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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

Anyone know why there seem to have been some sort of politician reading from seemingly the bible (or similar religious textbook) and how that's relevant to a space mission? Seems wildly out of place from the usually grounded NASA and ESA.

Edit: The person in question seems to have been Bill Nelson, former United States senator but now NASA administrator, the highest ranked official in NASA. Which makes this whole thing even more weird, should that person strictly be a person of science, not religion?

Edit2: Seems stream is over now, here is the exact timestamp for the speech/reading: https://youtu.be/7nT7JGZMbtM?t=7222

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It’s referring to the Christmas Eve broadcast of Apollo 8, the first manned mission in orbit around the moon, another large milestone in spaceflight and for humanity overall [0]. The American space program likes to refer to its past accomplishments and this is the biggest and most complex space telescope ever launched. It’s also tradition to use “big” and inspiring language, so calling back to that era makes for a more compelling message.

0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8

That broadcast seems to even have it's own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8_Genesis_reading

> On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon

Seems no one was happy with what they came up with, so they ended up going with Genesis part from the bible instead. Not everyone was happy with that though:

> Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, responded by suing the United States government, alleging violations of the First Amendment

Ended up being dismissed by all the courts though.

But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

I'm an Atheist. At some point you will have to realize that religious people exist, and many astronauts are devout Catholic.

> But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

As atheist: even if you don’t believe in christianity, the bible is still a book with some stories that have made a massive impact and which can evoke deep emotion in many readers/listeners. Especially in such an emotional context as venturing out into space.

The same would be true for the Torah, Quran or any other major religious text (including non-Abrahamitic ones) - would you have brought the same defense, if only one of those had been quoted, if you are perfectly honest?

I’m a pretty strong atheist. It’s odd to me too. However I’m answering why the Bible over other religious texts. That one at least feels obvious.

The people reading it were likely Christian. The majority of the people listening would’ve been Christian. The majority of the people that footed the bill would’ve been Christian.

Like others have said, you don’t have to believe in the existence of a diety to feel moved by words from some religious texts.

The Book of Genesis is from the Torah though, isn't it?

Genesis is common to all abrahamistic religions, so it has the widest appeal.

Personally I’d have appreciated a quote from any other text equally, but I’m going to assume that a US government official reading a non-christian text publicly might have effects on coming elections.

I don't believe in an Abrahamic creator-God but I think the reading of Genesis on Apollo 8 is extremely moving. I don't interpret it as being particularly religious or Abrahamic. "Let there be light" is, IMHO, a universal notion of our strange existence in the cosmos. Maybe it means creation to some, the big bang to others. It's 3-4000 year old poetry (likely long predating the old testament in oral tradition).

Oppenheimer quoted the Baghavad Ghita in his first statement after the Trinity test. Scientists are humans too.

Funnily, that is probably the only religious text that is not religious.

The local knee jerk reactionary downvoting is hilarious and expected given the faux intellectualism that is now rampant here. Since I can't edit my original comment, here you go.

There is a ton of wisdom in the Gita.

https://michaeldevfay.medium.com/the-bhagavad-gita-for-athei...

I've read the Bhagavad Gita and it spends a significant amount of time talking about karma and reincarnation. Not sure how you could see it as non-religious unless you did to it what Thomas Jefferson did to the Bible.

There is a lot of non religious content in there.

https://michaeldevfay.medium.com/the-bhagavad-gita-for-athei...

The point of Gita's message is to NOT worry about karma and reincarnation.

And there's plenty of non-religious content in the Bible, but no one in their right mind would call it a non-religious text.

That famous Oppenheimer quote is from 1965, not 1945.

After the Trinity test he went on to work for the US government for some years on nuclear weapons, which goes against the usual "what have we done?" sentiment that quote is meant to convey.

It would be hard to be a scientist without being human

It may be confusing because of the attitude toward empirical science of some prominent strains of American fundamentalism (and the way the media often reduces that to a narrative of a fundamental religion vs. science conflict), but having religious belief about the metaphysical nature of reality and pursuing scientific understanding of its physical nature have often been things that go together. I mean, consider Georges Lemaître.

>But still, I cannot believe that people who are supposedly scientists start quoting the bible when they are themselves involved in maybe one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. How does that resolve?

"A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion." - Francis Bacon

And for a clearcut example of this, Isaac Newton figured out calculus and classical mechanics, but also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find secret messages hidden in the Bible.

From my understanding, Newton eventually decided he'd figured out everything there was to figure out (which was kind of true), then he got bored, so he started to dabble in alchemy and bible things.

Being a scientist and being religious are not mutually exclusive.

True, but the intersection of the Venn diagram has only shrunk throughout history.

Has it? That would be an interesting diagram but I wouldn’t assume anything

You'd be surprised how many scientists throughout history were motivated by the notion of better knowing the nature of god.

It's a giga-budget space telescope, mostly paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Most of whom are not nearly so interested in science geekery than the average HN'er. If it can be sold (as worth funding) to a bunch of the more-religious taxpayers as "a pilgrimage to discover and admire the handwork of God", or something similar, that's a plus in my book. The country is already suffering far too much "science vs. religion" divisiveness.

I don't think tricking people into funding things they don't want is a good social contract.

They've already been tricked, and they donate every Sunday. They may as well also donate to what's really going on in the sky.

It's not, especially when you're funding things that are fascinating, but are inherently not useful. I love astronomy and physics, but much of it is now being spent on pure knowledge. The discovery of the Higgs boson hasn't improved any lives or led to new technology, but it did eat untold amounts of money that could have been spent on other things in science.

I recommend this book https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/3319155237?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_... . It makes a clear case why trying to aim certain objective, when it comes to innovation, doesn't necessarily work and we still need "aimless wandering" and the pursuit of pure knowledge is a good guidance when it comes to that.

It is not a trick, just a matter of perspective. Finding an atheist universe beautiful is not in conflict with finding beauty in a universe which is created by a deity.

> seemingly the bible (or similar religious textbook)

You seem to be going out of your way to demonstrate your atheistic bonafides by expressing an affected ignorance of some of the most important texts in human history. Understand that these can be read as metaphors and many people find pleasure in the words and sentiments even if they don’t accept their literal truth.

Important doesn't mean good.

Because the books within the ketuvim/Hagiographa are basically a mishmash of stuff that doesn't fit within the Torah or Prophets, I think a bit of confusion is understandable and not inherently dismissive. I've read a good chunk of the bible (as a kid my parents made me skip some parts that they felt espoused immoral sexual behaviors) and still needed to look up the taxonomy of the 5 books within the Book of Psalms

He ended his speech with "God bless Planet Earth".

I view this as quite progressive for a bureaucratic representative of the fed and an encouraging sign of the times.

"God bless Amer...er, the Earth"

He's a 80 year old American politician. It's the demographic of people that see religion and God everywhere, even when talking about an international, deeply scientific endeavour. It's a cultural quirk I guess.

I don't agree with much Trump did as president but damn if I didn't respect Jim Bridenstine so much more than this guy.

I liked Bridenstine too but Bill Nelson has been an ardent space supporter longer than Bridenstine has been alive. And Nelson has actually flown in space.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nelson

Politician-turned-astronaut seems more like space tourism though.

I don't know if his stunt is something that should be applauded. The original payload specialist was an engineer who had worked on the actual payload at Hughes. After the second time being bumped from a mission to be replaced by a politician, he was reassigned to the Challenger where he died.

Ask Isaac Newton whether a religious person can do science

Thanks. For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newto...

I wonder what he would say about the missing of any mention to Dinosaurs in the Bible...

Using Set terminology, religious knowledge and scientific knowledge are just intersecting sets. It's not necessary that one of them contains the other. As such, it's not surprising that there is no mention to Dinosauirs in religious textbooks.

Not really. If the Deity dictated a book, telling how the world come to be, and to guide all aspects of the life of their disciples...So much the participants of the religious group believe it comes directly from their creator...Would have been nice to mention this major change of mind, after letting these creatures roam free for 200 million years..And some mention of the real earth position and structure of the solar system would have been nice.

To my knowledge only the ten commandments are considered divinely dictated. The rest are written versions of oral histories, letters, and such by human authors.

> To my knowledge only the ten commandments are considered divinely dictated

Both the entire text and the composition into the canon are pretty universally (within Christianity) considered divinely inspired (even by groups that disagree on what the entire text of the canon is.) The exact meaning of that inspiration and the degree to which it admits human error is...variable across different interpretations of Christianity.

The text of the decalogue as recorded—in more than one place, and not identically—in the Bible generally isn't considered any differently than the rest of the text. The text as it was inscribed on the stone tablets may be, but it's pretty clear that the human authors of the relevant Scripture didn't all correct their text with the tablets.

Whether or not the text is "divinely inspired" is a different point than whether it is divinely dictated, which is what I was responding to. Of all the books of the Bible I can think of, none of them even claim to be divinely dictated - except for the ten commandments.

> Whether or not the text is "divinely inspired" is a different point than whether it is divinely dictated

Thar actually depends rather strongly on whose understanding of divine inspiration you accept. While the term used is consistent, the range of beliefs as to what that term means is broad and extends the whole way to divine dictation.

> Of all the books of the Bible I can think of, none of them even claim to be divinely dictated - except for the ten commandments.

The decalogue isn't the only piece that claims to be directly quoting material that came directly from one or another person of the Trinity. (There's bits of the Creation story, the burning bush, and some other things scattered in the OT directly quoting the Father beyond the decalogue, and a whole lot of the NT directly quotes the Son.)

The decalogue is the only reference to a separate external document which was not merely divinely dictated by but written by the Hand of God, but it doesn't have any special claim of divine authorship beyond that of any of the other places God’s words in any form are quoted.

Also seems quite nationalistic after what was broadcast before that. As a European quite unappealing.

If it’s worth anything I am American and also find it unappealing.

The reality is the Americans footed most of the bill. That gives them certain authority.

Even as a member of a highly involved country (Canada) I can acknowledge that on this road trip, they're the driver of the vehicle and they get to decide what's on the radio.

It would be nice if the Americans were more considerate, but that's a general problem and not specific to this. (I kid, I kid).

The NASA administrator is a political appointee, so they will be as religious as the president wants (or allows) them to be. Positions like these are sometimes given as reward for loyal party members who supported the president’s election campaign rather than the most qualified candidate.

However, Bill Nelson is an astronaut so he probably is the most qualified (politician) for the job. I’m sure he works hard to get NASA the funding it needs regardless of his personal beliefs (and it would be illegal to make atheism a job requirement). Aside from awkward speech giving I think most people are optimistic about how he’ll do as administrator.

Calling Bill Nelson qualified since he is an astronaut is hilarious to read.

Consider that the other, legitimately qualified people on that mission gave him the nickname "ballast" and it is widely regarded that the only reason he went up is by strong arming his way in since he had a powerful congressional position.

He is not considered a great NASA admin and it was pretty disappointing when he was chosen.

For further reference, here's the only part in the entire New Testament referencing the old testament's Psalms 19 (which NASA's Bill Nelson referenced here), more specifically Psalms 19:4. And that part is Roman's 10 (more specifically 10:16 to 10:21), given here in the Modern Literal Translation, which (mostly, not always) avoids fucking up the Ancient Greek:

http://www.modernliteralversion.org/bibles/MLV/Romans10.htm

Yeah, it was odd. Then again, people can believe what they want and make links that don't make sense to everyone. He seems like a fairly progressive guy and an actual astronaut - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nelson

Buzz Aldrin took communion on the Moon. Not everything is Either/Or

No idea. It did seem extremely out of place though.

Yeah, not sure how I'd feel if I worked on the project for years and then someone starts ranting about "the glory of god", "handiwork of god", "god bless planet Earth" and similar stuff.

Not only out of place but it even felt downright offensive for some of us European folks. No different than quoting the Quran and praising Allah for the JWST.

How about praising NASA, CSA, ESA and CNES for this brilliant endeavor?

It was Bill Nelson, head of NASA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nelson

I assumed it was intended for the American audience.

As an American I find any religious expression by government officials in the course of their duties to be offensive and harmful to our nation.

Understood, but it's still there, and is obvious to foreigners and visitors. We see "In God We Trust" printed prominently on the money, senior politicians emphasizing their religious credentials, and much more visible religion in daily life.

See, for example, the chart at [1], for the number of people who pray daily.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-a...

Ok? So we agree? I have seen American money. I find it particularly distasteful that we also carved “In God we trust” into the halls of Congress. I’m missing your point though.

"In God We Trust" was added to currency in the mid 1950s as part of the "Red Scare" and anticommunist sentiment.

Before 1957 the national motto was E PLURIBUS UNUM - One From Many. Too commie!

This was the same time that "under god" was added to the pledge of allegiance, which before just read "... One nation, indivisible"

It turns out Barry Goldwater was right about the preachers.

I feel the same but it’s futile to be resentful.

Ironically, the 1st amendment of the US Constitution will protect his speech. As Americans we have the RIGHT to express religion free from government intrusion, that includes officials of the government contrary to what the Freedom from religion crowd believes.

I do wonder, do you feel the same about members of congress from the Islam religion wearing religious clothing, and symbols while conducting Official US Business? How about Jewish members?

Or do you reserve your offense only for Christians?

He can say what he wants on his own time. When he speaks in an official capacity he needs to leave religion out of it. Unless he wants to also thank Satan, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Sauron.

So why would those 3 fictional characters be ok, but the fictional character of God not be OK?

It is also telling you refusing the answer the question about other religion so I will go ahead and assume your like most and save your ire for only Christians making you a hypocrite in 2 ways.

So at the end of the day you are just bigoted against Christians, and are using secular desires as a cover for this bigotry, it is not religion that bothers you, but Christianity

I think mulmen is wisely ignoring your ridiculous and baseless claim. They wrote "any religious expression".

But they claim Satan would be OK, Satanism is recogized religion in the US, even has Tax Exempt status.

So if NASA was headed by a Satanist, and they proclaim "Thank Satan" then according to mulmen that would be OK.

Given this context I am not sure how my claim is either ridiculous nor basless

No, in effect they argued mention of God is no more okay than bringing up Satan, spaghetti monsters, etc, and that none of them are okay.

Because we have a representative government and most of our population still thinks this is a reasonable way to view the universe

Science doesn’t need to be scared to acknowledge religion. It’s a humble, enduring relic of our past, a part of our shared history, and it helps to punctuate the magnitude of our growth and accomplishments as a species.

Until China starts launching large scale space telescopes perhaps such readings are required to keep the more conservative politicians voting for science funding.

> The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

This is what is confounding you, or is offensive to you as an atheist? This one line from Psalm 19, which is just a consideration or an awe of creation? I would expect any competent and honest scientist to admit that they just don't know. This is the fundamental problem and fatal flaw of atheism, claiming knowledge that is unknowable. Not very scientific, is it?

That was NASA administrator Bill Nelson trying to recreate the awe of the Apollo 8 Genesis reading. A bit out of touch...

Even Apollo 8 was inappropriate and NASA has very deliberately avoided those kinds of embarrassments since.

Agreed. It was pompously Abrahamic, evidently as much for political show as a heart-felt expression of wonder. We all do feel the wonder, but let’s avoid the Christmas kitsch and the tacit “God, the father” image he evoked.

I believe that is Bill Nelson, the director of NASA. Definitely an embarrassing moment. I turned it off.

I was weirded out by this as well.

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