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."
RIP Sally (Score:5, Interesting)
I still remember that historic launch. Her name was one everyone who was old enough to remember knew and never forgot from that day forward.
Re:RIP Sally (Score:5, Interesting)
What I didn't know until now is that she was a lesbian. Which is fair enough, if she was out back then she probably wouldn't have been considered a good role model. Good for her, she broke ground in more ways than one.
Yep (Score:2)
I wonder how Steve Hawley felt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride#Personal_life [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:true pioneer (Score:4)
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
What?
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: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: (Score:2)
Intolerance of belief is just as bad as intolerance of non-belief.
But how can we know that?
Re: (Score:2)
Excuse me as I beat you senseless with a rolled up copy of "The Bloudy Tenant of Persecution for Cause of Conscience" by the founder of my state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloudy_Tenent_of_Persecution_for_Cause_of_Conscience [wikipedia.org]
Read and begone.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps I was being too subtle, but how could Militant Agnostic know that tolerance is good?
I will try to read what you suggested, but I will not begone. Also, you may be confusing political tolerance with epistemological tolerance. Would The GratefulNet kill or prosecute the superstitious, or just not accept their claims?
Re: (Score:2)
>Perhaps I was being too subtle, but how could Militant Agnostic know that tolerance is good?
Perhaps I'm being too subtle.
If you cannot divine my thoughts on the matter from what I've already written and referred you to, then I don't know what to say.
> Also, you may be confusing political tolerance with epistemological tolerance.
Why can't we have both?
Duh?
>Would The GratefulNet kill or prosecute the superstitious, or just not accept their claims?
Why don't you ask him? And there is a whole spectrum
Re: (Score:2)
If you cannot divine my thoughts on the matter from what I've already written and referred you to, then I don't know what to say.
I'm pretty sure that you were saying that we should tolerate people.
Why can't we have both?
We can have both, but should we have both?
I'm done talking.
Then so be it.
Re: (Score:2)
>a whole lot of stuff I didn't say, accusing me of endorsing physical and mental abuse of children
You're an asshole. You disgust me.
Meet your new status.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3)
What the fuck man? Are you one of those "all or nothing" types who don't understand the concept of degrees?
Most of the people in the world are religious. You will therefore find yourself constantly rubbing people the wrong way if you're unable to tolerate their beliefs in at least a passive way (as in "that person is religious - OK then", and move on). Having said that, it's correct that you SHOULDN'T tolerate things like your first example - stupid parents thinking that only God can cure an illness and den
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Apparently you have not heard of China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Equador and Bolivia.
China [internatio...wpoint.org] embraced capitalism.
Viet Nam [guardian.co.uk] is mixing Capitalism with Marxism.
Cuba [economist.com] is embracing capitalism.
Venezuela [washingtontimes.com] is failing at constructing a Communist economy.
Brazil [japantimes.co.jp] has prospered by not governing from hard left principals.
That leaves you with Ecuador(a mix of capitalism and communism) and North Korea(a completely failed state). That doesn't seem to match up with your paranoid narrative, though, does it?
And you have not heard of the latest developments in Marxism, created by Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno.
The latest deveopments? From a series of authors who have been dead for decades? Care to elucidate wh
Please keep logic and language intact (Score:2)
If you want to support intolerance of people who think differently of you, say so.
Don't rationalize with this bizarre redefinition of the word "tolerance".
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to support intolerance of people who think differently of you, say so.
Superstition isn't about thinking, though. It's an ability to suspend thinking.
Of course the people should be tolerated, but their superstitions should not.
If I point out to a child that truly, there is no monster under the bed, that's not intolerance.
Disallowing public nudity or same sex marriage because it's against your religion, on the other hand, is intolerance.
Rest well Sally (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Rest well Sally. Sorry you passed away because of such a horrible condition. You did good maam.
Well said. Condolences to her family, who have lost a remarkable lady.
curious what pops into your head at these times (Score:2)
Sally Ride was a Lesbian (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sally Ride was a Lesbian (Score:5, Informative)
Except she wasn't (publicly) a lesbian when she rode the shuttle. She was married to Steve Hawley (another astronaut). They married in 1982, she got her seat on the shuttle in 1983. She got together again with Tam O'Shaughnessy in 1985 (they were childhood friends), and she divorced Hawley in 1987. I would suspect that the marriage to Steve Hawley was more a political move (on her part, at least) to dispel any question within NASA about her sexuality and secure her position as the first American woman in space. Had she been an admitted lesbian in 1983, I seriously doubt she would have gotten her shot to go into space. The fact that she left NASA the same year she divorced Hawley lends credence to the possibility that the revelation of her sexuality (at least, internally within the organization) ended her space career.
Re: (Score:2)
So she was also the first U.S. lesbian in space; but was she the first lesbian in space? Who was the first gay man in space, or has that happened yet?
Re: (Score:2)
Tereshkova was 20 years before Sally Ride, who was in space 29 years before that (1934)? Or did you mean 49 years ago this year? Also, there were only two women in space before Ride.
Re: (Score:2)
She was married to Steve Hawley (another astronaut). They married in 1982, she got her seat on the shuttle in 1983. She got together again with Tam O'Shaughnessy in 1985 (they were childhood friends), and she divorced Hawley in 1987.
"Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!"
Re: (Score:3)
I cried a little when I heard she died.
Then I read about her having a "partner" and cried a little more. I would have loved to have her fly me to the moon. Dang.
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: (Score:2)
Bear Ride, talking with BuzzFeed, said today, "We consider Tam a member of the family."
And, I hope the GLBT community feels the same," Bear Ride, who identifies as gay, said.
"I hope it makes it easier for kids growing up gay that they know that another one of their heroes was like them," she added.
The aritcle seems to imply that Sally's sister Bear is gay as well.
fuck you cancer (Score:3)
god i fucking hate cancer.
and you know the worst fucking thing about cancer (Score:2)
is that its not like some psycho in a movie theatre. one minute you are there, eating popcorn, the next minute you are in the afterlife. no
cancer last for years. sometimes 10 years sometimes 30. you never know. and what do you get to do while you are waiting? sit around on a fucking tube while your body wastes into some kind of alien being while you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on $9 advils and whatever. but you cant get marijuana, that would be 'wrong'. just a fuckton of morphine. its all fucking
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Me too. What sucks about (as yet) uncurable cancers is that you're helpless to do anything about it. You cant argue with it, fight it away, wish it away, nothing. No matter, it'll do what it'll do. If you gotta' hate something in life, hate cancer.
I don't get this. We're all going to die; some die sooner, some later. I don't see it as that a big deal, cause we all do it.
Not all that many hundred years ago, 61 would have been considered a ripe old age -- around twice the average lifespan.
Cancer can be painful, and that's a concern. Especially when life is prolonged with nothing but pain to show for it. But at least you get the chance to finish up and try to do right for those left behind, if you want to.
I'd much rather get cancer and know I'd be g
Re: (Score:2)
rest in peace (Score:2)
in my less angry mode, i remember talking about salyl ride when i was a kid. these were real people we could look up to. i dont know if they have a name for that kind of idealism of youth but i still think it is worth something, even after all we have been through and all we have learned about our own failures and mistakes as a species.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why did it take so long? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova. She flew on June 16th, 1963. That was two years after the first man flew into the space.
On the other hand, the first American woman (Sally Ride, RIP) flew in 1982.
Question: Why did it take NASA almost two decades to send the woman in space?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Why did it take so long? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova. She flew on June 16th, 1963. That was two years after the first man flew into the space.
On the other hand, the first American woman (Sally Ride, RIP) flew in 1982.
Question: Why did it take NASA almost two decades to send the woman in space?
While part of the answer undoubtedly is misogyny and discrimination against women in general, part of it is a cultural taboo - female plumbing. Female cosmonauts used diapers, and thought little of it. Female astronauts probably would have (not alluding to the one that did) if male-dominated NASA hadn't spent millions and countless years on designing a space toilet and non-intrusive "devices" to let women pee in space.
Re: (Score:2)
Fly in peace (Score:2)
Fly in peace Sally.
Now cancer cannot touch you.
Your dream will live on with younger generations, thanks to your books and Sally Ride Science.
Peace!
A talented and brave lady (Score:2)
First American woman in space, she also served on both the Challenger and Columbia disaster investigation committees. She was not outspoken about her personal life but spared no effort so that future endeavors into space might be safer.
We are all sorry for her family's loss.
Sally at JPL, circa 1985 (Score:3, Informative)
I met Sally (briefly) at JPL, after her 1984 Challenger mission. My impression was of someone who was confident, supremely able, and didn't worry a lot how she dressed. I got this impression since she showed up at the lab wearing shorts, and seemed instantly at home, like she'd been working there for years. Her later partnership with Tam was a surprise, since she gave no hint of that during her astronaut years. But yes, getting a ride on the big machine in the early 80's was a very political game, as much about appearances as it was about ability. And ability she had in spades. During the October 84 Challenger mission, all kinds of shit went wrong. An RF antenna cable on the radar overloaded and started arcing, causing the SNR to radically drop. The monitoring equipment at Johnson acted up, showing loss of TDRS downlink data when it was actually fine. I also seem to recall that Sally had to take apart parts of the shuttle with a wrench to get access to the data recorder, because of some malfunction or other. So overall, the mission was a disaster. But Sally took it all in stride. Best wishes, Sally. Some of us remember you.
Re: (Score:2)
Now the Shuttle is gone, and so is she. Sigh. Clear skies to you, ma'am.
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: (Score:3)
Russell's teapot [wikipedia.org]
To put it simply - just because you cannot conclusively prove that an invisible Bob Newhart is not trying to steal your brain DOES NOT mean that he isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
If you cannot prove it, he very well could be. This is one of the known unknowns as GP put it. There are many things that go well into unknown unknowns territory.
And do you realize you did not disprove GP's post (I suspect you believe you did), but just stated that the opposite could be possible too.
Re: (Score:2)
There are humans that are exactly the same way. Look up Wikipedia for cargo cult.
Are astronauts at higher risk of cancers? (Score:2)
An awful shame when somebody dies that young.
Anybody know if astronauts are markedly more susceptible to illnesses like cancer due to greater exposure to radiation outside of the Earth's atmosphere?
Or is the increased exposure in their few days out of the atmosphere pretty insignificant in terms of increasing the chances of cancers etc. developing compared to their various exposures in 60 years plus of living inside the atmosphere?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's another way of saying he hopes she doesn't go to Hell?
Re:Safe trip? (Score:5, Informative)
People do not want to admit that death==nonexistence so they make-up imaginary "trips" to some other place (heaven, hell, Elysian Fields, space, whatever). In reality Sally Ride's personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment her brain's neurons broke connection with one another when they were deprived of oxygen.
Re: (Score:3)
as 'computer savvy people', we can all related to the analog of a computer running for a very long time. suppose its a calculation that is running for decades. its adding more info and detail to its result, converging in, getting closer to an answer, and, then ....
someone comes by, unplugs the power cord and the computer is thrown away, data and all.
is the data saved anywhere? not really! 2nd hand info could be saved but not the actual running program or its internal data.
it all gets turned off, thrown
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: (Score:2)
the works that it has 'calculated' is the emotions, knowledge, experience, insight. that is all 'dumped on the floor' when you die. shreds of 2nd hand versions of those 'results' are saved but not the first hand ones.
it all seems a waste. data held in ram (the brain) and power is pulled out, dumping the data forever into the bit bucket.
you say 'belief in a greater being' and I say that there is not one bit of evidence to support that. in fact, which greater being are you referring to? odin? no, we sto
Re: (Score:2)
Why does one need a god to believe in afterlife?
Maybe we exist in a massive computer simulation, which is programmed to simulate an afterlife for us. Maybe there are infinitely many worlds, and we live on in the other ones (i.e. quantum immortality). Maybe we're all part of a distributed hivemind that lives as long as humanity lives. Maybe the universe is on loop and we'll all re-exist in the next one. Maybe some religion got it right, and we'll end up in heaven or nirvana or get reincarnated. Maybe th
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is you don't know anything. We don't know anything about what it means to die. One great big presumption on top of another. Your religion is no more compelling than the one with the big white guy on a throne. Are the ripples of our consciousness part of the signal of space-time, is our consciousness the universe impinging on the meat, and does it stop when the meat does. You presume the signal lives in the meat, my friend, that is purely speculation. You have no idea what our universe is, how it
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, we don't know means we don't know.
Meanwhile, goodbye, Sally, and thank you.
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: (Score:2)
the running program stopped and the algorithms lost. the power fuse blew, it cannot be replaced and the data is all gone, now.
at best, you have a screen capture and maybe some past data printouts.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, if everything is fit to be considered at the "heat death of the universe" scale, then you should live an amoral life. Because, after all, if it's all destined for eventual destruction, then what's the matter with killing a few billion people for your transient amusement?
The problems of (a) doing it, and (b) getting away with it.
If I had a big red button that would kill all life on the planet in a millisecond, I probably would use it. It'd cease a lot of pain and suffering, both now and in the future. And no one would know.
Re: (Score:2)
then what's the matter with killing a few billion people for your transient amusement?
Because it wouldn't actually amuse me.
Re:Safe trip? (Score:5, Funny)
> ... personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment
> her brain's neurons broke connection with one another
> when they were deprived of oxygen.
Cool, I'm totally putting that on my tombstone.
Re: (Score:2)
And you base that on... what, exactly? Because I suspect it's based entirely on your need to feel smarter than other people.
The truth is, we have no understanding of what makes up the mind/spirit/soul/consciousness/free-choice-widget. Maybe you choose to believe there's no such thing, but I doubt it. I've yet to meet someone who honestly believed that they had no free will, and lived their life that way.
Re: (Score:2)
The truth is, we have no understanding of what makes up the mind/spirit/soul/consciousness/free-choice-widget. Maybe you choose to believe there's no such thing, but I doubt it. I've yet to meet someone who honestly believed that they had no free will, and lived their life that way.
First off, if you think we have no understanding of what makes up the mind, I must assume that you are deliberately remaining ignorant of basically all neuro-biology for a reason. Because that's the only reason you can't be familiar with the general view of consciousness.
And your "free will" idea is just silly. How exactly would someone live if they didn't believe in free will? I believe that free will is an illusion. How am I supposed to behave differently than if I didn't believe that?
Re: (Score:2)
People do not want to admit that death==nonexistence
But death != non-existence, as anyone who has smelt a decaying cadaver can attest. "Her final trip" means the drive to the crematorium, or?
Re:Safe trip? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
and even that will fade.
we will fade.
our history will be forgotton.
the sun will supernova.
and yet some people still think that 'things continue to exist forever'.
even the solar system will not be around forever. you think 'the soul' is going to outlive the supernova that eventually comes?
all things are temporary. even the galaxy that we would have thought, not too many years ago, will die someday.
(laughs at the thought that maybe someone will reply back, 'yeah but galaxies also have souls!')
Re: (Score:2)
In reality Sally Ride's personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment her brain's neurons broke connection with one another when they were deprived of oxygen.
I won't comment on the religion discussion here, since there's something more relevant to say:
Regardless of what what you or anyone else thinks about religion your above line is a total dickhead response to someone else's passing. You're trying to further your opinion while giving off the impression of having no empathy whatsoever.
I hope it's a role you play only on the Internet and that you actually behave like a human when you hear of someone's passing in real life.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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:4, Interesting)
Several people I have known have appeared to me in my dreams as they died. One recent apparition was during the day, in an idle moment my thoughts were a tumble of old memories of an old acquaintance as they died of cancer (which I was unaware of). They don't haunt me, and only in one case has there been any interaction; someone I went to school with was stabbed, I was shaking him awake in my dreams, although I was 200 miles away at the time. I told his cousin on the Monday morning, after he asked "Did you hear what happened to Mark?" Mark died on the operating table, but was bought back. There have been several other incidences, but nothing supernatural happened when my father died when I was eight, or my mother in my arms a few weeks back.
These are the most amazing events that have happened in my life. I know that were are more than a bunch cells. However, and it's a big however, I also understand that the most likely explanations are I'm a big, fat liar or it's all just coincidences. It's impossible to refute the first, it's all about that beautiful word, trust. I'm also a scientist and understand the concept of proof and how coincidences work. But we're 30 years on, and still haven't dreamed about Mark again.
Re: (Score:2)
dreams are firings of stuff in your brain. its house-cleaning and you are watching it clean up memory and yet you think that there should be meaning attached to this firings? you actually believe this?
the mind cannot be trusted. I think the blindfold experiment where they conditioned a person to expect hot but it was really ice. he got burns. the mind messed with him and he got an invalid conclusion from it.
after that, I stopped trusting the mind as a test gear device or measurement instrument. its ju
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
no designer worth anything would have 'designed' this world as it is.
Rather arrogant of you to be telling a being presumed to be omniscient, immortal and capable of creating universes how it should be running things, isn't it?
I submit that if He/She/It exists, it probably has a somewhat broader and more mature perspective than you do.
Re: (Score:2)
not arrogant.
I'll take woody allen's quote: if this is the best god can do, it seems as if he's a bit of an under-achiever.
(somewhat of a quote, not exact words, though. and I'm too lazy to net.search the exact words)
seems reasonable to me. if you are impressed by the design of this world, you are EASILY impressed, my friend.
I dont think a world where living forms feast on each other in pain is ANY kind of wonderful deity-designed world.
that is, unless the deity is a supreme ASSHOLE.
but that contradicts t
Re: (Score:3)
if you want to get into it, lets go!
yes, I hate the belief in god. its a weakness, it causes fights and violence due to the us-vs-them syndrome. its more of a means to separate us than to bind us.
mental illness is mental illness. being in fashion does not excuse the fact that its harmful and is a flaw that should be fixed.
mass delusion does not mean the masses are correct. the masses were wrong and the size of the gullible group does not make their viewpoints any more correct.
what else do I hate about t
Re: (Score:2)
news item from today. witness the power of god and his believers:
http://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/police-have-no-suspects-in-reported-hate-crime/article_7f7885ce-ceb6-5ced-93bc-24c101aab53b.html [journalstar.com]
'believers' are really the only ones who seem to hate gays. they are so SURE they are right and on god's side, they feel that violence is justified.
remove relgion and its dogma and this woman would not have been victimized.
the brainwashing from the extremist christianists is extremely harmful.
I'm
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
If you are going to rant, stay on point, on topic, and within the same realm of thought.
Jebus H Visnu you must be new here.
Re: (Score:2)
He's just wasting some time waiting for the orange hair dye to set.
Now she gets to roam the Universe !! (Score:2)
Some people feel sad at the news of death
I do not
While we are living, we are _mostly_ stuck inside this gravity well - with the exception of our imagination
Only after one dies, that the spirit is freed from the bond of the body - if you believe in the existence of "spirit", that is - and in this gal's case, finally she gets to roam the Universe, without having to strap herself next to a big rocket
Let me clear it up for you... (Score:5, Funny)
The "final flight" is when your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck for all time.
- May you find the shingles soft Sally! -
Re: (Score:2)
if you are not holy enough, you can also get stuck in the rain gutter.
but if you are holy, you can pass right thru.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:She's dead. (Score:4, Informative)
It's a metaphor son.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a metaphor son.
For it to be a metaphor, it has to be a metaphor for something. I fail to see what that could be, without invoking superstitious beliefs.
Re: (Score:2)
ego.
its the only explanation of why humans think they 'deserve' to keep going forever.
is there any evidence AT ALL other than the untrustworthy info that is based on your perceptions and is entirely emotional-based?
just WHY would we continue to live on and on? why? because some other entity wants it that way?
really? is your mind that simple that this seems perfectly reasonable to you?
your assertion that spirts exist and conciousness continues is entirely synthetic and is a product of man's ego. its the
Re: (Score:2)
and let me leave you with this. the mind is a lousy piece of test gear. it can't be relied on to measure anything with reliability. (I design audio gear; and while I enjoy listening to it, I trust my instruments to tell me when things are peaked, nulled or optimized. I ack that my gear is better than I am when it comes to making greater-than or less-than valuation. my emotions could sway things way more than the variation I'm trying to test or measure. I know this and so I'm suspicious of any things t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
(well, not about her, but mentions her)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
She was the first American woman in space; she was preceded by two women cosmonauts.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't discriminate between men and women.
That doesn't mean no one else does.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)