Elroy Willis <elroywillis@swbell.net> wrote in message

DianaC <dianaiad@vernoyoudontizon.net> wrote in alt.atheism
<snip>

I may be 56 and fat and stay home because I HAVE to, but I dreamed
of being an astronaut when I was younger, and I'd still be the first on
board if they would let me fly now. I would have been on the boat, on
the wagon train, behind the handcart. I don't understand people like you.

You could always book two seats instead of one, if you have enough
money...

I could. but dang it, I don't WANT to go as a tourist!

I understand that we need you.

What for? Some scoffing or persecution factor?

I understand that you have a purpose...

What purpose? Scoffing at natural progress and human curiosity
and desire to explore?

Somebody has to do that, y'know. It's part of the whip that gets people
going. I just don't want to be one of 'em.

Elroy Willis <elroywillis@swbell.net> wrote:

It really is to bad that you are so short sighted, and so stupid, to think that we,
the human race, should all sit on our collective asses and wait to die so that we
can all go meet your sky fairy.

Lars claims to be an atheist, so I doubt he believes in a sky fairy.
Interestingly, I've never come across an atheist who was so against
space exploration before,

So you haven't come across a strawman of your own construction before?
You can do valid science in space. You can do valid exploration in
space. It's just that *manned* missions are not worth it and funds
wasted on such chauvinistic programs would be much better spent on
science proper, either earthbound or done from space.

In our last episode,
<m1mfd11hdj01emq58rt8vdopm4dl7uglea@4ax.com>,
the lovely and talented Elroy Willis
broadcast on alt.atheism:

"Larry Heath" <lgheath@comcast.net> wrote in alt.atheism

It really is to bad that you are so short sighted, and so stupid, to
think that we,
the human race, should all sit on our collective asses and wait to die
so that we
can all go meet your sky fairy.

Lars claims to be an atheist, so I doubt he believes in a sky fairy.

Interestingly, I've never come across an atheist who was so against
space exploration before, and it intrigues me, if he's not just
pretending to be an atheist, or pretending to be against space
exploration just to get responses..

I am not only an atheist, but I am a very thoroughgoing atheist.

Now I don't mean to come on with an unholier-than-thou attitude,
but it seems to me that replacing one irrational belief system
with another isn't making much progress. And this goes for
touchy-feely New Age mysticism. And although I like prancing
around nakkid in the moonlight on the solstice as much as
anyone, it goes for Wicca, too, and other Neo-Pagan stuff.
It goes double for Sc**n*t*l*g*, and intelligent alien design as
much as intelligent design. It isn't just that god is not the
answer to "What is the purpose of life?" or "What does it all
mean?" but that those questions, and others like them, are
nonsense questions.

Now it is true enough that pagans aren't nearly so obnoxious as
christians, and they aren't trying to teach cretinism in the
public schools or anything. But that's just because they are
way out of power, and you know those Mayan temples weren't just
a walk in the park if you happened to be a virgin around
sacrifice time.

Imagine a troll comes on to this group, cross-posting to
alt.christnet.holy.holy.holy and another half-dozen groups which
are his real intended audience as he hopes to demonstrate how
holy he is and how stupid atheists are, and he writes "So, you
don't believe in the holy baby Jesus. What do you believe in?
You have got to believe in something!"

My answer is "No. No, I don't got to believe in something." Of
course that means I don't capital-B Believe in capital-S
Something. I still believe there will water when I go in the
kitchen and turn on the tap. I believe that, although I know
very well that it has happened and is likely to happen again
that a watermain breaks or something and there isn't water. I
believe I'll wake up in the morning, although I know very well
the day will come when I won't, and so forth. But no, I don't
believe in a big Something, in a Meaning to Everything, in a
Purpose to Life, or any of that stuff. And I think it is only
weakminded chickenshit morons who do. I could be less subtle
in expressing that sentiment, but I think you can fill in the
blanks.

Now I look at the spaceoperafantasy stuff, and I see lots and
lots of stuff not to believe in. Let's see ... where to begin?
Space aliens are mostly hominoid, many are anorexic, and all
speak English - even if it's telepathy. Unobtainium reactors
produce just about unlimited energy out of nearly nothing and
don't pollute anything. There's a lot of stuff like that.
Stuff that is just wildly improbable or sort of bends basic
thermodynamics a little. But this jumping around through
hyperspace stuff - that's parting-the-Red-Sea material.

Now I have heard all the superstringy wormyholy stuff. First,
superstring stuff seems to be utterly without any predictive
power. It's not experimentally testable. Until and unless it
is testable, it is a religion. And obviously if you cannot get
a handle on superstrings to experiment with them, you sure
cannot get ahold of them to zip yourself to Rigel. The wormhole
stuff and the
maybe-some-information-is-two-places-at-once-faster-than-light
stuff in no way suggests that ponderous bodies - such as human
beings - can use these things to travel.

There may be some physics that can be done up there that cannot
be done here - and maybe the zoning problems on the moon are
much less than they are here so you can build a really big
superduper collider there that you cannot build here. But the
basic physics problem of how to get from here to the end of the
universe by yesterday - if it can be solved at all - cannot be
solved by building a rocket.

So with the present realm of technical possibilities, we are
pretty much limited to trying to exploit the solar system for
Martin Marietta and Halliburton. So, when I ask myself, Is it
worth it for Tang and Teflon? the answer I come up with is "No."
If there is something out there that really makes economic sense
to go get, robots can find it. Then - maybe - it might be
worthwhile to send people to go get it. In the mean time, if
people can use robotic prosthetics to do open heart surgery, they
sure as hell can grab a few rocks with robots.

What's the hurry? Pretty clearly, the hurry is to use up a
bunch of quarter-century old buckets of bolts to try to justify
the existence of NASA. The planets aren't going way. The stars
aren't going away (well, actually, I guess they are, at a pretty
good clip, too). What's going away is the funding and political
support for a particularly silly, wasteful, and top-heavy
agency. Their mission isn't to boldly go where no man has gone
before. Their mission is to save their phoney-baloney jobs.


What about all the wonderful things that Columbus did? Well,
yes, that was great. If he hadn't discovered a New World, why
people might have stayed savages - and who knows, there might
even have been a Hitler. It is a good thing he showed us how to
run away from human nature!

What's the hurry? Pretty clearly, the hurry is to use up a
bunch of quarter-century old buckets of bolts to try to justify
the existence of NASA. The planets aren't going way. The stars
aren't going away (well, actually, I guess they are, at a pretty
good clip, too). What's going away is the funding and political
support for a particularly silly, wasteful, and top-heavy
agency. Their mission isn't to boldly go where no man has gone
before. Their mission is to save their phoney-baloney jobs.