On Monday, May 20, 2019 at 5:55:19 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 16 May 2019, at 14:13, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > > On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 7:18:47 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote: >> >> I heard there are a couple of people that claim they've been on the Moon. >> I asked them to prove it to me by going again, but they said they cannot do >> it. What do you think ? Is this anecdote true ? >> > > When I was a kid I was big on the moon landing. We went on a vacation to > Florida and saw one of the Saturn V rockets lift off. The thing is that if > these were faked, then NASA built a 370 foot tall rocket that roared off > the launch pad only to ditch the thing in the ocean or some such event and > then do a studio enactment. If NASA were to build such a machine, why fake > it? --- they might as well have gone all the way. > > For a 5 years in the 90s I was employed in spacecraft navigation. I worked > the mechanics on how to get a spacecraft to some orbit in space, whether > around Earth or out into the solar system, or to reach some other planetary > body. I timed my visits to the Kennedy Space Center to watch shuttle > launches, one landing and some Delta launches. This stuff is not faked. > There is in fact a visitor center where an unused Saturn V rocket is > displayed. > > The idea that moon landings are faked is in line with other historical > denials, such as holocaust denial or that black slaves in the south really > enjoyed their status and so forth. Conspiracy ideas and nonsense about > alt-history or alt-science such as creationism (even flat earth stuff is > getting popular) are growing in decibel volume these days. It is a sign the > minds of people, particularly Americans, are being rubbished up. > > > It is very sad sign that education has been lowering down for sometimes. > It confirms my feeling that fake theologies, like in most religious > institutions is a bad training in argument per-authority. > We will leave the Middle-Âge and obscurantism when theology will be > returned back at the faculty of science, where we are humble and modest, > never claim truth, and propose theories with means of evaluation. > The separation of science and theology has separated the human and the > exact sciences making them both inexact and inhuman. > > Bruno >
I would question to what extent theology has been ever a faculty of science. Since I presume most people on this list are Christian I will use that, where if you think about it Jesus turning water into wine is not really that different an idea from Cinderella's fairy godmother turning mice and a pumpkin into a team of horses bridled to a carriage. In both instances you have some supernatural being, or a being capable of supernatural powers, able to convert matter from one form to another by shear force of thought or will. The difference is the narrative about Jesus is offered up as absolute divine truth and the story about Cinderella is a bit more honest and is framed as a fairy tale. Now with theology we can push this into metaphor, where Jesus making wine out of water is symbolic of going from baptism to communion. Lazarus being raised from the dead is also a suspension of natural principles, where as the narrative has it Lazarus was pretty far gone and dead for 3 days, but Jesus raising him from death. That violates of course thermodynamic principles. The metaphor however could be made this is about discarding old ways with dirty rags and decay for a new sort of vibrant life. The three days also stand in for the resurrection motif. I would though say that even if one does take these are purely metaphorical that this is not so much science, but rather language arts and literature. LC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/b8720890-92d1-4a73-a041-fbe736f749ed%40googlegroups.com.
