Get off the grass Gibo, you obviously think that communications satellites, weather satellites, and land imaging satellites used for resource management and agriculture are also abominations in the eyes of the Lord. Because NASA are the ones that helped put them up there and they have been tremendously helpful for a very wide range of activities that help everyone rich and poor alike. Ever seen Google Earth? Where do you think they take those images from, a balloon?

NASA is a very odd target for a morality tale. They have been responsible for a very large range of technological breakthroughs that you don't even think about because it seems you only read two books.

Some technology NASA has funded research into: water purification, materials sciences including ceramics, titanium alloys and carbon fibres technologies that are used everyday by millions of people.

They also put up the satellites that study solar activity and can warn against solar storms and have produced satellite data that has helped identify the current anthropogenic climate changes.

These are just to name a few

The world would be a lot poorer without NASA, including the poor people.

When you eventually come out of your rapturous dreams of a society that doesn't, and cannot, exist, you will remember these posts of yours with exquisite embarrassment.

That's a promise, Gibo.

But don't let that deter you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with living in a dreamworld, where the flowers always bloom, the sun always shines, there's no such thing as poverty and the laws of economic reality have been banished.

Whichever way you cut it, life in your fantasyland would be impossible, in any conventional sense of the word. We would all live in poverty, but be sustained by the knowledge that God is being served, which in your imagining is all that is necessary.

Clue bat. Very few people think this is a good idea.

They are born, live a life of sorts that tries to make the best of what is around them and available to them, then they die. It is all so desperately unfair that so many people in the world are unable to live in the lap of luxury as you and I, Gibo. But it is not in our nature as human beings to sacrifice ourselves in great numbers, simply so that we can all share their pain.

Your final sentence pretty well says everything that needs to be said about your approach to this, Gibo, and please forgive me for pointing this out.

>>Apart from Jesus as Saviour having a heart for the needy is what life is all about.<<

"Having a heart" for the needy is one thing. Doing something about it is another. I have only the greatest respect for people who sacrifice their own lifestyle to help others in need, but I have to say that I suspect that you are not one of those. You talk a good game, Gibo, but ultimately you are still one of the immensely privileged, comparatively speaking.

>>Pity you hadnt bumped into the Jesus Movement in those wild hippy days. You might have been born again all these years.<<

Mate, you couldn't bloody move for them, they were everywhere. Some things do not change.

Gibo: "The four things God has against America, as revealed in Words of Knowledge to christian prophets, are its abortion, its pornography, its greed/selfishness and its neglect of its poor"

Spare us the loopy "christian prophets". Religion is a "parasite on the global community", and your precious Christianity is right up there with the worst of them.

Maybe your poor excuse for an argument regarding NASA would be less objectionable if the various wealthy Christian churches would be a little more forthcoming in opening their coffers to the world's poor, 'deserving' or not.

Youre a crabby bunch today. I preach a bit of caring for others and off you go.
I havent really preached a utopian world that was impossible to achieve, just a world that could have been achieved if the greater number of fallens hadnt followed the great golden calf of Science with all of its selfishness and there own ways. Gods path for man was always wiser.
I dont really think it matters too much what the viewpoint is. The truth we are all going to live is that God is Wrapping up human history and its going to happen in our lifetime cutting across all personal desires and all "visions of the future". This is the reality of what we are all going to experience.
The christian belief of the Soon Coming Jesus is all the future holds.
We just have to adapt to it.
Its all there in the great increase in wars, earthquakes, famines and diseases (Luke chapter 21) just prior to Christs Return. The great increase in crime towards the end (2 Timothy3). In the implementation of the microchip on either the right hand or forehead ID/banking system of Revelation 13:16-18 and 14:9-11. How do you explain these events connected to those scriptures if they are not true? We are all going to live it. Sorry if its offensive...but we are all going to live it. Christians today wait to see who the beast is.

Gibo, this is a forum for debate. The reason why some get a little tetchy, is because it's difficult to debate with someone when during a discussion of NASA's budget, they retreat into nutty religious arguments involving pornography, rapture and abortions.

I'd like to hear your response to the notions Bugsy put forth - what about all the other technological advancements that came as a side effect to NASA research - imaging satellites, research into climate cycles and sunspots, assistance with agriculture...

Oh, and if you can avoid those tangents it would be much appreciated.

(Though I must confess to some confusion when you say you believe in flying saucers while also saying NASA's research is futile...)

It doesnt have to be entirely debate TurnRightThenLeft. Im sure theres room for some storytelling, some viewpoint, some revealing. Does debate change all that much anyway? A simple passing around of knowledge might be a better focus. Less hot air and stress! I dont want to talk about NASA's budget, though you fellows sure seem interested. Its nothing to do with the "NASA fantasy of the great planet hop". Moneys not really involved. The fact is that NASA is going nowhere. They are part of "who gives a hoot about the needy, we are going to do what we want". They are part of the great distraction of science which rejects the Holy Bible and Jesus Christ and what He did on the Cross for all of us and His teachings about how we are to care for the poor. As for Bugsys' technological advancements, so what? Quite often when new things are discovered there are good side-effects for society. Its just a fact. What I was saying is that the great rush to create new tech and to go new places with it, isnt what is going to happen. NASA has locked itself into an impossible dream and is too proud to admit the dream cant happen. NASA has a "God Plan/Bible knowledge" available to it yet it stubbornly continues on. The "world" as christians refer to it is a finite thing. God has a timetable on it. It wont last another 100 years. All of the christians know this. As for the flying discs...it appears that someone may be building them (See The Cosmic Conspircay by Stan Deyo). I can still believe in Jesus and believe that hidden tech is being built for a great deception. Theres no conflict. I notice you havent mentioned the "signs of the times in scripture" I mentioned. You guys pop right over the visible signs of the Second Coming to talk budgets and science.