Does God know anything about Mars? No, he does not. If he knew he would have told us everything about Mars to prove that ‘he knows everything’ and we did not have to spend more than 2 billion dollars to send rovers to Mars. The books God wrote or others wrote on behalf of God are full of lies and filth: who should fuck whom, who should be flogged or whipped, who should be stoned to death, whom he will throw into the eternal hell of fire, etc. When God in the Sky and his disciples on the Earth that was created by God 6000 years ago are busy cursing and killing humans for wrong gender or wrong fuck we crossed 567-million-kilometer to arrive on Mars.
Our Curiosity landed safely. Let’s enjoy our victory.
The little six-wheeled rover Curiosity starts its 98-week mission, now exploring a crater that billions of years ago may have been filled with water. We are curious to know everything about our 14 billion years old Universe. We do not say ‘we know’ before we really know. We are not like God’s fan club members who without knowing anything say that they know everything. The difference between them and us is they do not need any evidence to believe in something. It’s true that the members of God’s fan club and we share the same Earth, but there are two different worlds on the Earth, our world is a world of science and humanism, their world is a world of fairy tales and hatred.
It seems to me from my own personal reading of both fiction and fact that for the last 250 years or so that the chattering classes and now twitterati have regarded dogmatic interpretations of religion as inimical to human progress. Start with the French Revolution of 1789 and the nationalisation of Church lands. Geology and Chemistry showed that religion was ‘anti-science’ several decades before Darwin and Evolution.
Paradoxically the increased facility of mass communication seems to strengthen the hand of religion with places like Syria becoming foci of the sort of conflict stereotyped by the Crimean War where Christian Russia (a nuclear armed superpower) sees itself as a protector of minorities in The Middle East, where the natural enemy is resurgant fundamentalist Islam funded by Saudi oil money. Putin’s government collects it’s Christian credentials by what looks suspiciously like a heresy trial (Pussy Riot).
Despite NASAs efforts to exlore Mars, the USA also indulges in a lot of religiously motivated subterfuges to deny women access to contraception because of the strength and wealth of dogmatic religion in that country.
In recession hit UK there is still no shortage of new churches which are opening all over the place, rather like betting shops which are another indicator of cultural poverty.
Despite NASAs success it is still pretty much impossible to get permission or funding to use pharmaceuticals as tools to explore the workings of the human mind. Researchers cannot get facilities to study drugs such as LSD or MDMA. Most drug and alcohol prohibition programmes seem to be motivated by religion rather than logic. A molecular explanation of religious experience seems to remain anathema to not only religious fundamentalists, but also many educated people who should know better.
antony goddard
twitter: @d4maths
Very well said. By far the most lucid comment on this magnificent achievement that I have seen on FTB! Because one of the more interesting implications this mission will have is that on religious believers.
One minor quibble:
Gods don’t exist, so they don’t write books, or appear to people and tell them to write books or write down revelations on their behalf(especially not those who are illiterate and sitting in a cave during Ramadan). People write or edit or compile books, and in the case of the holy books going around, it’s not so much lies but rather what we might call, err, fiction.
“Researchers cannot get facilities to study drugs such as LSD or MDMA. ”
MAPS and other organisations are working hard on that one. Get back them us in about 10 years:-)
Whatever interesting things Curiosity finds on Mars I’m sure some apologist will find some obscure passage in the book of myths to claim that this was already known to the faithful. So I’ll throw down a challenge – tell me in advance of the discoveries what your book predicts, not rationalize it after the discoveries. Already they’re asking about the “gravel” the first photos showed, OK, believers tell us where it came from.
There is no life on Mars. In the beginning God created life on earth, and “by one man Sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” (Romans 5:12) There is no sin on Mars and therefore there is no extinct life either. No biological material and no microbiological material. Water or material in itself do not create or evolve into life that can replicate ever. That is a scientific fact. Rocks do not replicate themselves, and water does not multiply itself no matter how long you wait. That is true science.
Here is something my friend shared with me regards Curiosity.
As the world’s gaze was upon the final moments of celebration as the Curiosity touched down upon Martian soil, I couldn’t help but consider the mammoth design effort involved in such a project. Consider how many programmers worked on the software to control the hardware components, how many engineers worked on all of the hardware components themselves, how many man-hours went into designing and testing the landing systems, and the incredible suspense as they all watched this multimillion dollar mission land on the surface of Mars, 250 million miles from Earth. One difference was notable from the landing of man upon the moon and this most recent landing, that was the absence of the recognition of God who gave us such brains. This time there was celebration but it was arrogant godless celebration. Consider how man would think it utterly absurd to suggest the Curiosity created itself from random particles, yet almost every school around the world teaches your children that the brilliance of a single living cell – which is more complex than an entire city – evolved from non-living particles. Then, they tell us that it is a proven fact that our brains which are made up of more than a hundred billion of such complex cells also evolved without a designer from random particles. What total absurdity! This is absurdity multiplied gazilion times from the absurdity suggesting that the Curiosity could put itself together, launch itself and land on Mars and then know how and what to investigate and what information to send back. Rather than absurdity, this is simply rebellion against the common sense God has given all of us. It is rebellion against common sense because man does not want to come under the authority of this God. It is not for lack of evidence that man does not believe, it is hardness of heart that he will not believe and will not give God the glory for the incredible brilliance which our meager efforts will never approach!
Ouch! Someone just got sent to the Burn Center!
Where I live (in the San Francisco Bay Area) KQED will be rebroadcasting Brian Greene’s series on NOVA this week. Yay! I’ve never seen it!
It strikes me that if the Curiosity lander had come down in early iron age Jordan the people present would assume it was, or a manifestation of, a mighty God. People would entirely overlook the greater reality, that the device is a mechanical artifact sent by other living beings, being who are technologically advanced, beings who could teach them many things. Odds are the local tribe would either pound it to scrap or worship it. Either way thousands of human minds would spend the majority of their waking hours for a considerable number of days constructing fanciful stories of what the arrival means and what the hypothetical supernatural being that sent this manifestation wants.
Humans want things to make sense. And we are, unfortunately, perfectly willing to create stories and attach meaning to little or nothing while attempting to come up with stories. This, in and of itself, wouldn’t be so great a problem except that humans love and cherish their stories and will defend them to the death.
5000 whining atheists vs the Great Prophet
http://www.ottawaskeptics.org/forum?func=view&id=4560&catid=3
xjustos may be sockpuppet for M*bus. He has posted the same spam all over FtB.
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Speaking of religion, I hereby declare myself to be the great Poo-Bah of Mars. If I seem suspiciously bereft of superpowers, it is because they don’t work on Earth.
Also, Yahweh cannot operate on Mars because that is my turf.
Just like Kolob is the turf of the Mormon god.
Hmmm…do gods use spray cans to mark their territories with grafitti? I should probably get some of those.
Great post! There is much comfort to be found in the fact that the universe is so infinite and wonderful. Unfortunately, religion is so popular because it keeps people in their “place”–mainly women, children and poor people. Religion serves rich men so well that we will never see an end to it. These rich men really don’t believe the garbage they expect the rest of us to believe–it just keeps everyone else oppressed.
whatever u speak , for or against role of woman. they are a lesser gender. time should cause mutations in woman to give them stronger genes. The so called free world, so called free world that respect science, regards reaching to mars , does it really respect woman? so neither of them respect woman….for the very reason of their anatomy…the fault line is within if there is any!!
As the world’s gaze was upon the final moments of celebration as the Curiosity touched down upon Martian soil, I couldn’t help but consider the mamoth design effort involved in such a project. Consider how many programmers worked on the software to control the hardware components, how many engineers worked on all of the hardware components themselves, how many man-hours went into designing and testing the landing systems, and the incredible suspense as they all watched this multibillion dollar mission land on the surface of Mars, 250 million miles from Earth. One difference was notable from the landing of man upon the moon and this most recent landing, that was the absence of the recognition of God who gave us such brains. This time there was celebration but it was arrogant godless celebration. Consider how man would think it utterly absurd to suggest the Curiosity created itself from random particles, yet almost every school around the world teaches your children that the brilliance of a single living cell – which is more complex than an entire city – evolved from non-living particles. Then, they tell us that it is a proven fact that our brains which are made up of more than a hundred billion of such complex cells also evolved without a designer from random particles. What total absurdity! This is absurdity multiplied gazilion times from the absurdity suggesting that the Curiosity could put itself together, launch itself and land on Mars and then know how and what to investigate and what information to send back. Rather than absurdity, this is simply rebellion against the common sense God has given all of us. It is rebellion against common sense because man does not want to come under the authority of this God. It is not for lack of evidence that man does not believe, it is hardness of heart that he will not believe and will not give God the glory for the incredible brilliance which our meagre efforts will never approach!
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20)
“Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name” (Amos 5:8):
“Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.” (Deuteronomy 4:39).
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22).