close encounters of that nature so far in my life, and my data is somewhat lacking.

I don't know how old you were, but the space program was huge in my elementary education. It was probably the most prominent piece of science we studied.

Is that propaganda? I'm not convinced it is.