I think the key word here is “resembled”. I’m sure to the untrained eye, the window screen resembles a mesh that may or may not have been on the Stardust collector — all the pictures I’ve seen have been of the Aerogel with the dust tracks but I digress. Perhaps he is confusing Stardust with the probe from the Andromeda Strain.

If the author in question had done a little more homework, I think he could have strengthened his Comets = sign of Satan theory. The stink bug in the picture is a true bug (Order Hemiptera, Suborder Heteroptera for those of you scoring at home) and is in the family Pentatomidae. Let’s ignore the fact that other hemipterous bug families have scent glands and concentrate on the pentatomids. Pentatomidae, penta, pentagram — ah, there’s our satanic link (cue Rush 2112).

Now I happen to like stink bugs. Heck, I even like their scent — and that’s after an Insect Morphology study I did in which I had to dissect the critters under the microscope in a very claustrophobic office. It was kind of like one of those old scratch and sniff games: move the wrong way and BOOM! off goes the scent gland. Wait a sec…did I really use the phrase “Old Scratch”, yet another satanic reference?

So have I displeased the angels because I like stink bugs (skunks, too)? Wasn’t it enough that I said “moth, not angel” recently?

SCR, thanks for reading past the first couple of paragraphs of that guy’s website (that’s as far as I got) and bringing out this stink bugs-represent-Satan message. Your courage and fortitude are noted and appreciated. From now on, whenever a stink bug lands on my window screen or in my collecting net (hmmmm…another grid), I will know that angels are sending me a message.

http://biblenews1.com/history4/20040102stardust.htm#NASA

[QUOTE]

NASA’s Stardust spacecraft was launched into a clear blue sky atop a Delta II rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Station on February 7, 1999, Day 38 at 4:04:15 PM EST (2104/15 GMT). The number, 4, stands for weakness, and corresponds to the meaning of the year, 2004. The number, 15, is for a covering. The dust from the comet will be returned to earth in a covered capsule. The comet dust was captured today four years after launch. The return capsule is scheduled to land in Utah on January 15, 2006. Utah is in the region of the outcasts.

A comet, which is called a “wandering star,” represents a reversionistic unbeliever (Jude 13). In contrast to a fixed star that represents a believer, a comet has no light of its own and spends most of its time in the deep darkness of space. When it approaches the Sun, it glows from sublimating ice in Sunlight with a head and a tail like a snake. A snake is the symbol of Satan. Comets are evil omens. They are one of the light-bearers created on Day 4 of re-Creation as signs of evil events in history.

Then God commanded, “Lights come into being in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night. They were for signs, for seasons, for days and years (Genesis 1:14)

Angelic Take on NASA Success

It will come as no surprise that the angels were not impressed with NASA comet tail research. They illustrated their displeasure by bringing out an adult stink bug and trapping him inside a screen that resembled the grid of the Stardust comet dust collector (right top photo).

This meant, “It stinks.” Stink bugs emit foul odors when disturbed. In this respect they are similar to skunks, which represent Satan as the commander of the air. In which sphere (real spiritual death), you walked according to the lifestyle of this world according to the powerful commander of the air, the spirit that is now operating in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:2) Thus, the stink bug is just another example of a reversionistic unbeliever.

[UNQUOTE]

Did I read that right? Angels put a stink bug in the tail of comet Wild-2 to show their disapproval of human scientists investigating a comet because its a sign of Satan?! He can’t be serious – but he seems to be. You’ve got to laugh …

Phil there’s enough very bad astronomy, superstititious fundamentalism and plain looniness here to keep you busy til judgement day

Nurse, bring that man a straightjacket please. Extra large.

Mars has two sides ..??! Has the guy a brain? Has he seen a globe?
“Dust devils” named by scientists hoodwinked by the real Satan ..?

Gee lets see; doesn’t ‘Dust devil’ sound like an academic / technical / scientific term for a localised atmospheric vortex of swirling particulate matter (or should that be ‘vortice’?) I suppose he “thinks” the term ‘Snow angel’ was a divinely inspired by “real” angels.

Bad science. Bad understanding of science. Not to mention really bad misattribution of motives to scientists that verge on slander / libel. (Ie. Claiming ‘scientists are tools of the devil’ – pretty hard to prove either way in court of law but ..)

Then we also get bad theology :

“The death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross was not about love. God the Father rejected Jesus Christ on the Cross.”
(cut’npasted quote from linked site)

Que?!?

Not what I thought Christians believed, mate. My understanding is that Jesus / God died for the love of Humanity cut off by sin via God’s intolerance for sin. If that sounds loopy and illogical enough as it is, well ..yes. Or as someone else said somewhere else on this site / forum / one of these blitzfeed comments thingies (?) :

God loved us so much that he sent himself down as one of us to then deliberately be horribly killed by us to save us from his own divine wrath …
(or words to that effect.)

The methodology sounds a bit bizarre (why couldn’t a supposedly loving, supposedly merciful supposedly all-powerful God simply have said ‘okay I forgive you’ without that rigmarole, hmm?) and far from making much if any sense but the motivation is _meant_ to be Gods /Jesus’es love.

(Now personally, I don’t think Jesus was the son of God but I do think he must have been a very charismatic leader with some compassionate and wise ideas about how to treat other people – who was probably crucifed by the authorities who saw such ideas as dangerous to their position … & whether he was really dead, really crucified or whatever else there’s insufficient hard evidence now for any sort of certainty.)

Then we get the plain weird bad thinking like :

“All of the daily events on the Red Planet are part of the daily history of Creation and the Appeal Trial of Satan. …The Red Planet is not a passive monument, but an active reminder, which is maintained by the Elect Angels under the Authority of the Lord of Heaven.”
(Another quote from the questionable site in question.)

The Appeal Trial of Satan!? That’s a new one. I guess _that’s_ why there are Jehovah’s witness’es? Yahwah’s Defense lawyers seem a bit thin on the ground – maybe all the good lawyers are in Hades. Is that Pluto’s real name?

Active daily reminder – Well that’s been so handy for the past few thousand years and for all the people who don’t have a telescope and thus see Mars as a point of reddish coloured light sometimes visible in their skies. Real handy. (Yes thats sarcasm.)

And looking at Mars, yes, we all instantly think “Yep, Trial of Satan, I wonder what’s his legal aides are going to use in their cross (ha ha)examination now?” don’t we ..? NOT!
(Headshake and a 360 degree vomit spin for good measure!)

Oh and I nearly forgot my favourite line :

“The active volcanoes on the Red Planet represent Fire Testing. They do not represent the female on the Red Planet.” (Another quote from the weird webpage)

Yeah, because we were all saying they were, mate .. Sigh.

Naturally, no evidence either way is presented just the bold and unwarranted assertion of something nobody would have thought about anyway.

What things represent is (almost by definition) up to us, what they represent to him is clearly unlikely to be shared with anyone who actually knows anything about geology. To a feminist pagan perhaps Olympus Mons represents the severed breast of the Amazon Queen, it doesn’t harm her to think so or him to think not – but it really has nothing to do with the actual planet and tells us only about the individuals mindset. His is clearly obsessive, warped and, yes, we’d have to say, plain nuts.

Interesting what you can support if you rule out all “evidence” other than the second-third or fourth hand chinese whispers of a two thousand year dead rebellious rabbi who was talking symbolism and just being nice to your neighbours for a change. For which, as Douglas Adams (?) noted, he got nailed to a tree. Then totally misunderstood by a whole mob of subsequent fools like the creator of that webpage.

I hope the author’s been given some medication.

I hope that site was an April fools joke left up or a pyschology students experiment to see people’ reactions .. or something else. I’m afraid to say its quite probably not.

There are some mad one’s out there. Very far out there.

Its amazing tosee justhow deludedand loopy some people can getand how much time and effort theycarefully invest such loopiness with.

Wow! Is it really possible that the radio preacher didn’t know that “El Niño” is named after the Christ child because the phenomenon manifests during December?

“Knowledge is limited, but ignorance knows no bounds”

Chicago Astronomer Joe observes:

The holy hand grenade needs to be used.

During one of the space walks trying to fold up the solar arrays last week, Mission Control said “You are go to shake the array 3 times”, and one of the astronauts replied “Okay, one, two, five.”

A reading from the Book of Armaments:
“The number of the counting shall be three and three shall be the number of the counting. Thou shalt not countest unto four, nor shalt thou countest unto two, unless thou thence procedeth unto three. Five is right out.”

But the king had problems with the number 3, so he counted “one… two… five…”

Scientists and religious fundamentalists, mostly.

–jackd: “the kind of obsessive connecting-the-dots [...] it appears that he views the world as a constant swirling mass of symbolism, where anything of significance is linked to something “spiritual”, usually a Bible reference”–

Well said; I must remember your “obsessive connecting-the-dots” phrasing. It boggles me how the human brain abuses its talent for pattern recognition. I can only imagine the research involved (BITTER SARCASM MODE ON):

“Say, there are rocks on Mars… and hey, my book says Jesus was called the Rock! And it also mentions how unbelievers will be scattered like dust, and… OMG! Mars has DUST on it! And it’s red! What else is red… red… BLOOD!… and there are two moons… two… *flip flip flip flip* two animals of each kind for Noah’s Ark, no, that doesn’t fit… *flip flip* ah! Two thieves crucified with our Lord, THAT fits my theory! I cannot believe how amazingly EXACT this information is!! *weeps with joy*”

I have another suggestion for the good pastor of this site, that he possibly might have already covered: consider Mars’ apparent retrograde orbit. It seems to go backward, then forward! That represents our choice to turn back from the road of sin on which we are traveling!

Faith does not bother me. Misinformation veiled in a purpose of faith bothers me. As Shakespeare (or was it Ambrose Bierce?) said: “The Devil can cite Scripture to suit his purpose.”

Never attribute to mysticism that which can be explained by nature.

But like the post before me, I prefer my religious interpretations thru “The Life of Brian” and “The Holy Grail”.

The holy hand grenade needs to be used.

Chicago Astronomer Joe
Administrator
http://www.chicagoastronomer.com

I was kinda hoping for a 404.

I think this website is a great skeptical stepping-stone. Here we have a bunch of wacky ideas which all of us, from atheist to agnostic to believer to true beliver, can all agree is completely nutso. Let’s all learn from this. What makes you reject the author’s ideas? Obviously his or her ideas conflict with your own belief system. Why is his or her belief system less valid than yours?

The Atheist replies: “There is no evidence for the existence of gods. The arguments on the website are irrational and unscientific, and should be rejected, as should all arguments for which no evidence exists. There is, however, good evidence that the author is suffering from several debilitating psychological disorders. This provides an excellent case study in abnormal psychology…”

The Agnostic replies: “It is remotely possible that this website is completely correct about the universe. But there are a lot of other websites, and they could all be wrong. Or they could all be correct. Or anything else. But this one is wackier than most and, well, whatever (shrug).”

The Believer: “The website does not reflect the true meaning of my religion/political beliefs/biases/upbringing. Therefore, don’t pay attention to it, it’s just another misguided believer on the wrong path. His evidence is no better than the mine, but my religion has cookies.”

The True Believer: “The website is blasphemy. So is Bad Astronomy. So are all of the websites out there except mine. Because of this, the internet must be destroyed. Except for http://www.theonetruefaith.com/.

I don’t think that one should sacrifice science just because it doesn’t jive; it’s more exciting and awesome to see the expansive universe evolving over billions of years and to be able to look into (e.g.) globular clusters that are so incredibly old than to think that God just poofed them into existence and made them “look old”. (Come on, why would He do that?!)

You’d think at least by looking at the facts that either Venus or Io would be compared to hell. Or better yet, the Sun! It’s hot enough, after all.

Mars = cool
Fundamentalists that claim make goofy claims = not-cool-but-funny-to-read

Wow! Is it really possible that the radio preacher didn’t know that “El Niño” is named after the Christ child because the phenomenon manifests during December?

- Jack

I guess I need an antidote. Where’s my iPod? Here we go. Hmmmm. Scroll. Scroll. Metallica. Reload. Devil’s Dance.

Ahhhh…

>> Corey said: “why is there a giant cobra named Dan over my home state?”

Shhh! Hush, or everyone will want one.

I believe in God, but not the kind that would create a distubing “reality” like the one on the webpage. Thank you Phil for bringing a sense of clarity to what is often a clouded, muddled world of psuedoscience and anti-science.