UAE Clerics' Fatwa Forbids Muslims From Traveling To Mars 363
PolygamousRanchKid writes "The Khaleej Times of Dubai reports that a fatwa committee has forbidden Muslims from taking a one-way trip to the Red Planet. At the moment, there is no technology available that would allow for a return trip from Mars, so it is truly a one-way ticket for the colonists, who may also become reality TV stars in the process. The committee of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates that issued the fatwa against such a journey doesn't have anything against space exploration, Elon Musk's Mars visions, or anything like that. Rather, the religious leaders argue that making the trip would be tantamount to committing suicide, which all religions tend to frown upon."
Re:Buddhism (Score:5, Informative)
I assume he's thinking of this tale. [monkeytree.org]
Re:Let it begin! (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
As you might have guessed, Fatwa's aren't really laws as much as they are rules that may or may not be followed depending on whether an individual Muslim wants to.
Re: Well for once I agree with religious crazies (Score:3, Informative)
Now, this is a hell of a pipe dream: there is no soil on Mars in which you can grow plants. You would have to bring it with you or produce it locally. Neither is easy. Plus, you have to grow enough plants that their O2 output is sufficient to keep the air breatheable. This means you need to plant on a big surface area, which means big greenhouses with a huge surface area through which they will leak heat (its way below 0 degree Celsius on Mars, too cold for most plants). So you need to provide a lot of energy for heating to make this work. If you do this only for the O2 output you're much better off pumping the energy into some chemical conversion process.
If you can grow enough food using the same plants, it's another matter. However, I am not aware of any successful experiment that was able to keep a closed, small biosphere sustainable for a longer time. This is another damned hard problem.
Re:"suicide, which all religions frown upon" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"suicide, which all religions frown upon" (Score:4, Informative)
So when these atheist dictators banned religion and went around killing those who practiced it, that was just ONE BIG COINCIDENCE and had nothing to do with their atheism?
dictator
1. a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.
How can you have absolute power when people follow religious leaders, not you? And that claim to answer to a higher authority than you? Dictators suppress and eradicate religion because it's a threat to their power, it's in the nature of a dictator not an atheist. Sharing a religion means you are both working for the same god, you might disagree on the ways and means and goals but you're in it together. Branding it as ateists makes it sounds like we're your equal and opposite, but it's not. If two people go skydiving, they have something in common. If two people don't go skydiving, they still have nothing in common.
But the fact that 99.9% of Muslims oppose terrorism doesn't seem to be swaying the terrorists.
Are you lying or just ignorant? Here's an example from a huge study [pewforum.org] showing that just in Bangladesh is 150 million * 90% muslim * 26% = 35.2 million who think suicide bombing of civilians is sometimes/often justified. In Egypt there is another 85 million * 90% muslim * 29% = 22.2 million people and the same in Pakistan with 180 million * 97% muslim * 13% = 22.7 million. Together that's over 80 million people or about 5% of muslims that DO support terrorism. And a majority [economist.com] of the population in Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Malaysia want to kill you for leaving Islam.
Re:Shouldn't he issue a Fatwa against Smoking? (Score:5, Informative)
actually there already is one
http://islam.about.com/od/heal... [about.com]
Re:This from a religion (Score:3, Informative)
Have you actually READ the Koran? It's basically disgusting hate literature. What do you think inspires the radicals and terrorists?