5 ms·

Well, barring space transit, humanity will be wiped out by the Sun long before the heat death of the universe, if not by some other catastrophe first. I am Chr

Well, barring space transit, humanity will be wiped out by the Sun long before the heat death of the universe, if not by some other catastrophe first. I am Christian as well, but I didn't think the article handled religion well. In Christianity, "God's chosen people" are the tribes of Israel, not Christians. In Christianity, the meaning of life is love, something you don't have to be a Christian to believe or understand, so you certainly wouldn't have to cling to Christianity to hang on to this meaning. Buddhism is about relieving suffering. Something that you don't have to believe in Buddhism to understand. You don't have to cling to Buddhism to believe that your meaning in life is relieving the suffering of others. Anyway, the paragraph about religion and meaning didn't ring true for me.

tim333 10y ago
If we can't build space transit in 100 million years we're not much of a species.
- Natsu 10y ago
  We have a finite energy budget to get out of here, it's not too clear to me how much we can take with us.
  - johnmarius 10y ago
    Why?
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      Because one of the main payoffs from getting here to the nearest habitable star system is that you're now closer to more habitable star systems. But if turns out that it's very very expensive to get from one star system to another, then that recursive payoff might be very close to zero.
      - zardo 10y ago
        Are you saying you think we have to completely deplete all resources in a stellar system to colonize the next? There is way more energy to harvest in a star system than that.
        Natsu 10y ago
        It can take more energy than it's worth to transport energy from one star to another. Entropy is a pain, because it's like we're trying to find a relatively dry tree to hide under in a rainstorm and none of them stay that way for long.
        smallnamespace 10y ago
        If the cost of transporting mass and energy from one star system to another are sufficiently high, another problem is that only the people on the ship get a benefit, whereas everyone else is throwing away mass and energy for no conceivable personal benefit. It would take a very dictatorial sort of government to overcome this kind of negative incentive.
      - tim333 10y ago
        To avoid the issue with the sun frying the Earth you'd only need to move a little out in our own system. Mars or Io or some such. Musk is talking about a "cargo route" to Mars starting 2018 so 100 million years is quite a while to do things. http://qz.com/705299/elon-musk-is-building-a-supply-chain-to-mars/ http://qz.com/705299/elon-musk-is-building-a-supply-chain-to...
pluma 10y ago
> In Christianity, the meaning of life is love Technically the entire "love thy neighbour" stuff seems to largely be based on the understanding that "thy neighbour" is a fellow Christian (or Hebrew, considering Christianity wasn't yet a thing when most of it supposedly happened). The Old Testament alone is full of double standards about how you should treat your fellow tribespeople compared to what is allowable to be done to outsiders or enemies of the tribe. If Christianity had consistently interpreted these rules as universal, there probably wouldn't be many Christians around. This is similar to Islam's claim of being the "religion of peace": Islam certainly expects Muslims to treat fellow Muslims well, and actually goes to some lengths to make sure non-believers shouldn't be directly killed, but it has fairly strict rules about apostates and people trying to convert believers away from Muslim faith.
- irrational 10y ago
  Except when asked who is my neighbor, Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan (the samaritans and jews were enemies) which basically says, everyone, including your enemies, are your neighbors. It's the whole "do good to those who hate you".
  - pluma 10y ago
    True, those Samaritans were real jerks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU On a more serious note: while that is true, there are a lot of conflicting views on how those passages interact with the rest of the gospel. Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. A lot of it can't be taken logically as absolute commands (otherwise the commands would conflict with each other) yet it isn't clear how contradictions should be resolved. EDIT: Also Samaritans are generally considered Hebrews, even though their claims of origin were disputed by the "real Jews" at the time.
    - krapp 10y ago
      >Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. Not to be a pedant, but what literally happened is someone, likely well after after Jesus' lifetime, claimed Jesus said this and that. No one actually knows what Jesus literally said.

tim333 10y ago

If we can't build space transit in 100 million years we're not much of a species.

Natsu 10y ago
We have a finite energy budget to get out of here, it's not too clear to me how much we can take with us.
- johnmarius 10y ago
  Why?
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Because one of the main payoffs from getting here to the nearest habitable star system is that you're now closer to more habitable star systems. But if turns out that it's very very expensive to get from one star system to another, then that recursive payoff might be very close to zero.
    - zardo 10y ago
      Are you saying you think we have to completely deplete all resources in a stellar system to colonize the next? There is way more energy to harvest in a star system than that.
      - Natsu 10y ago
        It can take more energy than it's worth to transport energy from one star to another. Entropy is a pain, because it's like we're trying to find a relatively dry tree to hide under in a rainstorm and none of them stay that way for long.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        If the cost of transporting mass and energy from one star system to another are sufficiently high, another problem is that only the people on the ship get a benefit, whereas everyone else is throwing away mass and energy for no conceivable personal benefit. It would take a very dictatorial sort of government to overcome this kind of negative incentive.
    - tim333 10y ago
      To avoid the issue with the sun frying the Earth you'd only need to move a little out in our own system. Mars or Io or some such. Musk is talking about a "cargo route" to Mars starting 2018 so 100 million years is quite a while to do things. http://qz.com/705299/elon-musk-is-building-a-supply-chain-to-mars/ http://qz.com/705299/elon-musk-is-building-a-supply-chain-to...

pluma 10y ago

> In Christianity, the meaning of life is love Technically the entire "love thy neighbour" stuff seems to largely be based on the understanding that "thy neighbour" is a fellow Christian (or Hebrew, considering Christianity wasn't yet a thing when most of it supposedly happened). The Old Testament alone is full of double standards about how you should treat your fellow tribespeople compared to what is allowable to be done to outsiders or enemies of the tribe. If Christianity had consistently interpreted these rules as universal, there probably wouldn't be many Christians around. This is similar to Islam's claim of being the "religion of peace": Islam certainly expects Muslims to treat fellow Muslims well, and actually goes to some lengths to make sure non-believers shouldn't be directly killed, but it has fairly strict rules about apostates and people trying to convert believers away from Muslim faith.

irrational 10y ago
Except when asked who is my neighbor, Jesus responds with the parable of the good samaritan (the samaritans and jews were enemies) which basically says, everyone, including your enemies, are your neighbors. It's the whole "do good to those who hate you".
- pluma 10y ago
  True, those Samaritans were real jerks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVB3DdRgqU On a more serious note: while that is true, there are a lot of conflicting views on how those passages interact with the rest of the gospel. Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. A lot of it can't be taken logically as absolute commands (otherwise the commands would conflict with each other) yet it isn't clear how contradictions should be resolved. EDIT: Also Samaritans are generally considered Hebrews, even though their claims of origin were disputed by the "real Jews" at the time.
  - krapp 10y ago
    >Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. Not to be a pedant, but what literally happened is someone, likely well after after Jesus' lifetime, claimed Jesus said this and that. No one actually knows what Jesus literally said.