Freethought & Rationalism Archive

phlebas · 11-25-2002, 07:52 AM

I've had a couple of people use the "God intended for us to colonize them" line before. Although what the hell we're supposed to do with Jupiter is a mystery.

Oddly, the same people thought that we were in the "end times." You'd think God would have checked his Palm Pilot for the end of the world before he got busy putting up all the other planets. No point in putting planets around Vega if all we're going to have time to do is hit golf balls on the moon and crash probes into Mars. (And we wouldn't have done that much by now if the Church had maintained control over all of us.)

The "God knew we'd like looking at stars" line is my favorite. Considering how only the tiniest percentage of them are viewable by the naked eye on a clear night, God must have expected more of us to be astronomers.

"God put those black holes there because he knew we'd like looking at rows of numbers from radio telescopes and coming up with theories for things that don't actually affect Earth in any measureable way here in these End Times."

If you're not going to get them to budge on something so simple and obvious as evolution, you might as well not waste your breath on cosmology.

Zadok001 · 11-25-2002, 08:35 AM

Obviously, Jupiter is there for the big obelisks to orbit so we can find out the meaning of our existance.

pz · 11-25-2002, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by phlebas:
I've had a couple of people use the "God intended for us to colonize them" line before. Although what the hell we're supposed to do with Jupiter is a mystery.

Well, if you ask <a href="http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/ETI/Authors/Dyson-FJ/SfASSoIR.html" target="_blank">Freeman Dyson</a>, it's a huge reservoir of raw materials that could be relatively easily dismantled by our descendants.

Quote:

...the mass of Jupiter, if distributed in a spherical shell revolving around the sun at twice the Earth's distance from it, would have a thickness such that the mass is 200 grams per square centimeter of surface area (2 to 3 meters, depending on the density). A shell of this thickness could be made comfortably habitable, and could contain all the machinery required for exploiting the solar radiation falling onto it from the inside.

phlebas · 11-25-2002, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zadok001:
Obviously, Jupiter is there for the big obelisks to orbit so we can find out the meaning of our existance.

Do you mean the Arthur C Clarke ones or Gideon Bibles?

phlebas · 11-25-2002, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pz:
Well, if you ask Freeman Dyson, it's a huge reservoir of raw materials that could be relatively easily dismantled by our descendants.

OH YEAH! Dyson Spheres. Didn't think about those. Good for some speculation by bored physics students and one nostalgia-laden episode of ST:TNG.

If God wanted us to live in one of those, the least he could have done was build us one from the start. Bastard. He probably won't even help with the funding.

Bluenose · 11-25-2002, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BH:
...I'll try to find the qoute but the Babble says somewhere it says stars help us tell the "times and seasons".

"Genesis 1:14
...lights...to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:"

compare verse 16
"...made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

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11-25-2002, 07:52 AM	#21
phlebas Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Metropolis Posts: 916	I've had a couple of people use the "God intended for us to colonize them" line before. Although what the hell we're supposed to do with Jupiter is a mystery. Oddly, the same people thought that we were in the "end times." You'd think God would have checked his Palm Pilot for the end of the world before he got busy putting up all the other planets. No point in putting planets around Vega if all we're going to have time to do is hit golf balls on the moon and crash probes into Mars. (And we wouldn't have done that much by now if the Church had maintained control over all of us.) The "God knew we'd like looking at stars" line is my favorite. Considering how only the tiniest percentage of them are viewable by the naked eye on a clear night, God must have expected more of us to be astronomers. "God put those black holes there because he knew we'd like looking at rows of numbers from radio telescopes and coming up with theories for things that don't actually affect Earth in any measureable way here in these End Times." If you're not going to get them to budge on something so simple and obvious as evolution, you might as well not waste your breath on cosmology.

11-25-2002, 08:35 AM	#22
Zadok001 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Two Steps Ahead Posts: 1,124	Obviously, Jupiter is there for the big obelisks to orbit so we can find out the meaning of our existance.

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