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New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

independent.co.uk

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Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#291

Post by klodolph »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #241
klodolph wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People definitely do not agree with what you’re saying. Not everyone thinks that swearing an oath on something is only meaningful if that thing has some kind of power.

To elaborate on this, if I swear on my mother's grave, I'm pinning my respect for the oath to my respect for my dead mother. If I violate the oath, I'm also violating something I consider sacred. My mother never has to find out for me to feel the consequences. Probably this doesn't work on everybody. Even if it only works on 5%, it's essentially free so why not?

Yes, and I think if we follow that scenario further, we can imagine ways it would play out. “Alice swore an oath on her mother’s grave, and then violated that oath? Wow, Alice really can’t be trusted.”

The oath is a symbolic ritual that communicates something to other people around you.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#292

Post by gobrewers14 »

Grustaf wrote: post #281
gobrewers14 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I touch (swear an oath and break it to) a rock (a god) and I receive luck (anger). Both are superstitions. The rock example is actually less superstitious because rocks actually exist. There is zero evidence gods exist.

I didn’t make this up. It might seem like the same concept to you, but I assure you that any serious scholar, atheist or not, knows the difference. It really has nothing to do with what you personally believe or not. In your example the difference is that the rock effect is automatic, like gravity, but the god is a sentient being that has a will. Why is it so hard to accept that people call these different things? Yo…

> In your example the difference is that the rock effect is automatic, like gravity, but the god is a sentient being that has a will.

There is no difference. This is the fallacy of special pleading. You're saying that the example with god is different because you defined god to be different from the thing you don't want it to be the same as. You are presupposing gods existence. There is no evidence such an entity exists and is therefore superstition.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#293

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

rbanffy wrote: post #249
FredPret wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we engineers should swear on a stack of Star Trek DVD's

That's one future I work for.

It made me really happy to hear that. Thank you.

I’ve been told plenty of times that such a future is implausible. And I grant that our future may look a lot more like The Orville than Star Trek. But from an engineering, public health, and social perspective it seems that both of those visions have more similarities than differences. I accept that the individual work most of us do don’t directly build that future alone, but someone up-thread was quoting “E Pluribus Unum” and that’s how we get there.

(Auto-correct wished that to be “E Pluribus Ubuntu,” but I’ve always suspected LCARS is a lot more like BSD, Arch or Gentoo.)

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#294

Post by [deleted] »

lukego wrote: post #128
areoform wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have always held Carl Sagan in high esteem without actually having read his books. Here's a tiny excerpt from Pale Blue Dot. This excerpt elevates the book to high art, Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confid…

Lovely. That's the kind of sentiment I was hoping to inspire in the kids. That's not what I found in _Cosmos_ though. The tale of Giordano Bruno seemed more like a celebration of blind faith and trust in posthumous vindication and martyrdom. And an Indiana Jones style switcheroo from Catholicism to Sciencism in one swift motion. Jarring.

[deleted]

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#295

Post by yetihehe »

mnw21cam wrote: post #246
yetihehe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A fairly central part of the philosophy of quite a few religions is that there is a God who is quite capable of giving meaning to things independently of humans. I think it's like that with all religions. I'd like to speak a little with that god about some meanings. > Not everyone views these as "that's nice" documents. You say that those people give a meaning to those documents? Addendum: What I mean is that when…

Consider the statement "2 + 2 = 4". If there were no people to express what that meant, it would still be true and have meaning.

If no one existed, who would consider it true? It would have meaning to who? If you showed that statement to some old tribe which doesn't know numbers beyond 3 (Pirahã), they would not know what you mean. If you showed that without translating to some Romans, they would probably have to think about meaning of that sequence of characters. Some ideas (like mathematics or existence of a higher being) are pretty natural for humans, doesn't mean that those ideas mean anything to anyone besides humans, without people there is no meaning, just some clumps of atoms.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#296

Post by gobrewers14 »

Grustaf wrote: post #279
gobrewers14 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the gatekeeper of words. Christianity and Islam are both superstitions.

I’m not dictating what the word means, I’m just informing you since you don’t seem aware. Things don’t become superstitions just because you don’t believe in them. Just like there are well defined differences between myths, fairy tales, sagas etc.

>> Sure, you can use superstition as a slur for things you don’t believe in.

> I’m not dictating what the word means

That is precisely what you are doing by trying to insinuate that I am using a "slur". You do not have the authority to conjure a belief system out of thin air, assert that it is true without evidence, and start dictating to people the manner in which they are allowed to speak about it.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#297

Post by Grustaf »

gobrewers14 wrote: post #292
Grustaf wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t make this up. It might seem like the same concept to you, but I assure you that any serious scholar, atheist or not, knows the difference. It really has nothing to do with what you personally believe or not. In your example the difference is that the rock effect is automatic, like gravity, but the god is a sentient being that has a will. Why is it so hard to accept that people call these different things? Yo…

> In your example the difference is that the rock effect is automatic, like gravity, but the god is a sentient being that has a will. There is no difference. This is the fallacy of special pleading. You're saying that the example with god is different because you defined god to be different from the thing you don't want it to be the same as. You are presupposing gods existence. There is no evidence such an entity exi…

For a positivist, you’re not very strong on logic.

I didn’t say anything about the god having to exist, that is not part of it. The point is that the person believes he is talking to a being, rather than relying on a law of (super)nature.

The rock has no will, it is not the rock that decides you grant you luck, it’s an inevitable consequence of your action.

The god, real or not, is a being with a will, he presumably hears you and may decide to help or harm you.

Similarly, praying is different from casting spells. Not because they have different effects but how they are thought to work. It doesn’t matter if you or I believe praying works, the point is that prayer is talking to a sentient god. Magic spells is not. Both may be delusional, but surely you must be able to tell them apart? You learn this stuff in middle school.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#299

Post by gobrewers14 »

Grustaf wrote: post #297
gobrewers14 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your example the difference is that the rock effect is automatic, like gravity, but the god is a sentient being that has a will. There is no difference. This is the fallacy of special pleading. You're saying that the example with god is different because you defined god to be different from the thing you don't want it to be the same as. You are presupposing gods existence. There is no evidence such an entity exi…

For a positivist, you’re not very strong on logic. I didn’t say anything about the god having to exist, that is not part of it. The point is that the person believes he is talking to a being, rather than relying on a law of (super)nature. The rock has no will, it is not the rock that decides you grant you luck, it’s an inevitable consequence of your action. The god, real or not, is a being with a will, he presumably…

> For a positivist, you’re not very strong on logic.

When the ad hominems start I know I'm on the right track

> The rock has no will / The god, real or not, is a being with a will.

How do you know god is a being with a will? This is the fallacy of special pleading. You are defining god and giving it characteristics that precisely allows you to say it is different than something with no will.

> It doesn’t matter if you or I believe praying works, the point is that prayer is talking to a sentient god. Magic spells is not.

And both are superstition.

> You learn this stuff in middle school.

I went to a school that taught math & science.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#300

Post by Grustaf »

gobrewers14 wrote: post #296
Grustaf wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not dictating what the word means, I’m just informing you since you don’t seem aware. Things don’t become superstitions just because you don’t believe in them. Just like there are well defined differences between myths, fairy tales, sagas etc.

>> Sure, you can use superstition as a slur for things you don’t believe in. > I’m not dictating what the word means That is precisely what you are doing by trying to insinuate that I am using a "slur". You do not have the authority to conjure a belief system out of thin air, assert that it is true without evidence, and start dictating to people the manner in which they are allowed to speak about it.

Why do keep pretending to not understand? I’m not asserting anything regarding the existence of any gods, or the efficacy of prayer or swearing. I’m only trying to explain to you what these words mean. That is not related to my beliefs or yours.

A prayer is a prayer, even if someone is praying to a god that you are sure doesn’t exist. It’s still not “magic spells”, for example.

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