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Titan Moon's Bright Hot Spot
An anonymous reader writes "Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has been the target of great interest because of its unusual pre-biotic chemistry and thick atmosphere. The Colorado-Boulder Space Science Institute announced a new mystery today involving a persistently bright spot, perhaps one of four possibilities. The spot could be a surface coloration, a mountain range, a cloud, or a hot spot."
As long as there's WiFi there, who cares how cold it is?
Tim
I, for one, welcome our new pre-biotic lifeform overlords!
It's good to know we've got our brightest people on this.
--Greg
What does it mean to Slashdot people?
Really cool pets.
KFG
Perhaps it'll help people to start taking the Scriptures literally (in the case of Christianity), and think a bit for themselves. Religion shouldn't have to clash with Science. At all.
:)
Anyway, back to the main topic, there's no mention of what could be creating the hotspot. If it gets confirmed, what could it be? Massive geological activities? A mothership warming up for takeoff perhaps?
To others it means life evolves and all religion dies
What? You mean that religion is still alive? I thought we killed that with priests sexual behaviors & coverups, gay marriages, and general rememberances of holy wars?
The trouble with religion is that it mandates that you must justify everything to fit your previously held views and faith rather than explore and make up your own mind when presented with another possible take on the universe.
Its a shame, or perhaps just sham, that religion has anything to do with it. It is space exploration, no more startling than when Columbus went looking for tea bags by heading for Florida.
For some reason people think that life on other planets means something religious? It means that there is life on other planets. If your faith has no room for an omniscent god to have created life on some planet that you aren't part of, I pity you.
Perhaps it would be better if we ALL simply sat down and decided that these old religious things we carry around are not right, and a new view is in order?
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I'm sorry. I'm a big space explorer. Without sounding too preachy, I just meant to say that I'm a "Christian" scientist who is willing to admit that natural selection and a lot of other things might be true. And without making apologies, I was also trying to hedge bets because I see the truth in the natural order of things but I didn't know the 400 pound angry guy was going to jump
.
"Everyone you say who says that they have no religious beliefs is just so certain about their belief that they accept it as truth. If you just start asking probing questions, and they start getting mad, then you've found their religion." --Orson Scott Card.
We now know yours. Hugs. :)
BTW, Mormons beleive there is life on other planets as a matter of religion. I'm sure they're not the only ones.
If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet. -Pauli
We have billions of stars in this galaxy alone capable of maybe supporting life. Then there are billions more galaxies we have zero information about. At least 1289712 of them have to have life. The universe is amazing. It's hilarious we are studying planets in our solar system. Oh man, I wish I lived 5000 years from and maybe more. I can't wait until we figure out how to exploit light speed and really way beyond. Light speed is too slow actually. Anyways, anyone that says we are alone in space is crazy. There has to be aliens everywhere. Whaaaa!!!!!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Couldn't it just be a red light district? Even the most remote hell-hole needs hookers.
I'm gonna need a spec.
No you can't. I just patented mining operations on Titan... And all other extra-terrestrial planets and moons. Yes, it's a broad patent. Sue me..
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
We'll make great pets, you mean?
stuff
As an amateur meteorologist, I find that strangely erotic.
Okay, I lied, I'm not a meteorologist.
o_O
Ah, the typical ignorant Slashdot reader. You do know that there are more religions than the Christian one? If you actually read parts of the bible you would have noticed that a) most of it MUST NOT be read literally, but as metaphors, b) the things Jesus said (if he existed) apply to everday life. I mean things like treat other like you want to be treated yourself. I DO NOT believe in a billionaire pope who shits on the "followers".
Or buddhism? Buddhism and Christan belief are actually very similar - the ORIGINAL Christian belief, that is, not the one warped by the Catholic Church. Both do not really try to describe the Universe, and do not impose Dogmata all around (thats what the church did!) but are very, very good lessons of how to make peace with oneself, how to get to KNOW oneself, how to look through the piles of illusions so many people are trapped in. Thus, I do think beliefs are right (i do not count Buddhism as a religion), but religions are not. Organized belief is never good, since it takes away the ability to think freely. Also, religions are often filled with dogmata and priests plundering their followers. But to live without a belief is not possible. Your belief is that you have to be 100% rational.
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Well, can you expect another view from someone who has a religion?
Talk about a biased viewpoint!
As an atheist, when someone tells me but how is-it possible than 'physic laws' has produced such complex universe where some little modification in the laws would have destroyed it, I don't get upset, I just answer 'I don't know'.
You know saying that there is a god, is just as bad: who created the god? So this "answer" is not an answer at all..
So we all don't know, but that's the religious people who tend to get upset when one say this: they know, they have their 'faith'..
Bah, talk about wearing blindhorses.
Why does it smash the idea of man having been created in the image of God? If there is life on other planets, then it'll just be more plants and animals. Exotic perhaps, perhaps even based on sulphur chemistry for example, but still just plants and animals. The discovery of new species of plants and animals on this planet didn't smash that idea, why should discovering them on a different planet do so? Ditto the Jews being the chosen people.
(Disclaimer: I'm not religious, I just don't follow your logic)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
As an atheist, I hope you can appreciate that atheism is a religious viewpoint as well. You may put faith in "rational thought", "human nature", or a variety of other philosophical thoughts. Indeed, atheism has as much if not more variety as any other major world philosophical approach (aka religion). I have seen far more "faith" in the concept of global warming than I've seen religious people have "faith" that their god will protect them from harm. Or even "faith" that the United Nations should be strengthened and American soverignty be abolished. It is a matter of a point of view, and neither philosophical viewpoint is grounded on divine influence, but it does drive people with a passion to have it take up their entire life for that one cause.
I even know some "atheists" that go to "church", in the sense they get together once a week (usually Sunday because it is convinent due to local socal norms) and have a barbeque or a game of poker in the afternoon with others sharing their philosophical viewpoint. They openly admit this is only for social reasons, simply because they want to meet other people. The local newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce even publish the contact information for this group as a "church" for visitors to come and participate with if you happen to be in town.
Where religious people (I count myself among them) get upset with is when I'm told I can't have my religious viewpoint, or that I need to keep it in the closet. Outward signs that I have a religious viewpoint (such as a school teacher wearing a cross on their chest when they teach class) is prohibited in a public setting.
I'll admit that there is a fine line between being permitted to display religious attitudes and forcing the group or community to follow in those religious viewpoints, but from my experience with current politically correct thought is that such religious expression is encouraged or even demanded to be supressed altogether. An overeaction to this supression is what currently drives the "religious right" in America today. Unfortunately most atheists simply don't understand the motivation, and that tends to enflame the arguements rather than address the issue.
Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hairstyle.
This is NOT a signature.
> As an atheist, I hope you can appreciate that atheism is a religious viewpoint as well.
Nope, because my point of view 'there is no god' is falsifiable: if I'm witness to real miracles, I'd become religious (religious as in beleiving in supreme beings not as being part of a particular religion of course), wouldn't you?
Which make this *very different* from the faith of religious people.
As for your meetings that you say are equivalent as "going to church": usually when people go to church, they do it to pray, so..
For the rest, I'm French and we do have very strict limitations on religious right of people in the schools, and I agree with those. And we have no backlash, currently at least..
it's its bellybutton
rewriting history since 2109
NewScientist just ran an article that talks about "slime worlds", areas on planets that emit a near-infrared light, but amazingly there was no mention of the bright red spot on Titan. Perhaps we have found a slime world?
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I think Sagan's view may be a little too narrow here. There is certainly a long history of Christian scientists and philosophers who have looked at the universe and nature with awe and seen the handiwork of God there. My God is a big god. A God who created a Universe that is vaster than we can possibly imagine, with more worlds than we can count. A God who created the beauty and mystery of quantum mechanics, and relativity. We are God's children, but I have little doubt that in this vast universe God has other children. Maybe we will meet them someday, in this life or the next. I hope so.
I work peripherally with some of the Cassini people, and the "hot spot" theory has been more or less abandoned. Radar observations have already confirmed that the spot isn't glowing or emitting energy on it's own. But they still don't know what it is.
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This is getting insane. Why would I ever use West Virginia as a unit of area? From reading stories on /. I'm much more familiar with the surface of Titan than West Virgina (and I suspect I'm not the only one). Shouldn't we be measuring the size of West Virgina in Titans?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
To take a rational, scientific view would involve independent thought, reasoning and research; skills that many people are incapable of, or don't want to burden themselves with.
Bread and the circus.
Stick Men
A viewpoint about religion does not a religion make.
Atheism is no more a religion than asantaclausism. The only defining characteristic of atheism is the lack of a belief in some sort of god. That's it, nothing else. And yes, agnostics are a subset of atheists.
Religions, on the other hand, are a collection of beliefs regarding supernatural entities, (or what are percieved as supernatural entities) and worship of those entities, with a collection of rituals attached to it. All this is done in the hopes of acquiring some sort of favor from the entity, eg. forgiveness, salvation, success, etc.
See, atheism, while it has one belief concerning supernatural entities, lacks the worship, magic rituals, and prayer that religions have. There is no moral code attached to atheism, whis is not to say that atheists have no morals.
Nice Marmot
Pardon me for a second, but...
1) Secular humanism is not atheism, even if you call it that. If you don't believe in god, and you take a "other people can rot in a ditch for all I care" attitude, you're not a secular humanist.
2) Most atheists have had plenty of time to understand religious people, as 90% of the people around them are theists, and almost half the country is evangelical.
3) When, on Earth, did the parent "oppress" others? Talk about a persecution complex, geez. I'll never get how people who are part of a religion that composes 3/4ths of the US population think they're being oppressed. Who is this little non-Christian cabal that is keeping you down?
4) Since when was it "atheists" who desecrated the Quran? The religious beliefs of those involved weren't stated, but given the strong Xian majority... your evidenceless assumptions are, quite frankly, insulting. Besides, haven't you seen the sign or read the tracts? Let me tell you, it's not this country's tiny atheist minority that is anti-Islam...
5) Millenia of repression of religious thought
Excuse me????? Did you forget about the fact that the catholic church essentially *ruled europe* during the middle ages? Before that, there was the powerful influence of the Teutonic and druidic religions in the north, and the Greek-descended religions in the south. What "atheistic regimes" are you picturing here? Heck, many early governments claimed to either be descended from gods, or gods themselves.
Seriously... get out of your persecution fantasy world here - religion used to rule almost every society.
All we want to do is eat your brains.