Human Spaceflight: No Single Rationale Justifies it, NRC Report

Historically, it's always seemed quite the reverse, to me. That athiests mistrust, even fear religion, going out of their way to campaign against it's involvement in Space endeavours:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/13/buzz-aldrin-communion-moon

"(Madalyn Murray O'Hair) The founder of American Atheists and self-titled "most hated woman in America" had taken on NASA, as well as many other public organisation. Most famously, she successfully fought mandatory school prayer and bible recitation in US public schools.

After the Apollo 8 crew had read out the Genesis creation account in orbit, O'Hair wanted a ban on NASA astronauts practising religion on earth, in space or "around and about the moon" while on duty. She believed it violated the constitutional separation between church and state.

In Magnificent Desolation, (Buzz) Aldrin explains how astronaut Deke Slayton, who ran the Apollo 11 flight crew operations, told him to tone down his lunar communiqué. "Go ahead and have communion, but keep your comments more general," he advised. Looking back Aldrin writes that the communion was his way of thanking God for the success of the mission. Yet, later he hinted that he could have been more inclusive (of other, World beliefs)."

 

Whatever Madalyn Murray O'Hair did either individually or on behalf of her organization American Atheists, she has never represented atheists in America as a whole, however important some of what O'Hair accomplished was and still is. Membership in American Atheists is currently less than 3,000, which is a statistically insignificant portion of the millions of Americans who presently self-identify as atheists.

Of course, when you say that O'Hair went out of her way, that betrays an ignorance of just what she was about. Doing that sort of thing was exactly what she did, and it was anything but out of her way. It was perfectly in kind and in character for her.

Of course, your implication is perfectly clear, that you think she had no business doing what she did. However, whatever she did, she was not representing atheists generally. Many atheists outside her organization may have agreed completely with her actions, some may have agreed with her goals but disagreed with her tactics, others may have agreed with her tactics but disagreed with her goals, etc. O'Hair does not constitute a representative example of atheists generally in the US, and she never did.

 

The Apollo 8 broadcast reading direct passages out of The Bible for World consumption is not something I agree with. First and foremost, let's face it ... it's boring. The bible is not entertainment it's a doctrine of faith. It's even more boring when being read by someone who's not an actor.

The reading from The Book of Genesis, however, does reflect a sort of knee-jerk reaction that many of the early astronauts felt, being in space. That in a very real way, they had broken the bonds of Earth and touched the face of God. And they felt compelled to express that, which I do understand. It's a hopeful message to me, personally, that it's not all science and quoting bad textbooks, that the future of Space Exploration will include all aspects of Humanity - including religion.

I don't feel that it should dominate and I don't believe that the seperation of Church and State means the exclusion of relgion from the Human expression of its citizenry. We have the right to worship any way we please - or not - we also have the freedom to express ourselves. So, if an astronaut heading out to Mars for the first time is given air time to give a little "show" for the people back on Earth, he should be able to say, "as a Christian, I'm feeling closer to God, during this mission than I ever thought possible," or whatever. And not have everybody back home demanding he deny his own personal truth to satisfy the state. The two have to balance out.

 

That's a perfectly rational position. There are other perfectly rational positions that contradict it. It's a serious issue worthy of serious discussion and debate. However, IMO, engaging in that discussion here would be both more than a little off-topic for the thread, not to mention definitely outside the scope of the science forum entirely.

My objective was simply to make sure the point was made that when you were referring to atheists without qualification, in no way, shape, or form was O'Hair a representative of that group generally. She could only ever have been said to have been representative of a small minority of atheists in America. More to the point, O'Hair can't be held up as a singular representative example of how atheists regarded "religion," during that period or any other.

 

No, I hear you about O'Hair not being The Voice for athiests at large, or in general. I guess I was kind of coming from that perspective. As Kirk said to Bones in STAR TREK V ...

***SPOILER ALERT***

"I was wrong."

 

Yeah.

 

O'Hair and her atheist son were kidnapped, robbed blind, murdered, and their bodies cut up into little pieces by an employee of American Atheists, which shows that associating with people who are against God doesn't filter out the people who are in league with the Devil.

That points up the risks of allowing atheists to travel into space, since any one of them could be an agent of Satan, exploiting our naivety to trick us into transporting them into the heavens, a place they are forbidden by God from entering, so they can cause all sorts of evil mischief, even bringing about the End of Days.

 

CplCapt,while you did explicitly say that your comments on O'Hair were intended to be non-judgemental of the various public stands that she took, I will just take the opportunity to chime in that IMHO in this instance, the implication that the few such words uttered by pioneers at the point of their first contact with an ineffable moment of awe in no way tainted the "sanctity" of space or represented the vanguard of an effort to stamp it with the imprimatur of a certain organized belief system.

The thought seems ludicrous on its face, though I'll acknowledge that many would point to similar types of creeds invoked at early points in the exploration of the New World that were essentialy used later as a template to justify a multitude of depredations that followed in its "taming".

 

I don't think "non-judgmental" is the right way to put it. I would characterize my posts as simply not commenting on whether I agreed or disagreed with O'Hair's positions with respect to the space program. She was fully within her rights to do as she did; I don't see how anybody can deny that. However, O'Hair wasn't ever the voice of atheists, and that was the main point I wanted to make.

 

Colorful Communist Kitsch???

 

Remember the Chinese are also in the new space race.