- NASA
- “The ring of Saturn becomes a cast-iron balcony on which the inhabitants of Saturn take the evening air.”
NASA:
The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system…. Saturn’s rings light up so much that new rings were discovered.
God had nothing to do with this.
God is a mathematical equation.
Here’s a link to the picture at a much bigger resolution and without the irrelevant atheism proselytizing: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110904.html
Y’all bakers toasting in a roll bread.
Charles, I believe that the universe is of God’s creation, and that it proceeds entirely by natural (as opposed to supernatural) laws, all natural laws being manifestations of His will. I don’t normally bring this opinion into a scientific discussion of the universe, because my personal beliefs are of no bearing on the topic. I would appreciate it if you would do the same, keeping your atheist fervor to yourself and simply appreciating the sublime beauty of the gas giant with the rest of us.
Photoshop.
Charles, you know not of what you speak. The FSM and his great noodly appendage are most certainly at work here.
Charles’ position is reasonable because there is no evidence of a Creator or a convincing argument for one. Your position is not reasonable, so it’s sensible that you don’t talk about it in scientific discussions, because it’s a stupid position.
@3: strange, i think that the universe IS “god”, and that it has always been and will ever be, so it never needed to be created. i have nothing to back this pantheistic claptrap up.
Yup. Outercow, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. A reasonable position would be to not say anything about whether God had anything to do with it, as I suggested, and just LOOK AT THOSE FUCKAWESOME RINGS!
Universe: Omnipresent? check. Omnipotent? check. Omniscient? errrrrm … working on it.
Check out the small tiny “dot” above the upper left portion of the outer, brightest section of rings… that’s Earth.
Beautiful!
When you guys settle this existence of god question, call me, OK?
In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy Saturn…
Charles,
I just viewed “Tree of Life” by Terrence Malick. It features some of the Cassini Mission photography you posted.
BTW, I did like the film but found it too long. 20 or so minutes could have been cut (the scenes featuring Sean Penn maybe?) Whatever the case, it is indeed luminously gorgeous and I found it a genuine homage to God, beauty, love, mystery, the cosmos and ultimately father/son relationships. However, it isn’t my favorite of Malick’s work and I don’t need to view it again. I can appreciate why you might not have liked it.
FAKE
“God had nothing to do with this.”
Exactly. You just pointed out this was all NASA’s doing. You know, actual people actually doing the actual math. Not some imaginary sky fairy.
Whether or not God had a hand in this, it sure is purty.
Charles, you completely missed the coolest thing about the picture: that little blue dot, in the upper left of the rings? That’s us.
It’s a rare moment that I disagree with Outercow but here it is. A couple points: leftists believe in liberties right?–except when it comes to cognitive liberty. I see this type of thing as a microcosm of western hubris ironically gone totally insane. Ironic because freedom is exalted in western liberalism yet everyone must think like the western liberals. That Charles has to mention anything about divinity reveals the absurdity of his defensiveness. He sees whatever you want to call divinity in this so has to trot out and cathexize his reaction It’s quite irrational if you ask me. Ultimately, so is calling someone else’s belief “stupid.” Are yours any less dependent on axioms by definition without proof?
@19,
Us “leftists” believe that “cognitive liberty” is great. Problem is – so many right-wingers are stupid fucks whose cognition is warped by their amoral and twisted ideology.
Us leftists support not only the right of these right-wing morons to think the way that they do – we like it when they (you?) spout their nonsense so we can see them for the jackasses that they are.
Everyone wins.
It’s a typical reaction to react to criticism of the “Left” as if it were coming from a conservative. Although I am sure I am probably more conservative than people who call themselves conservatives (likely because they don’t understand the definition), I am probably to your FAR, HARD left. (all caps because I see those words used by people who want to smear others on the FAR, HARD, RADICAL, MANIACAL! left–you asked for nonsense huh?).
@20 My point is that venomlash is a fucking confederate of Outercow’s, intellectually and morally for the most part. That’s my point. We can criticize without calling shit “stupid.” Some atheists just shift their projections to other avenues (like each other) than the magical sky fairy. Same difference. The total lack of solidarity, especially amongst supposed leftists, is depressing.