Posts by NT 1

'Stop NASA bombing the Moon!'

Sorry to be all serious...

... but as one of your resident pagans, can I just take a moment to say that I'm not remotely bothered about someone firing a lump of metal into the Moon.

In comparison to what nature's already thrown at it - and will continue to throw at it for millennia to come - the issue really isn't worth the energy being expended typing about it.

The Moon is a religious or spiritual symbol for those who see it that way, be it as a representation of Diana, Selene, Luna, or just 'the Goddess', or whoever or whatever else you might associate with it. But it's also a lifeless ball of rock swinging in a stable(ish) orbit around the Earth. NASA, frankly, aren't obliged to operate according to anything I might believe or not believe about the Moon: their responsibility is to the USA and to space exploration, not to my hippy sentiment. It's possible that these protesters are for real, in which case, to be honest, they're an embarrassment.

But are they for real? My guess is probably no. Aside the fairly telling name for their group as already highlighted by other commenty people, this all bears a little too much resemblance to the "werewolves protest plan to blow up the Moon" spoof article that appeared in the Weekly World News in March 2002. Sounds to me as though someone thought the LCROSS mission would be a good chance to squeeze a few more laughs out of an old joke.

Church altar smites devout Catholic

Malice

raving angry loony mentions that "the irrationals win again". I'm just wondering who 'the irrationals' are in this case. Are 'the irrationals' the people with their easy-to-mock belief in some unprovable deity concept? Or are 'the irrationals' the people who find a sorry story of a tragic death hilariously amusing and just the greatest fun, all because the deceased held a belief that they don't share?

@ Steve Swann: how do you *know* he didn't *also* thank his actual earthly rescuers?

Okay, I admit: I work in the emergency services, and I've seen people handling difficult situations through humour. My front-line colleagues generally develop a pretty twisted sense of the amusing because they have to. People on a bloody Internet forum probably haven't had to clear up the crushed body of this man, or break the news to his family. Here, it's just a laugh, innit. It's funny 'cos he's religious. Hur hur. Here, it's just malice, stemming - apparently - from the casual, lazy prejudice of the anti-religious: so confident of their own superiority over the benighted superstitious freaks.

See all the usual staples rolled out: the Invisible Pink Unicorn gets her obligatory mention; and there's the inevitable appearance of the much-abused Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Look, it's not that I expect everyone to take up Catholicism. I'm not Catholic either: to be honest I don't see the sense in it - possibly for many of the same reasons that others here dismiss it. Of course you're free to believe or not believe as you see fit - and if you believe in a vindictive, trickster God (and it's sometimes difficult to know whether people are anti-religious, implying they're atheists, or anti-God, implying they're believers of some sort) then so be it.

But this guy's dead. It's not a joke for him or his family and friends, and I see no reason why he should be ridiculed when as far as I can see his only 'crime' is in holding a belief that we don't hold. The idea that his life is somehow worth less because he doesn't see things as we do - that's precisely the kind of attitude that drove the atrocities atheists are usually so quick to cite in condemning religion. As far as I can see the only thing this guy did 'wrong' was to go into a church and offer thanks to his god that he'd escaped a dangerous situation. Is that really so wrong that you people truly believe he deserved to die, or that his death can and should be treated as entertainment? I mean, atheists attacking the religious usually claim that they're doing so because of the injustices perpetrated by the religious. So what's the reason here? Do we have any evidence - any evidence at all - that this guy had ever tried to push his religion on someone else? Do we have any reason to believe that he thought atheists were satanists. or that he'd ever tried to get creationism taught in schools? Or are we in fact just mocking him because it's become a habit and it makes us feel good about ourselves?

I wonder if this guy would have attracted the Register's attention at all - or anyone else's outside his own home town - if he'd been an atheist released from the lift and subsequently run over on the street.