Distant planet judged possibly habitable

Rand Simberg wrote:

Sorry, by "both religions," I meant LDS and Islam, not "Heaven's
Gate." The latter is clearly unsuccessful, thankfully.


Anyone who would think that Islam isn't "successful", by the simple
matter of how many followers it has, and how far they are willing to go
in their zeal for their religious beliefs, hasn't been looking at the
history of around the past 30 years or so.
What is interesting is that the rise of Fundamentalist Islamic beliefs
is pretty much mirrored by the rise of Protestant Fundamentalist
beliefs in the same time frame.
Both Christianity and Islam (and Fundamentalist Judaism, for that
matter) are on their last breaths, due to the advance of humanist
thought. And a lot of the world who embraced their tenants is suddenly
having something very comforting pulled out of their hands, and from
under them, and will do just about anything to stop that from happening.
Luckily, this should all be behind us in, say, 100 years.
So, providing we can all get through this, the promise of The
Enlightenment might just occur on a global scale.
Don't look now, but the three "Children Of The Book" are about to toss
the book away.

Pat

On 26 Apr, 14:01, "Paul F. Dietz" wrote:
Sylvia Else wrote:
Perhaps we need to start a religion focused on going to other planets to
find extra-terrestrial life.

I'd be amused to see a religion that took evolution not only
as a fact, but as god's plan, and derived a dogma around it.
Kind of a combination of Calvinism and Social Darwinism.
It's your fate and duty to properly express your genome so
selection can act on it.

The above could be seen as in line with Catholic doctrine.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Also note that there have been other projects, such as cathedrals,
that took more than a human lifetime to complete.

This made me think of the meme that particle accelerators are the
cathedrals of our time, with scientific knowledge standing in for _ad
maiorem Dei gloriam_.

For a generation after Hiroshima, high-energy physics was able to
coast on "fund the eggheads, they may come up with another wonder
weapon." Symbolically, that ended in 1969 with Robert Wilson
(Fermilab)'s congressional testimony: asked if it would contribute to
national defense, he replied candidly no, except that it was part of
what made the nation worth defending.

Space is still making that transition: sometimes still coasting on
updated variations of the "new high ground" and "Red moon" anxiety of
1957... sometimes on more diffuse Apollo-like grounds of national
prestige and leadership... sometimes for its own sake, in two
overlapping, sometimes competing flavors: we want to know, and we want
to go.









Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com

Sylvia Else wrote:

Ah, yes - religious motives.

Perhaps we need to start a religion focused on going to other planets to
find extra-terrestrial life.

We already have, and the sci.space newsgroups are among its
theological seminaries.

I'm not sure what was in your mind with "ah yes, religious motives,"
but I don't consider that dismissive. One of many attributes that add
up to what we call "religious" is orientation toward a dimly
apprehended future which none of us will live to see, but towards
which we want to feel ourslves moving.

And yes, that overlaps with "political motives" (many of us want to
feel we're moving towards less conflict and more equity) and
"scientific motives" (many of us want to feel we're assembling a
steadily more comprehensive understanding of the universe) and
"cultural motives" (many of us want to find a way to maintain the
dynamism and wealth generation Europe kicked off 500 years ago without
trashing the earth). It's silly to look for bright lines
distinguishing these, as demonstrated by many of the posts downthread
:-)

You can see it most clearly in Nikolai Fedorov, a crucial mentor for
the young Tsiolkovsky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai...ovich_Fyodorov

The Fedorov tradition is usually identified with "it's our job to
spread life and consciousness in an otherwise dead cosmos," but most
of it carries over perfectly well to "it's our job to find out if
we're alone or not."

Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com

kT wrote:
..
Not bad. You put the kooks to shame. Wait, you are a kook!
..
Planet Krypton it is then.
..
I hope you realize that I am not being serious, only that this planet
somewhat resembles the fictional planet Krypton, just as the mineral
jokingly called Kryptonite happened to resemble a reference to
Kryptonite's composition in a recent movie.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote in news:1177770564.832319.38850
@e65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

kT wrote:
.
Not bad. You put the kooks to shame. Wait, you are a kook!
.
Planet Krypton it is then.
.
I hope you realize that I am not being serious, only that this planet
somewhat resembles the fictional planet Krypton, just as the mineral
jokingly called Kryptonite happened to resemble a reference to
Kryptonite's composition in a recent movie.

Elifritz has no sense of humor.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Quadibloc wrote:

kT wrote:
.
Not bad. You put the kooks to shame. Wait, you are a kook!
.
Planet Krypton it is then.
.
I hope you realize that I am not being serious, only that this planet
somewhat resembles the fictional planet Krypton, just as the mineral
jokingly called Kryptonite happened to resemble a reference to
Kryptonite's composition in a recent movie.

I'm serious. You wanted it, you got it.

Too late! Gliese 581 c - Planet Krypton. It's done.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 00:22:21 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:

Sorry, by "both religions," I meant LDS and Islam, not "Heaven's
Gate." The latter is clearly unsuccessful, thankfully.


Anyone who would think that Islam isn't "successful", by the simple
matter of how many followers it has, and how far they are willing to go
in their zeal for their religious beliefs, hasn't been looking at the
history of around the past 30 years or so.

Who said Islam isn't successful?

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:04:47 +0200 (CEST), in a place far, far away,
Jim Davis made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


It might work out that way. I hope that it does. But it is
foolish to insist that it must.

Who did that? Nice strawman attempt, though.

I didn't claim anyone did. Nice ad hominem, though.

Among many other things, you're apparently misinformed as to the
meaning of "ad hominem."

The only issue here is whether or not a religion that had that
as a goal would be more successful in achieving it than one that
didn't, assuming that it is achievable at all.

No. The issue is whether or not a religion that had that as a goal
would be more successful *period* than one that didn't.

No, it's not.

I submit that this is very much an open question.

It is an open question, but it's not the issue. It doesn't have to be
more successful than some other religion that doesn't attempt to
achieve that. It only has to be successful in absolute terms.

Is it your claim
that it is unachievable?

Oh, no. One could conceivably go to another planet and find
extraterrestrial life.

If not, what is your claim?

My claim is that it is by no means certain that a "going to other
planets to seek out extraterrestrial life" meme enhances the
survival prospects of any group which carries it, religious or
otherwise.

It doesn't matter, as long as the religion remains successful (i.e.,
maintains or grows its numbers of adherents). There are certainly
many ways that one could tweak any religion to make them *more*
successful, but the failure to do so doesn't make them *unsuccessful*.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in news:4633668a.1175530
@news.giganews.com:

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 00:22:21 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:

Sorry, by "both religions," I meant LDS and Islam, not "Heaven's
Gate." The latter is clearly unsuccessful, thankfully.


Anyone who would think that Islam isn't "successful", by the simple
matter of how many followers it has, and how far they are willing to go
in their zeal for their religious beliefs, hasn't been looking at the
history of around the past 30 years or so.

Who said Islam isn't successful?

Someone with poor reading comprehension. Although "latter" is, at least,
questionable usage in a list of three, anyone who could read at a third-
grade level could tell that you were calling Heaven's Gate unsuccessful,
not Islam.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.