Oh fuck let's not turn this one into another religion thread. The point about Mars and the Moon is that it's not a bad bet that one day we might be colonising them. To get to that point there needs to be a lot more research done first and that research has to begin somewhere and sometime, so why not here and now? In the grand scheme of government wasting people's dollars, this one ranks near the bottom in my opinion.
Perhaps we could take the $1.5 billion that Bush wants to use towards teaching a course in Marriage and apply it to Cancer Research here on planet Earth. Wouldn't that be nice?
I agree on all points. I am a lifelong athiest. I harbor no bitterness for religious folk and their institutions, but rather admire them deeply. I hold a different view of creation. Gekko's not an athiest, he is a antitheist. Are you a Brit? "colonising" is the King's spelling.
What a rare moment, the slamma gives us a clue about his identity. Nice to know your choice of logic. I was worried that you were going to tell me that you follow the teachings of the dali. GG's anger is justified, and I don't know why you doubt his atheism. It may be that I don't understand the statement. I would describe him as being militant. I'm proud to know him. I'm agnostic, but surely I hope there isn't a god, and I doubt there is. I think the fact that this thread changed into a debate about morality or logic is quite symbolic of any idea. All, or most ideas have moral bases, reasons for doing or thinking things. Moral reason, aesthetic opinion, or whatever you want to refer to it as.
Haha, I knew something looked "wrong" when I wrote it. I'm not a Brit, but living in Australia the Queen's good english does tend to rub off on you.
I'm a little split here. On one hand I do think there is work on this planet that could be paid for with this money, but at the same time as a good friend so eloquently put it the other day while we were discussing the "passion" movie and cracking on Christians --"Joe, this is the cow-town of the universe, we are a galactic joke..." I remeber as a kid in highschool I hated those inside jokes that the clique you ran wit knew already, but didn't fill you in on yet. I sometimes sense that there are millions of species that have all found eachother and can intersterally travel, all the while getting a great kick out of the dumb humans...