Sally Ride Takes Her Final Flight 251
fructose writes "Sally Ride, America's first woman in space died today at age 61. She succumbed to pancreatic cancer according to her office in San Diego. Here's to wishing her a safe trip on her final journey."
true pioneer (Score:3, Insightful)
Sally Ride was a true pioneer and hero.
I suspect that many if not most of the people who follow Slashdot don't believe in religious superstition. I find it truly unfortunate that someone would take advantage of her untimely passing and use it as an opportunity to preach his own religious views. And yes, I expect other supposedly "religious" people will now resort to name calling to mod me down rather than enter into discussion.
Re:true pioneer (Score:5, Insightful)
Sally Ride was a true pioneer and hero.
I suspect that many if not most of the people who follow Slashdot don't believe in religious superstition. I find it truly unfortunate that someone would take advantage of her untimely passing and use it as an opportunity to preach his own religious views. And yes, I expect other supposedly "religious" people will now resort to name calling to mod me down rather than enter into discussion.
As she literally flew, if you will, to "the heavens" during her lifetime, I see nothing wrong with suggesting metaphorically that she's doing it now for the final time. Yes, the imagery is religious. But it seems to fit the situation well.
Goodbye, Sally.
Rest well Sally (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:true pioneer (Score:4, Insightful)
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
when you are dead you are dead. there isn't any 'safe trip' about it.
let the myth of afterlife 'die' already!
Of course its tolerance, regardless of what you think about it. You live most of your life based, not on logic, but on personal preferences and emotional impulses that have little scientific justification. And I do too. And so the other 7 billion people on this planet.
Re:Safe trip? (Score:4, Insightful)
When a process dies, all the work it has accomplished remains. Same with a human.
I could counter your belittling of people who use these "bedtime stories" with this: those who have no belief in the possibility of a greater being are uncomfortable with the thought of something being inexplicable - ever.
Re:Awesome Gal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Condolences to her family.
And condolences to her partner of 27 years, Dr. Tam E. O'Shaughnessy
Sadly even hero status didn't bring the right to legal marriage during their time together
Re:true pioneer (Score:4, Insightful)
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
As a militant agnostic, I have to point out that your post is nothing but flamebait.
It is devoid of argument outside of assertion. It has no foundation. It is an accusation with nothing behind it. You are almost begging people to flame you.
Intolerance of belief is just as bad as intolerance of non-belief. Indeed it gives those with a system of religion ammunition to fuel whatever persecution complex they're nursing. So it leads to backlash. You decried the Moral Majority in another post. Stop giving them bad things to say about us.
To quote the Letter to the Touro Synagogue: The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. ...
May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. -- G. Washington.
Go sit under your own fig tree.
--
BMO
Re:Sally Ride was a Lesbian (Score:5, Insightful)
Ride's partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy, will be denied federal benefits because the Defense of Marriage Act says that was an unrelationship, not like the real relationships that good Christian hetero real Americans have.
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Re:Safe trip? (Score:4, Insightful)
Over the same 20 year period that you have been slipping into ... what should we call it ... spiritualism, my wife has been nursing in ICU and cardiac wards. Though she was raised to be religious, the many deaths she has witnessed have moved her from the "imaginary" position (to quote OP) to one more in keeping with the available evidence: that is something not dissimilar from OP's observation that "personality [is] dissolved into nothingness at the moment the brain's broke connection with one another."
Despite all the chatter of "weird unexplainable shit" happening, no-one has yet been able to provide any persuasive evidence of human consciousness existing absent a functioning human brain.
Old man, after you die, chances are you won't be aware that the surprise never came.
The cat food can (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. I'm honestly quite surprised at what is a fairly high level of vitriol over what people choose to believe or not believe from a religious standpoint. C'mon, people. Can't we just let someone hold their religious beliefs without going out of our way to mock and deride them because you think you know better?
Ponder your cat. It has it's own world, it lives life freely, is fairly intelligent. It can plan, make decisions, etc. And yet it is not remotely possible for that kitty to understand, when you open the cat food can, how that food got there. All kitty understands is that you open the can and the food is simply there. Kitty's mind is not able to comprehend how that cat food came to be created, how it was packaged, labeled, transported, sold, etc. Kitty's brain isn't capable of understanding it. To kitty, it's not even a known unknown, it's an unknown unknown (to use some military/war/intelligence terminology).
Why couldn't us mere humans be the same way? Why couldn't there be a God or similar being whose entire existence completely and totally transcends ours? I realize that *could* open the face-two-mirrors-at-each-other paradox, but lets set that aside for the moment. To put it simply - just because you cannot conclusively prove that a God does not exist DOES NOT mean that God doesn't exist.
Re:Safe trip? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like how you gloss over the fact that science has been quite successful at ushering members of the set of inexplicable things to the set of understood phenomena.
I for one am glad that there are rational humans who chafe at the inexplicable - that's what drives them to discovery.
I would rather have progress than convenient, reassuring bedtime stories.
Re:Safe trip? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Safe trip? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it?
Heinlein misspoke. Surely that should be "there is no evidence of any kind of life after death, but there is no conclusive evidence against it." If I didn't know any better I might think that the author stemmed from a time and place in which the belief in life after death was generally accepted.
One can postulate any number of imaginary things for which there is no, or cannot be, any evidence of their non-existence. Which is why we usually don't waste too much effort establishing the non-existence of things for which there is no prima facie evidence.
As regards post-mortem consciousness, we have a) an absence of any empirical evidence, b) no necessary logical inference from the nature of existence and c) a compelling psychological reason for self-deception. Although post-mortem consciousness may not be impossible, we cannot establish at a high probability that it does occur. Thus contra Heinlein, there is no good reason to believe that we will "know" soon enough ... chances are, we simply won't know.
Re:Safe trip? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)