More prayer in space

Following our post on the rules for Muslims in  orbit,  we are reminded that it is far from being the first time that religious  observance has gone into space.

It is reported that during the first moon landings, where Neil Armsrong said "The Eagle has landed",  Buzz Aldrin said "I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way".

He then took Communion privately. It was controversial: NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by an atheist who objected to astronauts quoting Genesis and demanded they refrain from any religious activity in space. Aldrin kept his action quiet for several years. But the fact seems to be that the first food eaten on the Moon was that communion wafer..

Meanwhile President Nixon had ready-written speeches in case of disaster, which seem to have been very carefully non-religious while using lofty language - the men would "have followed a star, in night of space, and we for whom they went will not forget."

Comments

[Simon R. Gladdish]

So the first food eaten on the moon was, allegedly, a comunion wafer. Let us hope and pray that we can keep the moon and the rest of the solar system free of our pathetic sectarian factions and divisions. Let's face it. We've made a real mess of this planet starting with a totally unsustainable population explosion. Nothing is more depressing than the prospect of spreading our sterile and pointless religious disputes throughout interstellar space.

[Simon R. Gladdish]

Stephen Hawking has said that our earth is now so overcrowded that we have no choice but to colonise space. Can you imagine another planet, maybe Mars, with the Catholics in one corner, the Protestants in another, the Sunni's in a third and the Shi'ites in the fourth. I, personally, cannot conceive of anything more depressing. If we are really going to colonise space, then let us do it on the basis of rationality and not religious dogma.

[Ian]

I'll be Glad to tell you what is worse Simon, Capitalism on the darkside of the moon and Communism on the lightside.
Why is it that the likes of you persistently attack religion & faith?
You cannot do that whilst you ignore the evils that have caused more deaths and suffering in one single century (the last) than all the religious wars put together.
Why do click on the "Faith" menu if you don't agree with it? Do you visit Paedo web sites?

[Chris Gillibrand]

Following the first space flight in 1961, Khrushchev in one of his speeches said, "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any God there", although Gagarin seems never to have said any such thing- rather friends suggest he had an interest in Orthodoxy.

In 1963, Bishop John Robinson produced his book Honest to God, rejecting not only a God "up there" but one "out there".

"Now that we have rejected the ancients' view of God living in a material heaven above the actual sky what does God's existence mean?"

This naivety can be contrasted with theism that believes that not God created but sustains all that is. As an Oxford chemist, I find the atomistic, mechanistic and materialistic explanations of many scientists unconvincing.

[Simon R. Gladdish]

No, Ian, I don't. Do you?

[Simon R. Gladdish]

According to the Irish seer, Malachy, Benedict is the penultimate pope. After him there will be one more and then the Catholic church will collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Watch this space.

[Ian]

What's that 'malachy' stuff got to do with the price of lunar bread?

[Simon R. Gladdish]

Qui sait? On verra. Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.

[Ian]

What are you like!! (proverbe Anglais)

[Peter Williams]

Long before Communism raised its head, religion was incestuously in bed with capitalism, and still is. Church and state benefitted tremendously from the slave trade, and in many respects still considers itself above earthly law, although all religion is based upon the ignorance of early man and an oportunistic priesthood. Religion is a construct of Man, as is every other pestilence borne by the prolitariate.