Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 340 posts

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

#311

Post by docandrew »

Beltiras wrote: post #290
ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're only pretending to believe, they already know they're wrong. If you sincerely do just want to communicate this to them, I recommend using "God" instead of "Skygod". It doesn't change the message and it makes it sound more like you're speaking in good faith.

You wrongfully assume I want to have any sort of conversation with the converts. The only conversation I want to have with them is to tell them to stay bloody clear of politics. If you want to have rules that govern your life, I'm perfectly fine with that up to where they want legislation that affects the freedom of other people. It seems too much of late that Evangelicals took The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction m…

Ah yes, those famously utopian atheistic societies… like Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. Good thing they kept Christianity bloody clear of politics or things might have gotten ugly!

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

#312

Post by krapp »

musicale wrote: post #287
tialaramex wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Christian theology holds that God is the present age is not going smite people for breaking such oaths. Or to put it another way. Since it is very obvious that people routinely break oaths, Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 Septe…

> God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack Because he had traveled to deep space and was busy facing off with Imperiex-Prime, an entity capable of destroying not just the Earth (though that was part of his plan) but large portions of the universe itself? https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_Superman_Vol_1_594

Yes. Unfortunately that book was left out of the canon.

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

#313

Post by tialaramex »

musicale wrote: post #287
tialaramex wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Christian theology holds that God is the present age is not going smite people for breaking such oaths. Or to put it another way. Since it is very obvious that people routinely break oaths, Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 Septe…

> God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack Because he had traveled to deep space and was busy facing off with Imperiex-Prime, an entity capable of destroying not just the Earth (though that was part of his plan) but large portions of the universe itself? https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_Superman_Vol_1_594

I'd forgotten just how mediocre the Man of Steel is. This is why my favourite character is Winter Moran. Less caring about humans ("They're only people") and more teleportation :)

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

#314

Post by Beltiras »

klodolph wrote: post #306
Beltiras wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to give any "believer" the benefit of the doubt. I assume they are socially Christian with no real practice or devotion from the getgo. To convince me of anything else they have to have works. There's a reason for the caricature comics have been lambasting for decades. It's only funny cause it's true.

You’re conflating “these Christians are behaving poorly (or in ways I disagree with)” with “these Christians are only pretending to worship God.” That’s the foundation on which you build a basis for sectarian violence, which is why I’m arguing here. You can see Christians who are behaving the wrong way, by your judgment, without accusing them of acting unfaithfully.

The "behaving poorly in ways I disagree with" is them demanding legislation and judicial outcomes that hamper the way others want to live their lives. I am done with showing this group any sort of decorum.

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

#315

Post by Beltiras »

docandrew wrote: post #311
Beltiras wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrongfully assume I want to have any sort of conversation with the converts. The only conversation I want to have with them is to tell them to stay bloody clear of politics. If you want to have rules that govern your life, I'm perfectly fine with that up to where they want legislation that affects the freedom of other people. It seems too much of late that Evangelicals took The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction m…

Ah yes, those famously utopian atheistic societies… like Soviet Russia and Mao’s China. Good thing they kept Christianity bloody clear of politics or things might have gotten ugly!

Neither of those are utopian atheistic societies. They were authoritarian hellholes that weren't even socialist in nature.

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

#316

Post by Beltiras »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #304
Beltiras wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrongfully assume I want to have any sort of conversation with the converts. The only conversation I want to have with them is to tell them to stay bloody clear of politics. If you want to have rules that govern your life, I'm perfectly fine with that up to where they want legislation that affects the freedom of other people. It seems too much of late that Evangelicals took The Handmaid's Tale as an instruction m…

I didn't assume that you wanted to have a conversation with religious people; you said so and I believed you. >If you don't call out the hypocrites, how would they ever know they are wrong? If you're not actually trying to convince them they're wrong, you can't use that to justify uncivility. I get that being polite is less important than preventing someone from leveraging the government to restrict others' freedoms.…

I can't convince them. Their belief precludes any sort of reason to pierce the veil.

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

#317

Post by klodolph »

Beltiras wrote: post #314
klodolph wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re conflating “these Christians are behaving poorly (or in ways I disagree with)” with “these Christians are only pretending to worship God.” That’s the foundation on which you build a basis for sectarian violence, which is why I’m arguing here. You can see Christians who are behaving the wrong way, by your judgment, without accusing them of acting unfaithfully.

The "behaving poorly in ways I disagree with" is them demanding legislation and judicial outcomes that hamper the way others want to live their lives. I am done with showing this group any sort of decorum.

Yeah, you’ve made it clear that you’re not interested in showing these people decorum, perhaps because you’ve decided that they don’t deserve decorum, or something like that. People are going to keep calling you out for being uncivil when you act like that; explaining your viewpoint is not going to help.

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

#318

Post by shaftoe444 »

drummojg wrote: post #191
shaftoe444 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. My understanding is that even when the KJV was being written these pronouns were becoming archaic. If it wasn't for the Bible and Shakespeare I wonder how many English speakers would recognise them.

It's, for lack of a better term, "High English." It is meant to sound grand, and thus the grander old style was used. Which is entirely appropriate; IIRC the original Hebrew uses grander language for poetic passages & the words of the LORD.

Even in Shakespeare the use of them is pretty inconsistent grammatically but makes perfect sense as a stylistic choice.

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

#319

Post by Beltiras »

klodolph wrote: post #317
Beltiras wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "behaving poorly in ways I disagree with" is them demanding legislation and judicial outcomes that hamper the way others want to live their lives. I am done with showing this group any sort of decorum.

Yeah, you’ve made it clear that you’re not interested in showing these people decorum, perhaps because you’ve decided that they don’t deserve decorum, or something like that. People are going to keep calling you out for being uncivil when you act like that; explaining your viewpoint is not going to help.

Read about the paradox of tolerating intolerance.

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

#320

Post by echelon »

ogurechny wrote: post #132
echelon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brain literally locks up when I read King James-style English. I wonder if AI can discover patterns in language or other signal domains that totally disrupt the modern brain and cause humans to crash. Biblical passages nearly do that to me, so I think that they must exist.

You've mentioned “concepts, analogies, and metaphors of that era are now of no relevance to the common happenings of the present day” before you edited your comment. I think it is the grave error that results in the rest of your conclusions about “malfunctioning brains” (which is one of the hopelessly obsolete “concepts, analogies, and metaphors” still so common in the present day). It totally possible to post the sa…

I edited it several times. I was using GPT to generate old English to try to convey the difficulty of encoding information. I ultimately removed those paragraphs and went with the more interesting point about pushing thought in a way that causes the brain to work harder or deadlock.
Post reply on HN