♦ nivek ♦ Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 "One Small Step for Man.... We've done so little since... kL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 And I was glued to the TV set with everyone else that was old enough to appreciate what was going on. Those blurry black and white images were so exciting. There was a feeling of such accomplishment that such a tremendous feat could really happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D Laurier Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 The mightyest empire on earth is dominated by a death cult that hates and fears progress... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misterspock1 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969. We came in peace for all mankind." This anniversary always reminds me of that cheese commercial: "For centuries man believed the moon was made of cheese. In 1969 man landed on the moon and found it was made of rock. We haven't been back since. Behold the power of cheese." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Since I remember the times before that landing, maybe I should talk about it so people here can pass it on to posterity. It can help us put "prophecy" into perspective. Christians swore that god would not allow something as sacrilegeous to happen as man landing on his moon! IT WILL NOT BE ALLOWED!!! The old folks knew that. The swore it. Oh I know. Mennonites don't cuss and swear. Well I've been told that anyone speaking in *that* tone of voice is cussing no matter what words they use. Them good ol' saints wus cussin' 'n' swearin' alright. No way under--or above maybe?--heaven was God going to allow any human to step on his moon. Sometime after it happened I heard some old soul say the moon hasn't looked the same since. It bothered some people that the astronomers brought back a couple shovels of dirt. It bothered me, too. I figured maybe that is why we see those dark spots on the moon. They did say it looked different. I couldn't see any difference but I was young--only 12 and I did have low vision--maybe I just didn't remember. They said it looked like the moon was crying. I wasn't sure about that. I was 12 years old, after all, and I had been enjoying the moon for some years. We lived out in the country far removed from electricity and city lights. These days city lights are so much more powerful and cities are so much larger that the old farm is no longer such a good place to see the moon, but back then it was good. It seemed to me that the only way the moon could look like it was crying was if there was moisture like clouds around it. That depended on the weather. I didn't know any science but it made no sense that the weather and the moon were at all related. I had been taught enough science and astronomy to know where rain came from and the general shape of the universe insofar that the earth was but one planet and the sun and moon and stars were other things out there in a vast dark universe. One had to know that much in order to make sense of the report of the landing on the moon. I was in public school at the time. In the years leading up to the moon landing, pictures of rockets in library books were common. It was no shock to me when my younger sister learned a song: Off in a rocket I'm ready to go. Not in a jet because that is too slow... My mother, however, thought it was time to move to a Christian school when she came home with that song. The problem was that there were no Christian schools to move to at the time--other than Catholic and that was unthinkable for Mennonites. But church schools were on the agenda. Our church was the first in the area so far as I know. I think this kind of thing helped move it along. I guess Dad did not agree with church schools; he felt we should be able to get along with all kinds of people. But when he found out that sex education had come onto the elementary school curriculum he was convinced that the time had come. There was none in my grade but my parents heard from the parents of a girl in the grade above me. I guess she had been traumatized so that she could barely tell her mother about it. Naturally, that concerned the parents of the neighbourhood, not to mention that it violated their Victorian values thoroughly and completely. Every family of our church in our school section was agreed to move into the old school house when it finally became available. It took several more years for some of the other churches to move out. The county had transitioned to central schooling by then. We had been part of the transitioning process. The rocket pictures had been in the library of the old school. The rocket song had been learned in the centralized school system. The traumatic sex education had also taken place in the centralized system. I'm not sure that I know any other things to tell about the moon landing and Christians. It happened and life went on. With what I now know about the honesty of science, I am sure it would have been noted if the moon actually changed appearance from having borne the weight and tracks of humans. It makes no sense that this would have impacted it in the least. Not to mention the impossibility of seeing it with the naked eye, or even with instruments, from earth. I think it says a lot about superstitious religion. I think the same applies to all prophecy. I've lived through too many prophecies that did not come true. I do not accept the "explaining away" processes that always follow. If God is all-knowing then he should not make such gross mistakes. That these mistakes have been happening regularly for two thousand years make the existence--at least reliability--of the "God" behind the whole thing seriously suspect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyHypatia Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 It really is a shame we don't put a lot more effort and resources into space exploration. Some people think we should just focus on solving world problems instead, like feeding the hungry. I think exploration is a basic human need. We should keep exploring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbobrob Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 The Mythologist Joseph Campbell has written that he considers the Moon landing one of the most important turning points in religious/mythological history. After that point, with earthlings on a object "out there" it becomes difficult to claim that the celestrial bodies are the abodes of the gods, because they have stopped being out of reach of humans. And if the gods are not on the moon, how far away really are things like heaven and the like. Further than the moon, obviously. Further than Mars? Further than either Voyager probes have traveled.....once you break the bonds of earth, the realm of God (gods) disappears. The current fundementalist movement is a reaction to that landing, trying to hold back the now evident falsehoods of all mythologies.....God can't live in the clouds if we daily fly above them in planes, and ahve flown way, way past them in shuttles and other spacecraft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhia Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 One of my biggest dreams is to someday take a few steps onto the moon, feel the new ground under me, and see my world so far away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misterspock1 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 The Mythologist Joseph Campbell has written that he considers the Moon landing one of the most important turning points in religious/mythological history. After that point, with earthlings on a object "out there" it becomes difficult to claim that the celestrial bodies are the abodes of the gods, because they have stopped being out of reach of humans. And if the gods are not on the moon, how far away really are things like heaven and the like. Further than the moon, obviously. Further than Mars? Further than either Voyager probes have traveled.....once you break the bonds of earth, the realm of God (gods) disappears. The current fundementalist movement is a reaction to that landing, trying to hold back the now evident falsehoods of all mythologies.....God can't live in the clouds if we daily fly above them in planes, and ahve flown way, way past them in shuttles and other spacecraft. Interesting take, but it does make a lot of sense. That explains why Christians hate it when science uncovers things, because it starts exposing more of the falsehoods and ludicrousness of the Bible and supplemental Christian teachings. They realize that when their sheep start to realize this that they will start straying, and so they try to cut it off at the source by trying to mar the reputation of the scientific community. This also explains the reason why the fundies and radicals have become so outspoken, resorting to the old "hellfire and brimstone" approaches to scare people into staying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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