That hasn’t been established, and in fact I think it’s quite likely that it will get to the Moon. It won’t get there in any condition to conduct any of its planned scientific experiments, but that might not matter to people whose concern was to just get the remains of something to exist on the lunar surface: That part probably will happen.
Remember that Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes are already up there. I hope and anticipate that many more people will send their remains to the Moon, or will die there in due course, and it would be a much better idea if those remains were conserved for recycling in future colonies. If we can persuade people to pay to send their phosphorous to the Moon that would benefit future Lunar generations, and may fund current missions.
Funny that you mention Star Trek, because the Peregrine was carrying ashes from Gene Roddenberry, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and DeForrest Kelly.
I know this
We’ll see.
Could not disagree more. This sort of valuation of theist beliefs over the rights of other people to just do what they want is fundamentally at odds with the concept of religious freedom and a pluralistic society. It’s an absolutely poisonous idea, even when ingested in the minute quantities that apply to this case.
“I didn’t realize it would get the attention is did,” is not remotely the same as, “I didn’t realize it could be considered offensive.” He made the picture as part of a series of works, expecting it to be viewed by a relatively small audience that would be seeing the picture in context (it was one of a series using a variety of mediums) and would be familiar enough with modern art to be open to multiple possible interpretations, and who would generally be okay with the idea of an artist experimenting with ideas that might possibly be offensive. He didn’t expect this one picture to be seized by the nascent right-wing outrage machine and turned into a focal point of the culture wars.
Anticipated by Heinlein in ‘Harsh Mistress’.
I forget the actual text, but Mannie notes that some of Black Jack the founders’s atoms are still around in the agriculture tunnel. Of course if we ever establish anything like a self-sustaining moon colony, we will want to recycle everything.
I assure you, I am completely serious. Dead and Alive are so clearly social constructs that claiming they are not is patently ridiculous.
I really do not want to ignite a flamewar.
You are entitled to your beliefs, so let us agree to differ and drop the topic.
Dead is dead.
A tiny particle of human cremains are definitely dead.
This is a perverse way of expressing these ideals, placing “many different religious traditions” next to “naturally occurring minorities of LGBT people” as though these two aspects of diversity have been historically in the same category. The reality is that throughout history many of the different religious traditions have devoted considerable effort to projects of hyper-intolerance explicitly and diametrically opposed to diversity, persecuting each other and persecuting LGBT people.
The fundamental principle of religious pluralism, a secular principle that forced many religious traditions with great reluctance to become more tolerant, is that your religious freedom ends at other people. Your ethical compass is badly broken if you imagine that religious pluralism entails enabling believers to impose their beliefs on others.
This is weak false equivalence, implying a straw man that the project to place human remains on the Moon is designed for the deliberate purpose of offending Navajo people. It obviously is not. The “offense” derives entirely from the Nygren’s flavor of intolerance, not from any objective harm caused by placing human remains on the moon.
If you want to put dogshit on the Moon to deliberately offend people to make some point, go for it. I already joked about taking up Piss Christ and a statue of Muhammad to offend a broader swathe of people, as an utterly perverse way of clarifying that we have nothing specifically against Navajo beliefs per se. But such actions would make me and you deliberate assholes, certainly not equivalent to people who are not trying to offend anyone.
Eh, we’ve all got some combination of various forms of privilege and disprivilege that we’ve all got to negotiate in our own understanding and in our discourse with others. I don’t try to dodge your arguments by complaining about your mansplaining to me.
This sort of reflexive slippery-slope argument isn’t very persuasive. The fact is that the Navajo and other Native peoples haven’t been objecting to the vast majority of lunar activities undertaken by the US government (and now by its commercial launch partners). But over a period of decades, they have let it be known that this one particular action violates an important cultural taboo from them. I don’t think it’s a rational response to this restrained expression of concern if we just clutch our pearls and fret “oh noes somebody will object to everything so then we can’t do anything!”.
Again, I’m looking askance here at what strikes me as a very mainstream-culture-saturated artificial distinction between “belief” and “just do[ing] what they want”. All the behavioral norms that structure what we accept by default as being okay for people to “just do” are ultimately based in belief systems.
I’ve noticed that you consistently show preference to anything that’s “traditional” over anything that’s at all novel. Why should the age of Navajo beliefs give them any more precedence than beliefs that were formed in the 21st century? What makes the folks putting their cremains on a rocket “sentimentalists” who can and should be derided in a public advertising campaign, while the Navajo’s beliefs are “sacred” and need to be respected by everyone, even if they’re not Navajo?
Also, really not a fan in general of the idea that it’s okay for theists to bully people into compliance with their beliefs. Had plenty of that in my life already, would like to see less of it going forward.
This is not really true. We still have a lot of technological progress to make before getting into space becomes something we can do safely and reliably - as demonstrated by the fact that the mission we’re debating right now failed - and every payload we send up means we get a little better at sending up payloads. And taking money from people who want to have their cremains shot into space, while not a useful activity in and of itself, helps finance that practice.
Well, that’s certainly a good argument for why being gay shouldn’t be made illegal, but if I know being gay pisses off Christians, aren’t I still being somewhat of an asshole by being gay anyway?
Are you sure? As Miracle Max would say: only mostly dead. I’ve seen worse.
Now, I’ve got this pill…
Like the vampires in Discworld: reduced to dust by bright light, but a few drops of blood can revive them…
Oh, I personally don’t agree with the Navajo that the moon is in any way sacred or that the presence of corpse remains in any way desecrates it. I’ve used the term “superstition preferences” pretty evenhandedly in this thread.
I’m just pushing back against the (again, very mainstream-culture-skewed) default assumption that wanting to put corpse parts on the moon, or any other practice held to have deeply meaningful cultural symbolic significance, isn’t just as much part of a “belief” system as Navajo taboos about corpse parts on the moon.
I don’t hold this view, and have no idea why you think I do.
Of course the reason that some people value having their cremains deposited on the moon enough to pay ludicrous sums of money to do so is a belief system. Possibly a superstitious one.
So what?
Why do you feel the need to keep “pushing back” against this, when nobody is disputing it? I was the first one to note this early in the thread, well before you even came in.
And why do you keep ignoring the actual point, that the asymmetry is not in the specifics of the two beliefs, it is that only one side is trying to impose their beliefs on the other by constraining their behavior.
Thanks for fleshing out the detail - this was my point. This specific proscription is not a traditional Navajo belief - how could it be? It was invented recently in response to the project. And it has the hallmarks of religious fundamentalism: over-literal interpretation and a desire to impose the interpretation on others.
That, I think, comes down to an issue of individual autonomy of the person. Civil libertarians hold, and I think rightly, that there are certain fundamental respects in which the bodily autonomy of the individual overrides any shared social norms of the community. Your marital choices and your sex life are held to be matters so individually personal to you that the social taboos of homophobic fundamentalist Christians cannot be admitted to have any right to influence them.
IOW, it’s your body, but it’s not your moon. We’ve all only got one moon that we all share, and we all live in societies that are profoundly culturally impacted by the moon’s existence. Moreover, the society that runs NASA (i.e., the USA) happens to be the same society that officially represents, and shares territory and cultural history with, the Navajo Nation. ISTM that the Navajo Nation asking US agencies and companies not to put corpse parts on the moon is not equivalent, in terms of legitimacy, with a fundamentalist Christian asking you not to be gay.
If your argument here is that “religious freedom and pluralism are also a belief system,” I say, “Yes” and “So what?” The Navajo Nation’s beliefs include, “The moon is sacred.” Celestis’s beliefs include, “Being buried on the moon would be so cool!” My beliefs include, “Religious people need to fuck off with expecting everyone to accede to their religious beliefs.”
Between Celestis and the Navajo Nation, only one group is doing something that offends my personal beliefs. Which, I guess, makes them “somewhat of an asshole,” at least per your logic.
I’ve consistently described both Celestis and the Navajo Nation’s positions here as “religious” and “dumb,” so I’m not sure who you think you’re addressing this to.