Are all scientists this stupid?

NASA's Ames Research Center is working on its "Hundred-Year Starship" project that will sell you a one-way ticket to Mars:
This job is clearly not appropriate for losers. It's kind of dramatic: NASA needs to save some money. The return trip is more expensive, roughly by a factor of five or so, and NASA wants to save the money by sending settlers who have the balls to do the unthinkable.

Would you have the courage and desire to spend the rest of your life in a space suit in between red stones, living at permanent risk that the vital technology may stop working at any moment? Would you be eager to work for some hypothetically brighter future of the people who continue to live on the blue planet rather than the red one?

If you wouldn't but if you accept that they will surely find someone who will be ready to participate, do you have any moral complaints against the plan?

I wonder how the life - and its end - would work in the absence of hospitals, hospices, good entertainment centers, classical restrooms, and millions of other things. Could the job be safely done by prisoners or terrorists? It's surely a topic for a very emotional movie.

NASA expects such an expedition to be there before 2030.

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merc460 said:

If He was just to give everyone these things, we would all be just a bunch of spoiled brats running around. We have to have FAITH he will do what is best for us, not what we want for us.

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eye95 said:

If you cannot talk to me about my religious beliefs without disrespectful snark, I won't bother replying back again. For this post, I will choose to overlook your rudeness and answer as though you had intellectually asked whether prayers being answered differently is a result of God not understanding the prayer:

God understands what we ask for. God understands what we need. When we pray, we may ask for something specific, but we are really expressing a need, even though we may not know what that need is. God will provide for that need. I have absolute faith in that.
______________________________

You may choose not to believe in God, and I will not disrespect you for that choice. Please do not disrespect me again for my choice.

(BTW, my remarks about how prayer works would be directed solely at those who have faith in God and prayer and who would find my remarks relevant. Those who do not have such faith should logically find my comments irrelevant to their lives--and that's OK.)

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Venator said:

So god is a poor communicator and sometimes gives us something we didn't ask for. Doesn't sound omnipotent to me.

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Venator said:

...Please don't let facts get in the way of your worldly or heavenly views...

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oak1971 said:

No. He knows what we really need better than we do. He posses omniscience, something which you and I both lack.

You could see that if you were not blinded by your faith in man.

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sFe said:

If God already knows what you want and need, why is there even a need to pray?

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eye95 said:

That's the kind of snark disrespecting my faith of which I spoke.

You have earned my lack of respect for what you say.

Have a good life. I am permanently moving on from any further discussion with you.

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eye95 said:

Assuming that you are truly interested in the theology: God gave us free will. He wants us to voluntarily choose Him, not to be automatons, forced into His Will. Of course, that means many will reject Him.

Prayer is one of the ways we voluntarily turn our lives over to God.

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sFe said:

If God already knows what you want and need, why is there even a need to pray?

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Tawnos said:

BS stories and theodicy (the problem of evil)
First, the definition doesn't stand up to scrutiny. There is a huge definitional difference between "not-good" and "evil". To reduce one to the other is to bifurcate your worldview into a binary system that is fundamentally incompatible with reason. Perhaps that's intentional.

Second, the explanation makes no sense. If you think god is everywhere, and god is good, then there is nowhere that is not good. Clearly that is not the case, so either god is not omnipresent, or is not good. Your pick.

Third, stories like that (and the classic "breaking chalk" or "breaking a glass" story) exist simply to reaffirm your beliefs. They're essentially propaganda meant to continue the brainwashing. Numerous philosophers have raised the problem of evil, and it remains one of those questions that cannot be answered in any logical sense without constructing either an incompetent or uncaring god.

Finally, have you ever considered how much of an ******* move it is to say "Maybe it's something she's said or done in the past. Don't know. Maybe she is not as faithful as she or you think (God knows your heart)." Does it make you feel better, more superior, smug, or somehow self-satisfied to put forth the explanation that one's own good or badness, faithfulness or lack thereof is evidenced by those acts that occur to or upon them? Should a raped christian woman feel like she is a failed christian because if she weren't, god would have stopped the rape? Should a person who has had his leg blown off by a landmine on the way to church feel like god allowed it to happen to him because he wasn't praying enough? Does that really strike you as what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent being would do? If your kids get kidnapped and murdered, should I say "well, clearly you just didn't pray enough?" NO! That answer is the utmost in moral failure! The fact you put forth such an explanation and expect it to stand even casual scrutiny reminds me just how good churches are at brainwashing their patrons.

Have you ever bothered considering it, or is a trite little story about college students and professors enough explanation for you in this world?

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rodbender said:

A PM from Tawnos to me. Why he chose not to do this in open forum I don't have a clue.

Tawnos, I don't know why God refuses to return the dog to your girlfriend. I was just giving a couple of examples in general. I had nothing specific in mind. It does seem that I may have touched a nerve.

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090304160400.htm said:

"We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

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rodbender said:

Tawnos, The answers to all of your questions are in a book entitled "The Holy Bible". But then, I don't expect you'll read it. Haz did and got all the answers that he did not want, but is now glad that he found.

I expect you will not read it because for some reason (your tone) you seem to have a hatred of God rather than simply non-belief. Be careful, my friend, this can lead to a prolonged period of death.

It seems that you may have committed that one unforgivable (by God) sin. I will pray for your salvation anyway. There may be a chance to save you.

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irish52084 said:

rodbender: If someone sends you a private message, it is just that, private. Why you felt you needed to post a private message is beyond me. I think it is exceptionally rude and can't believe tawnos didn't rip you a new one for it. Just because there's a keyboard and the internet separating you, you still need to mind your manners. Shame on you for acting in such a manner.

Here's some interesting info on the effectiveness of religious belief in influencing one's actions. Prison population's religious breakdown in 1997: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
Random bits of statistical date pretaining to breakdowns of religious belief: http://www.atheistempire.com/reference/stats/main.html

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irish52084 said:

rodbender: If someone sends you a private message, it is just that, private. Why you felt you needed to post a private message is beyond me. I think it is exceptionally rude and can't believe tawnos didn't rip you a new one for it. Just because there's a keyboard and the internet separating you, you still need to mind your manners. Shame on you for acting in such a manner.

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Tawnos said:

Funny, I've read the bible through and through (in a few translations, along with a lot of the Qur'an, the book of subgenius, the illiad, some of the Bhagavad Gita, and some buddhist scriptures - what have you read). It's what convinced me the god described therein is a horrible being. Have you read the bible, much less any of the other religious writings?

As for your mythology, of course I deny the holy spirit and whatever other babble you have about god. There is no evidence for any of it, so why would I claim it exists?

I don't hate god, the same as I don't hate the easter bunny: both don't exist. However, one has a much greater impact on my life, because unlike the Easter bunny, grown adults still believe the stories written by nomadic sheep herders. They vote based on this irrationality, they judge others, they ignore the significant issues with their own belief systems while criticizing others'. Your quote about common sense applies: any person of common sense should be able to see that with omniscience comes predestination, that omnipotence is self-contradictory, and many many other things that you ignore with a handwave and trite phrase.

I used to be a Christian, and it was in trying to write apologetics that reconciled theodicy and omnipotence that I arrived at disbelief. Then I started reading and researching more, and through growth learned enough to get me here. I've read Kant, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Anselm, among others. What evidence do you purport to have that is better than these writers? The bible? Hardly.

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rodbender said:

Latest PM from Tawnos

Yes, I've read the Bible, several times. I did not blow through it like a tornado. I wanted to get the entire meaning of it and not just the words. I've never read any other religious writings, I have no need to.

The rest of what you wrote here is just rammbling and I will not respond to it.

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Tawnos said:

Not the latest, but whatever.


If a woman is raped, and nobody catches her, she has to get married to the rapist, who must pay a small fine to the father of the woman for the damaged property. If you attack a city in the name of god, you should murder all the women, children, and noncombatants. If there's a tree that's out of season and Jesus is hungry, he will curse and kill the tree for not having fruit. Whether it's a curse like "fark you, tree" or some magic spell he casts, the text isn't clear.
What meaning did you get out of those passages?

What would you call a human who murders every person who offends him? What about one who, after a battle, orders all of the surrendering or defeated people to be killed, men, women, and children? How about one who slowly kills his friend's baby because that friend cheated on his wife? If that same person demanded unrelenting praise?

I'd call that man petty and a tyrant. Of course, that description is of god from the christian bible: gen 6:7, deut 2:33-36, 2sam12:15-18, nah1:2. One making excuses for such an abusive person would be considered suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or battered person syndrome, yet when one does the same thing for Yahweh, they're called righteous. It's a double standard I cannot hold. These are just a few examples of the cruelties and injustices carried out by that god or in that god's name. Hardly rambling, but simple examples.

If you have never read any other religious texts, have never investigated what other beliefs exist, how do you know yours to be correct? How do you even know you have no need to, if you have never done even the most cursory research?

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