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'Civilization on Mars' Claims Debunked
StarEmperor writes "Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait has finally taken some time to
debunk conspiracy theorist Richard Hoagland's claims about life on Mars. There's also a CNN story about this here."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
...why in earth would NASA want to cover up such a thing?
If you enjoy his web site and the service he provides to the public buy his book, Bad Astronomy.
The link to his book on Amazon can be found here
He covers a wide range of misconceptions, myths and outright falsehoods about astronomy and associated topics. My favorite topic he covers is the "Apollo Moon Landing Hoax". He gives the subject an excellent treatment.
Unfortunately his definitions are wrong.
I am a born-again evangelical Christian. That is to say, those are the terms I would use to describe myself, and my church describes itself as Evangelical.
I also believe that creationists are nuts, that modern science makes it impossible to take the whole of the Bible literally, and that God may only have played a minimal part in evolution, although I still find Him irreplacable as an explanation for what caused the Big Bang to happen.
Please don't use the term "evangelical" when you mean "fundamentalist". The two mean entirely different things. It's as bad as saying "socialist" when you mean "Stalinist", or using "capitalist" to mean "oppressive and exploitative", or "gay" to mean "stupid"... or "stupid" to mean "ignorant", come to that.
All those words are used in those ways in colloquial contexts, but that doesn't mean it's at all acceptable to use it that way when you're trying to make a serious point about real issues. There are indeed fundamentalist Christians who believe that everything scientists say is a direct assault on Christianity and probably directly inspired by Satan, but using "evangelical" to describe that group does nobody any favours.