I just came by to say "hello". I'm sorry to hear that you are sick by "superstitious cowards".

BTW: You wrote above that you "really shouldn't type when in an altered state". It could be that your "altered state" is the cause of your sickness.

Get well soon! Dollhopf

Don't EVER try to proselytise your sick morals to anyone in front of me, I'll eat you alive and your pretentious eleven dollar words also. CHICKENHAWK COWARDS like you belong as human shields on the front line, to make the enemy pause before shooting at our heroic troops. They may be there for no good reason, but they're heroic nonetheless.

Hope I didn't offend, you seem like a nice guy. Really sweet, in a Heisenberg kind of way.

PRE-EMPTIVE COUNTERSTRIKE

Every common lexicon contains a sufficiently just definition of the concept of moral. Mutual understanding would be no problem, if you were not in need of an own "description" of moral, which is from the beginning as purpose-built as it is inadequate. I wonder that you did not also ask for a "description" of the term "corruption of a society".

Stop intentionally generating a lack of understanding. Then try again.

All I know is that you claim that personal moral "rotting" is a basis for the corruption of a society, which is the point where my description differs. This is how I know that your definition of morals, whatever it is, is different from mine (which I have stated for the purpose of a discussion).

But if you decline to discuss what a moral is, for whatever reason, fine – it is generally pointless to claim that specific concepts are correct or fallacious if they can't be tested. What I can do, and have done, is to show for a casual reader why (your concept of) "personal moral" is not an important basis for causing societal problems, and why then personal (or organized) religion isn't helpful. That is enough for me.

[Ironically one can factually show the reverse, that religion is an important basis for causing societal problems, but it seems such a discussion is now rendered moot.]

Question: Because you know my description, otherwise you would not know that it does differ from yours, why then do you ask for?

I have proposed a description of morals from which "personal morals" can easily be derived. But as this description is problematic for your earlier claim (as in: I reject your description), my description and yours differ, which is why I asked for yours – in case you were interested in a continuing discussion.

honestly, I find it somewhat weird that you have to ask what "personal moral" means.

I'm relatively new at "forums and comments". If I make quite a few significant points in defense of a central theme and then someone disputes only one of those points/ideas but says nothing more, should I assume that the main gist of my comment was accepted as plausible, or that the person just ran out of ammunition?

I've written in half a dozen or so forums, and only one person who obviously disagreed with my views has offered point-by-point rebuttal.

No, I'm not picking a fight, but I do admit to feeling at times like an educated atheist arguing religion with your average half-educated christian.

YOUR NAME HERE

I do believe that personal moral rotting is a basis for the corruption of a society and that corruption leads to decay and that decay is a form of "dark age". I also belief that one or the other form of personal religiosity is a medicine which heals rotting.

What is a "personal moral"? Moral is the behaviour that large groups of populations follows. What can influence it varies, as different behaviors are sensitive to different parameters. Most often we use legal actions to make the most influence, and that is a secular activity.

consider quantum connectedness, a real phenomenon that "violates" the speed of light.

Except that it explicitly doesn't, and can't, due to Lorenz invariance. Something I suspect you know since you put the claim inside a parenthesis.

Quite the contrary. Most aerospace companies * want * engineers that can only think in terms of current technology and will only fiddle with what already exists instead of dreaming of what could be.

Dreams cost money. New designs fail. Spectacularly. The longer you can stretch the lifespan of a rocket model, the better.

I think if they do in fact psychologically profile engineer job applicants they would disqualify dreamers and idea men and accept people who can only think in bits-and-bytes.

You are connecting dots that are apples and oranges. Perhaps you misread me – I'm not assigning blame for our lack of progress on Mr. O'Neill, that's just plain silly.

I see that most above reader comments are blaming the pessimistic TONE of the article on the rocket scientists and I think they are wrong to do so. It was the author who decided what his theme was, what questions to ask, and how to put responses together. O/Neill includes estimated projected travel times using only propulsion engines CURRENTLY in use, but the very first sentence in the article declares "It is highly improbable that humans will EVER explore beyond the solar system". He obviously either has an agenda or is, as I said, narrowminded. In my personal view it's both. I doubt narrow-mindedness looks good on the resume of a rocket scientist/engineer, thus my conclusion.

You ask what's all that in aid of? Just to point out that all the venting I see here is probably not aimed properly.

INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC

"I believe that the skepticism evinced in this article results from the narrow-mindedness of the author, Ian O'Neill."

To be honest, this sentence is hardly to sympathise with.

After we both agreed, that at least the use of the Latin language in the Catholic Church is not the reason that we are not "cruising the stars on vacation" nowadays, you concentrate your assignment of blame on the author of the article, whom you attest intellectual inadequacy therefor. What's all that in aid of?

HUNG LIKE EINSTEIN, SMART AS A HORSE

Never mind, Mr. Demetrius, because I understand your distaste for religion. The Taliban, for example, give much reason to defeat religion.

YOU GET THE TRICORDER, I'LL GRAB THE WALLET

"IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEBODY LOSES AN EYE"

Agree, and the raison d’être of reason is to prevent the "funny gamers" from taking off the gloves.

But nevertheless I know that we are far off topics, just one more hint. You claimed:

"Why was Latin the official language of the Catholic Church for so long? Because most locals had no idea what "God" wanted, but the priests could fake it."

But the clue is, that despite the Catholic Church insisted on the dominance of the Latin language, it never excluded somebody from learning it. Quite the contrary! The educational system of the Middle Age, which wasn't, by the way, a Dark Age, trained the students in the use of Latin. Latin was the lingua franca of our past, as English is the universal language of the present.

Latin was the scientific language of Copernicus ("De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium"), of Kepler("Harmonice Mundi."), and of Newton ("Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica"). It is true that Galileo Galilei was an exception, who used a local language, but THE WORLD only got knowledge of his work, after it was translated into Latin by Matthias Bernegger.

Latin was the key to our cultural heritage, the key to absorb the keen ancient Greek and Latin thinkers, Euklid and Aristoteles, Cicero and all the hundreds of others.

Don't punish the Catholic Church for torturing mankind with Latin. This "treatment" opened the way to the Renaissance, the resurrection of our cultural background since Thales of Milet, just because one and the other stubborn priest made rough jokes with it. Not guilty, Your Highness!