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Scientist Picks a Gem of a Star

UrgleHoth writes "According to a CNN report, the star Gem 37 is the most likely candidate for alien life. Astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull of the University of Arizona in Tuscon has taken a list of most likely habitable planets and stars. Gem 37 topped the list. The deciding factor? 'Gem 37, the 37th brightest star in the constellation of Gemini, came out on top because it looks most like our sun.' This work was done for NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder."

48 comments

  1. In other news... by seanmeister · · Score: 2, Funny

    Astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull of the University of Arizona in Tuscon has taken a list of football teams most likely to win the next Super Bowl. The Carolina Panthers topped the list. The deciding factor? 'The Panthers, one of the newest teams in the NFL, came out on top because I like the kitty cat on their helmets.'

    1. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least we know there is a football team named the Panthers. There is ZERO proof that life can arise spontaneously, there is not even a mechanism that doesn't violate common laws of probability.

    2. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet you're here to make that argument... :) No I don't want to go further than that.

    3. Re:In other news... by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 1

      Speaking as someone who probably holds more views in common with you than you suspect, I can say that laws of probability are not the issue. It is that the laws of physics and detailed paths of chemical reactions are not known in sufficient detail to determine what probabilities even apply in the spontaneous evolution of life. In other words, there is ZERO proof that life can not arise spontaneously, and there is a nonzero probability that some driven physio-chemical self organization process which bootstraps into life exists. I hope to see it discovered in my lifetime, even though I lament the fact that it will likely be trumpeted falsely as a "disproof" of the existence of God.

      --
      taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
    4. Re:In other news... by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      if you really learn a lot you will learn that you don't know what's impossible in the naturalistic environment until you completely understand it.

      No: "God made it" doesn't count as personal understanding, but if you want to give me God's number, it does mean that He Knows.

      --

      -pyrrho

    5. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You asserted:
      if you really learn a lot you will learn that you don't know what's impossible in the naturalistic environment until you completely understand it.
      I will have to assume that you're not being pompous as that sounds. Otherwise that post is pure flamebait.

      So assuming you meant that in a constructive way, there is no way to completely understand anything. Our reasoning is insufficient, our observation powers are ultimately bounded by the limitations of our senses. Yes we can enhance via scanning EM etc., yet Heisenberg's principle is right there to keep us from getting to absolute anything.

      If you don't accept the concept of equations of chemical eqilbria, then you're not aware enough of the issues to comment. If you are aware, then do some calculations yourself.
    6. Re:In other news... by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      well, I'm getting a little pompous about God-think. I'm an atheist, but with a life long interest in spirituality. I tend to like people with a strong spiritual sense, if they are catholic or wiccan or whatever, I just like that. I did bible study in high school (as an avowed atheist, from interest). I have accomodated and respected religious sensitivities. I'm getting older. I'm getting tired of talking to respecting the sensitivies to the point you can't call a spade a spade. I realize that when I'm talking about Santa Clause to a child, yes, I will respect their sensitivity and their position on the spectrum of Santa Clause belief. But if I run into an adult that believes, I don't have to be sensitive, I can say "he's only imaginary", and they can continue to believe.

      But if you meant something else: yes, my point is just that nothing is totally known, and you cannot say what is impossible in nature because you are only thinking about an individual analysis that happened not to come up with an explantation.

      It is not a matter of chemical equilibria. If you are right that it cannot explain the rise of life, that doesn't mean there IS no explanation. I'm an empiricist. There IS and explantation. There are competing explanations. A proof that the answer is not in chemical equilibria means only that the answer is not in chemical equilibria. It may be in quantum physics, or relativity, in physics we have not discovered, or it might be "God did it". Those are explanations to be compared, and disproving one eliminates one possibility. You would have it eliminate -all- -but- one (e.g. God). Logic doesn't work like that.

      It's kind of like the old "the bumblebee can't fly" joke... if your explanation means an observed phenomenon is impossible... the problem is not with the world, the event is already proven possible.

      I also find it funny you might rely on chemistry when if you want to go that route, from my point of view, God-as-described in Western Monotheism is logically incoherent. From omniscence and omnipotence to the strangeness of the whole play that God supposedly allowed to unfold in which he "tested" people when he "knew" the eventual result.

      Sort of an excercise in anticlimax.

      --

      -pyrrho

    7. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes there is an explanation; no naturalistic one put forth yet holds up to scientific scrutiny. That is not based on just looking at one particular case; there are zero cases so far. And without even looking at the particular details of one given theory, the entire fabric can be looked at wholistically.

      Since a naturalistic explanation requires there be no driving force, no external organizing consciousness, the alternative is a purely stochastic process.

      Once that is seen, the only way to examine a stochastic process is probabilistically. The exact mechanism does not matter, as the lack of an organizing consciousness means only a stochastic process is available.

      And simple probstat proves that it didn't happen that way, without having to delve into the details. Now if you want to delve, let's do it. We can show it's impossible by equilibrium calculations, or by serial assembly, or by chirality, or by pH and salinity and temperature issues. But we don't need to; just the idea that it's stochastic is sufficient to disprove it.

      BTW for reference, Roman Catholicism is closer to Hindu than it is to true Biblical Christianity (same is true of most "protestant" denominations). Presumably you learned that in your course, but perhaps not.

    8. Re:In other news... by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      no naturalistic one put forth yet holds up to scientific scrutiny.

      this should not be surpising. At one time there was no correct theory for everything. In fact, no final answer is really expected. I know few scientists that are worries of running out of stuff to learn. It looks like there is infinite information. Maybe not, but I think so.

      Since a naturalistic explanation requires there be no driving force, no external organizing consciousness, the alternative is a purely stochastic process.

      of course there is a driving force, and it does not have to be stochastic. That is not the only kind of process. Specifically the process of the creation of our solar systems (and the systems that preceded it, for stars have to explode to get heavy atoms such as earth has). This process is not stochastic, but rythmic, and consistent.

      re:Roman Catholocism

      no, I never learned that in any course... I don't really see why you say that. Overall, the distinctions between the Christian churches seem historical in nature, forks and splits and even mergers over quite a long period of time. Of course, there are reasons for those splits.

      But Hinduism is really notable for it's open-ness, it's not uncommon for a Hindu family to have an image of Jesus on their Hindu alter, because their system is able to acknowledge new gods. The doesn't sound too Catholic. Also, the Catholic Church is quite different from continent to continent. The liberal catholic priests in the US are rare, and now, I don't know what, decimated. In other countries they emphasize different aspects of Christianity.

      Your challenge is that I have no evidence of what? of what. of life being able to arise from nothing.

      I don't believe that. I believe the universe itself IS living. I think spontaneous generation happens because the universe is full of energy that wants to be able to express itself, but also, I think that the universe is a quantum mechanical one and many of our experiences are cross sections of the total world, and our consciousness is in part this crossection.

      You are really having to argue that life HAD to have a Creator. That's the real debate. So it doesn't matter if you think left handed chirality proves someone chose not to allow right handed chirality to prevail... no, it could be that it's a one in a gadillion chance to have the right molecules form that will replicate and when it does, guess what, it replicates and when you find one you know where it came from? So they are all the same. But I'm no scientist so I don't know that will be the reason, but it's one possible one. It's as likely as God creating it from any evidence of which I'm aware.

      Because if everything needs a creator how did God get created?

      --

      -pyrrho

    9. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't see the parallels between the RCC and the Hindu religions, it is likely because you haven't studied the rituals of the RCC. They use idols, images, icons, rosaries (which came from both Hindu and Buddhist origins), and are increasingly embracing New Age concepts (which are purely Hindu in origin).

      Your final point was that often expressed question of the origin of God. I think most people have that question because they are limiting the scope of the glory of God without realizing it.

      God is self-existent; He created our time-space continuum. So to ask questions about His origin is asking about things literally outside our universe. He created time; so He is not subject to it. Therefore He has not a beginning, since He is not subject to time. Warps our brains to try and encompass that idea, but as David Moore says "I'd rather have a big God and little problems than a small God and big problems".

      A much tougher question for those who choose to believe there is no God is: where did time come from? physical laws? fundamental constants? There is a bigger leap of faith, a larger effort to overcome the illogic of that position than to accept that we were created by God, He is the lawgiver and judge, and we had better get right with Him. He gave His son for us to get right with Him, we need only accept His free gift.

      See here for details.

  2. The real reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real reason they chose it is being similar to Earth is that because they picked up broadcasts of "Saved by the Bell" coming from the 3rd planet of the star.

    1. Re:The real reason by WiKKeSH · · Score: 1

      The real reason they chose it is being similar to Earth is that because they picked up broadcasts of "Saved by the Bell" coming from the 3rd planet of the star.

      So much for intelligent life...

  3. New Scientist Link to Original Article by BurritoJ · · Score: 1
    1. Re:New Scientist Link to Original Article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      More in depth article from NASA

  4. Really? by Jhonny · · Score: 1

    And what kind of alien lifeforms will we find there? Gemtians?

    --
    DUKEY!
    1. Re:Really? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      No, holograms.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  5. Let's go back to the Drake Equation by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Informative

    "This stable, middle-aged star is just a bit hotter and brighter than our sun. And if alien life is anywhere, it's likely to be there," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.

    It's important to have a suitable star, but that's only one term of the Drake Equation.

    A less sensational quote might have been, "And if alien life is anywhere, it's possible that it's there."

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Let's go back to the Drake Equation by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      The Drake Equation is for intellegent technologicaly advanced life. The earth of 100 years ago would not be a hit for the Drake Equation.
      Of course life with at least radio is the most interesting for us to find. :) I want to see the alien version of I love Lucy. Dziggrabits I am home... Goolock I want to be in the showwwww.....

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  6. In the constellation of Gemini? by weeboo0104 · · Score: 1

    I'll bet they have two heads.

    They probably look a lot like this guy.

    --
    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
    1. Re:In the constellation of Gemini? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      except that Zaphod's second head was a surgical addition... (book time-line)

    2. Re:In the constellation of Gemini? by kalidasa · · Score: 1

      And Zaphod was from Betelgeuse, which is in Orion. No?

    3. Re:In the constellation of Gemini? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK he had 2 heads naturally. The 3rd arm was a surgical addition so he could water-ski while wrestling aligators.

      Thats what I remember from the books. YMMV

  7. what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I fucking LOVE Gem 37. Not what your thinking. I mean that I want to have sex with it.

  8. Time for a... by advocate_one · · Score: 1


    ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!!

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  9. Speaking of alien life... by Lendrick · · Score: 1

    Whatever happened to that list of candidates that SETI@HOME found? Have those been thoroughly investigated yet? If not, when are they planning to do so? I remember hearing that they were going to have a look at them, but I don't recall when that was going to be.

    1. Re:Speaking of alien life... by Cujo · · Score: 1

      They are reobserving them, as time and geometry permit. However, since they used Arecibo observations, they are limited to only part of the sky.

      --

      Helium balloons want to be free.

  10. Why o why.. by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 1

    do they insist in thinking that life developed elsewhere must be anything like earth's life?

    1. Re:Why o why.. by asimulator · · Score: 1
      "And if alien life is anywhere, it's likely to be there"



      says the article. It's not that alien life *must* be like earth's life, but alien life like earth's like will likely be on a star like earth's star. And since we don't know anything about how alien like unlike earth's is like, we don't know what kind of star to look for.

    2. Re:Why o why.. by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 1

      Because if you open the criteria up too much, you end up having no clue what to look for and whether you've found it when you see it. We know how things work on Earth, so that's where we begin. Note that it isn't the *end* of the search, but just the start.

    3. Re:Why o why.. by annisette · · Score: 1

      I agree, and what a better sphere of search than carbon based(life), the steps and the needs for these steps, for it to happen.

      --
      I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
    4. Re:Why o why.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because fundamentally we're looking for ramen, not varelse.

  11. exo-biological marine life by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

    I'm curious. Even if there is life on other planets, chances are that it will be in some form of marine life (asuming there are bodies of H2O). That said, how would you detect whether or not that H2O is harboring life?

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:exo-biological marine life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By looking at the electromagnetic signature. If you do the necessary chromatographical procedures, you can see the telltale signs of organic life. Obviously we'd have to make a few assumptions as to what molecules living matter would produce. It may turn out to be nothing we'd expect, in which case, we might not be looking in the right place.

    2. Re:exo-biological marine life by barawn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oxygen in the atmosphere.

      Any significant amount of oxygen is almost certainly from something like photosynthesis. Oxygen's too reactive to stay in the atmosphere for any significant amount of time without something constantly generating it, and that's likely to be life.

      Now, before everyone jumps down my throat saying "You don't need oxygen for life! Oxygen is poison! It's extremely dangerous!" - they'd be right, and wrong (as many people are...). Oxygen IS very reactive and corrosive - but that's why life wants it around. Oxygen generates a lot of chemical activity and a lot of chemical potential, allowing for complicated reactions to happen. This isn't "Earth-centric", it's basic chemistry.

      And yes, even life in the ocean would likely generate oxygen in the atmosphere, and yes, it is possible to have life in the ocean WITHOUT oxygen in the atmosphere, but unless there's no solar insolation there at all, organisms that use sunlight will beat out those that don't virtually everywhere, and photosynthesis works best with oxygen involved in the process (to generate the many, many different oxidation potentials needed).

    3. Re:exo-biological marine life by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 1

      Very well put.
      However (and this is trivia, not a correction), I'm betting that they'll look not for molecular oxygen (O2), but ozone (O3). The latter has a much better spectroscopic signature since the former is a homonuclear diatomic (2 atoms of the same species) and therefore doesn't absorb a lot of light. And ozone is almost certainly around if any significant amount of molecular oxygen is present.

  12. 37 Gem star images by chongo · · Score: 2, Informative

    My 37 Gemini page contains several images from the POSS2/UKSTU and the HST Phase 2 digital plate stacks.

    --
    chongo (was here) /\oo/\
  13. Need a Submission Mod, too. by Cragen · · Score: 1
    This is NOT a worthy submission. IMHO, it's not even interesting science!. How about giving us mod points to the submission area and to the stories given a place on the home page? Users could mod up submissions to the point they make the home page and, more importantly, mod down stories OFF the home page. (Heck, even msnbc.com lets users rate the articles.)

    Cragen.

  14. How far is Gem 37 from here? by motown · · Score: 1

    I can't seem to find the distance between here and Gem 37 in any of the mentioned links.

    Is it tens of light years, hundreds of light years, thousands, even?

    Even if there were indeed some intelligent life in the Gem 37 system, only in the first case (tens of light years) could we hope to ever communicate with them. Unless if Einstein's theory somehow turns out to be wrong (or not entirely correct) and both mankind and the folks at Gem 37 eventually develop some sort of FTL communication and/or propulsion technology.

    But then again, IANARS ('RS' standing for "rocket scientist"). ;)

    --
    "Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
    1. Re:How far is Gem 37 from here? by Stuntmonkey · · Score: 1

      Even if there were indeed some intelligent life in the Gem 37 system, only in the first case (tens of light years) could we hope to ever communicate with them.

      The goal of TPF is somewhat broader than SETI, which will only find life that is intelligent (i.e. capable and willing to send beamed radio transmissions to other stars). TPF will hunt for signs of ANY biological activity by looking for certain chemical signatures (e.g., an oxygen atmosphere).

      The exciting thing about TPF is that it skips several (likely small) terms in the Drake equation. It is probably the likeliest near-term chance we have to find extraterrestrial life.

  15. Probability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We might also note that Earthly life might not be a median example of the life which may be strewn about the Universe (despite the humanoidocentrism of Star Trek).

  16. warning: this is long. by pyrrho · · Score: 1



    If you don't see the parallels between the RCC and the Hindu religions, it is likely because you haven't studied the rituals of the RCC. They use idols, images, icons, rosaries (which came from both Hindu and Buddhist origins), and are increasingly embracing New Age concepts (which are purely Hindu in origin).


    from where I sit all Christianity looks pretty full of images, icons, and idols. But I don't deny the link, but of course, it goes both ways, the Zoroastrians migrated to india from the Mediteranean 1500 years before Christ. Some say the worlds major religious actually have a long history of cross influence. Rare but regular and culture shattering events of contact.

    God is self-existent; He created our time-space continuum. So to ask questions about His origin is asking about things literally outside our universe. He created time; so He is not subject to it. Therefore He has not a beginning, since He is not subject to time.


    There is no reason that the laws of physics cannot have this same exception granted to them. After all the phenomenon of time which we percieve is a result of those laws and constants, according to science, just as according to you it's as a result of God's Will. I find the laws of physics beautiful in their dimplicity and divine in their complexity, so to speak, and there I can imagine them being in place forever. The Big Bang, btw, is just a theory and even if true does not talk about an origin. Time is compressed in this idea, the explosion explains an expansion seen in the universe by which the further away you get, the faster things are travelling away from us, and this is especially interesting since we are seeing light that left those places long ago. Things were separating fast a long time ago, explain. So since the constants really could be different as far as one could imagine, maybe everytime a universe bangs, it get's it's own set? Maybe every single possible set of physical laws gets a chance, and some don't exist very long. Having said that, of course there are scientists trying to derive such answers, on the hope that such a finding is at the root of a unified theory that explains all the fields and forces known to science.

    Warps our brains to try and encompass that idea, but as David Moore says "I'd rather have a big God and little problems than a small God and big problems".

    actually, science has the record right now for most warping-around hardness with Quantum Mechanics which makes General Relativity seem practically intuitive. The thing is, they have probed certain system and the results are consistent, and seem to imply strange things no one can really grasp as making sense. But the evidence keeps you from giving up or thinking it doesn't matter. It's as if you can do to things at once, like get a heads and a tails on a single flip of a coin, and then the two worlds can interact, where it's heads and where it's tails, and when you look at the coin, it becomes one or the other. If you don't look at the coin, but take a photo to look at later, wierdness can ensue. See, I admit that makes no sense. So we keep trying to make sense by looking at the information. It's hard to wrap your head around, but there is data to wrap it around. By the way, the data I'm refering to is regarding the famous "double slit experiments".

    The whole probability wave thing of QM is kind of strange, I think. The idea that time is relative now makes sense to me, but I don't think it was intuitive originally, it's just that nature is like that. You can learn how nature really works, and in the end you can make sense of it because nature does make sense, it defines sense making, because we've grown up around it, our senses and brains and chemistry, our survival is all wrapped around how it works, how can it not make sense --- it defines sensible.

    I have no trouble with the idea there is a conscious God. I'm inclined to think such a god would merely be the Universe, that would be it

    --

    -pyrrho

    1. Re:warning: this is long. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you see a Christianity full of icons, idols, and images, then what you have been exposed to is an apostate Christianity. Such as the RCC.

      You claim self-existence for physical laws, perhaps deriving from an initiation event. Fine, but where did that come from? There has to be an ultimate cause, a Creator.

      The RCC has corrupted the Bible (the Alexandrian manuscripts, etc.) and has perverted the teachings by insisting that they have verbal tradition which must be used to interpret the Bible. If you read the gospels, you'll see that Jesus reserved His harshest criticism of those in His day who were doing the same thing with the scripture they had. So things like the Crusades, which were aimed as much at the true Christians as at Moslems and Jews, were abominations of the Catholic Popes. Look up the history of the town of Beziers, France. Between 30,000 to 100,000 people were slaughtered there because some of the inhabitants of the town disputed the Catholic interpretations of the Bible, and contrary to the RCC doctrine of the time, individuals dared to read the Bible themselves. So the pope (Innocent III) ordered the town destroyed, a part of the Albigensian Crusades. You probably didn't hear about it in school, it's not a popular topic.

      You claim Jesus was a very special person. True, but He was 100% man and 100% God. He clearly stated as much many times. And He was put to death for clearly stating His divinity, not for any other reason. So clearly those present with Him understood those claims fully.

      So if a good man claims to be God, the choices of what's going on (taken from CS Lewis): 1 - He is God as he claimed. 2 - He is a lunatic. 3 - He is a liar.

      If 2 or 3, then He isn't a very good man.

      And as for getting scared out of hell, that's the point. See God is a perfect, holy, absolutely just being. He cannot allow sin in His presence. Therefore anyone who sins, once, is destined to be removed from His presence.

      However in His infinite mercy He sent His son to die for all of us, to take our punishment. All we have to do is accept that He is our Saviour, our God, the God of our lives. We just submit to Him, and He washes us clean of all sin forever.

      Quite simple, quite elegant. It is certainly your choice to reject that, but eternity is a mighty long time. Do you really want to spend it excluded from the God of perfect love who wants to spend it with you?

      If you've told one lie (who hasn't???), taken one thing that belonged to someone else (again, who hasn't??), looked with lust at any person you were not then married to, you're guilty of breaking His law. We are all sinners, there are no exceptions. We cannot earn our way to heaven, we're too rotten (from an absolute perfection required scale).

    2. Re:warning: this is long. by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      Fine, but where did that come from? There has to be an ultimate cause, a Creator.

      no there doesn't, both you and me speculate in things that have always existed without creation.

      The weakness of your argument from CS Lewis is that 2, a good man might be a lunatic, just a harmless one. He might still be good because of the things that make anyone good, separate from his wilder beliefs, like being helpful and honest and peaceful.

      In my reading of the Bible God is not trying to scare me. He is trying to scare a few harder to motivate people, but in my case God is cool with how I live and how I face the facts of my own failings, and that's all he's trying to get these other Christians to do. I think God will allow me to worship him in heaven, if that really what he's after. But also. I do not think that God wants to be worshiped. Wanting to be worshiped is a mortal sin, of men who were Kings who would pretend to be gods or sons fo gods. God wouldn't have that weakness. God wants you to create, explore and build.

      --

      -pyrrho

    3. Re:warning: this is long. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The weakness to your claimed weakness of point 2 is that a lunatic would be harmless. But then a lunatic who was so wrong as to believe that He was God; that He is the only way to God; that He is the way, the truth, and the Life; that nutty a lunatic would be lock-upable, not a figure to be honored (using your frame of reference). That lunatic would hardly be capable of leading a sinless life, as the delusion would be so great as to be anything but beneficial.

      For example, check out the contemporary cases of individuals claiming to have divinity. Like, say, Bagwhan Rajneesh. Or Joseph Smith. Or Syung Myung Moon. Or that guy Jones who led the Guyana mass killings and suicides. Or that group that is so cloning focused (Ryelians?). All of them followed the simple formula to disaster that all who falsely claim godhood fall into: power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Jesus had none of those failings, therefore he has nothing in common with those failings.

      If you get the reading from the Bible that you do, I fear you are creating a God to be what you want Him to be. But He never changes; and look what He did to the pre-flood world - he annihilated all but 8 people. He is just as upset about sin now as then, since He does not change.

      I will pray for you, that you can overcome the barriers (as all of us must), and admit your inability to save yourself from sin. We are all rotten sinners, and we need His grace to be saved.

    4. Re:warning: this is long. by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      All of them followed the simple formula to disaster that all who falsely claim godhood fall into: power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Jesus had none of those failings, therefore he has nothing in common with those failings.

      and yet the churches founded hin His name have in fact had all those problems. This is one of the reasons I'm suspicious of the religious drive, it has gone so terribly wrong so many times.

      --

      -pyrrho

    5. Re:warning: this is long. by pyrrho · · Score: 1

      If you get the reading from the Bible that you do, I fear you are creating a God to be what you want Him to be. But He never changes; and look what He did to the pre-flood world - he annihilated all but 8 people. He is just as upset about sin now as then, since He does not change.


      but you suppose that you have a more direct access to what God is... reading the same book, but taking it more literally. But I have pointed out the errors and human editing of that book, so you can't really claim a more litteral reading is a more truthfull one. I'm afraid the God you are advocating is the one King James created.

      Feel free to pray for me, but perhaps you should prey for the poor indian children that are going to hell because they never even heard of Jesus, they are more deserving. I've heard.

      --

      -pyrrho

  17. About 56 light-years by sdedeo · · Score: 1


    According to Simbad, 37 Gem has a parallax of about 50 milliarcseconds; this data is from the Hipparcos satellite. In other words, it's about 17 parsecs (56 light years) away.

    No doubt, the inhabitants of 37 Gem are listening with interest to our broadcast stations from 1947. Perhaps they consider World War II a big "reality TV" show.

    --
    Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU