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Sally Ride Takes Her Final Flight
fructose writes "Sally Ride, America's first woman in space died today at age 61. She succumbed to pancreatic cancer according to her office in San Diego. Here's to wishing her a safe trip on her final journey."
I still remember that historic launch. Her name was one everyone who was old enough to remember knew and never forgot from that day forward.
Sally Ride was a true pioneer and hero.
I suspect that many if not most of the people who follow Slashdot don't believe in religious superstition. I find it truly unfortunate that someone would take advantage of her untimely passing and use it as an opportunity to preach his own religious views. And yes, I expect other supposedly "religious" people will now resort to name calling to mod me down rather than enter into discussion.
As she literally flew, if you will, to "the heavens" during her lifetime, I see nothing wrong with suggesting metaphorically that she's doing it now for the final time. Yes, the imagery is religious. But it seems to fit the situation well.
Goodbye, Sally.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Rest well Sally. Sorry you passed away because of such a horrible condition. You did good maam.
People do not want to admit that death==nonexistence so they make-up imaginary "trips" to some other place (heaven, hell, Elysian Fields, space, whatever). In reality Sally Ride's personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment her brain's neurons broke connection with one another when they were deprived of oxygen.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
What?
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
when you are dead you are dead. there isn't any 'safe trip' about it.
let the myth of afterlife 'die' already!
Of course its tolerance, regardless of what you think about it. You live most of your life based, not on logic, but on personal preferences and emotional impulses that have little scientific justification. And I do too. And so the other 7 billion people on this planet.
When a process dies, all the work it has accomplished remains. Same with a human.
I could counter your belittling of people who use these "bedtime stories" with this: those who have no belief in the possibility of a greater being are uncomfortable with the thought of something being inexplicable - ever.
It is simply pointing out a belief in Secular Frisbeeism.
The "final flight" is when your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck for all time.
- May you find the shingles soft Sally! -
I found out reading her obituary that she had a partner of 27 years, a fact that - despite her status as an American Hero - was not publicly announced until after her death.
> ... personality dissolved into nothingness at the moment
> her brain's neurons broke connection with one another
> when they were deprived of oxygen.
Cool, I'm totally putting that on my tombstone.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Condolences to her family.
And condolences to her partner of 27 years, Dr. Tam E. O'Shaughnessy
Sadly even hero status didn't bring the right to legal marriage during their time together
It's a metaphor son.
tolerance of superstition is not tolerance.
As a militant agnostic, I have to point out that your post is nothing but flamebait.
It is devoid of argument outside of assertion. It has no foundation. It is an accusation with nothing behind it. You are almost begging people to flame you.
Intolerance of belief is just as bad as intolerance of non-belief. Indeed it gives those with a system of religion ammunition to fuel whatever persecution complex they're nursing. So it leads to backlash. You decried the Moral Majority in another post. Stop giving them bad things to say about us.
To quote the Letter to the Touro Synagogue: The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. ...
May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. -- G. Washington.
Go sit under your own fig tree.
--
BMO
The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova. She flew on June 16th, 1963. That was two years after the first man flew into the space.
On the other hand, the first American woman (Sally Ride, RIP) flew in 1982.
Question: Why did it take NASA almost two decades to send the woman in space?
I met Sally (briefly) at JPL, after her 1984 Challenger mission. My impression was of someone who was confident, supremely able, and didn't worry a lot how she dressed. I got this impression since she showed up at the lab wearing shorts, and seemed instantly at home, like she'd been working there for years. Her later partnership with Tam was a surprise, since she gave no hint of that during her astronaut years. But yes, getting a ride on the big machine in the early 80's was a very political game, as much about appearances as it was about ability. And ability she had in spades. During the October 84 Challenger mission, all kinds of shit went wrong. An RF antenna cable on the radar overloaded and started arcing, causing the SNR to radically drop. The monitoring equipment at Johnson acted up, showing loss of TDRS downlink data when it was actually fine. I also seem to recall that Sally had to take apart parts of the shuttle with a wrench to get access to the data recorder, because of some malfunction or other. So overall, the mission was a disaster. But Sally took it all in stride. Best wishes, Sally. Some of us remember you.
Over the same 20 year period that you have been slipping into ... what should we call it ... spiritualism, my wife has been nursing in ICU and cardiac wards. Though she was raised to be religious, the many deaths she has witnessed have moved her from the "imaginary" position (to quote OP) to one more in keeping with the available evidence: that is something not dissimilar from OP's observation that "personality [is] dissolved into nothingness at the moment the brain's broke connection with one another."
Despite all the chatter of "weird unexplainable shit" happening, no-one has yet been able to provide any persuasive evidence of human consciousness existing absent a functioning human brain.
Old man, after you die, chances are you won't be aware that the surprise never came.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Wow. I'm honestly quite surprised at what is a fairly high level of vitriol over what people choose to believe or not believe from a religious standpoint. C'mon, people. Can't we just let someone hold their religious beliefs without going out of our way to mock and deride them because you think you know better?
Ponder your cat. It has it's own world, it lives life freely, is fairly intelligent. It can plan, make decisions, etc. And yet it is not remotely possible for that kitty to understand, when you open the cat food can, how that food got there. All kitty understands is that you open the can and the food is simply there. Kitty's mind is not able to comprehend how that cat food came to be created, how it was packaged, labeled, transported, sold, etc. Kitty's brain isn't capable of understanding it. To kitty, it's not even a known unknown, it's an unknown unknown (to use some military/war/intelligence terminology).
Why couldn't us mere humans be the same way? Why couldn't there be a God or similar being whose entire existence completely and totally transcends ours? I realize that *could* open the face-two-mirrors-at-each-other paradox, but lets set that aside for the moment. To put it simply - just because you cannot conclusively prove that a God does not exist DOES NOT mean that God doesn't exist.
I like how you gloss over the fact that science has been quite successful at ushering members of the set of inexplicable things to the set of understood phenomena.
I for one am glad that there are rational humans who chafe at the inexplicable - that's what drives them to discovery.
I would rather have progress than convenient, reassuring bedtime stories.
Original story submitter, here. I am an atheist, but I don't believe that death=nonexistence. Her accomplishments, her impacts, and her memories will continue to affect others for a long time. In a way she is still with us, especially to those whom she was closest to. Her final flight is in to our collective memories and our history.
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it?
Heinlein misspoke. Surely that should be "there is no evidence of any kind of life after death, but there is no conclusive evidence against it." If I didn't know any better I might think that the author stemmed from a time and place in which the belief in life after death was generally accepted.
One can postulate any number of imaginary things for which there is no, or cannot be, any evidence of their non-existence. Which is why we usually don't waste too much effort establishing the non-existence of things for which there is no prima facie evidence.
As regards post-mortem consciousness, we have a) an absence of any empirical evidence, b) no necessary logical inference from the nature of existence and c) a compelling psychological reason for self-deception. Although post-mortem consciousness may not be impossible, we cannot establish at a high probability that it does occur. Thus contra Heinlein, there is no good reason to believe that we will "know" soon enough ... chances are, we simply won't know.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Several people I have known have appeared to me in my dreams as they died. One recent apparition was during the day, in an idle moment my thoughts were a tumble of old memories of an old acquaintance as they died of cancer (which I was unaware of). They don't haunt me, and only in one case has there been any interaction; someone I went to school with was stabbed, I was shaking him awake in my dreams, although I was 200 miles away at the time. I told his cousin on the Monday morning, after he asked "Did you hear what happened to Mark?" Mark died on the operating table, but was bought back. There have been several other incidences, but nothing supernatural happened when my father died when I was eight, or my mother in my arms a few weeks back.
These are the most amazing events that have happened in my life. I know that were are more than a bunch cells. However, and it's a big however, I also understand that the most likely explanations are I'm a big, fat liar or it's all just coincidences. It's impossible to refute the first, it's all about that beautiful word, trust. I'm also a scientist and understand the concept of proof and how coincidences work. But we're 30 years on, and still haven't dreamed about Mark again.
I'm an atheist, but have given this a great deal of thought in the last few months since my wife's death after a long illness. My wife is gone, and I shan't see her again, but I can see the imprint she left on those around her. She left this world a better place by inspiring those around her to better things. Perhaps it's just a localized reversal of entropy. Sally Ride was one of those people who has left the wold better than she found it. Some are just along for the ride.
American press did not report that fact an awful lot, and U.S. schools really did not teach much to kids of the Soviet space-race achievments, basically only U.S. progress got any airplay during those post cold war days. Not one of our best moments. But that's why it's not as ingrained in the American psyche.