> “It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours. We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the Moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.”
It also sounds like the more straightforward and avoidable issue is that NASA and the federal government both pledged, decades ago and again recently, to at least consult with the tribe on similar missions and then broke that promise. (cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20090108193621/http://amarillo.c...)
The moon is a whole planetoid. To speak of 'the moon' as one place is meaningless.
Imagine a people that asked "don't bury your dead in the earth's soil! Soil is sacred to us! Everybody please burn them instead!"
We'd all laugh. Whose business is it to dictate the activities on an entire world?
It's like treaties that forbid certain things 'in space'. Wha? You mean, the entire Universe? Meaningless.
For instance: We could dump waste on the moon for centuries, and never see it from the earth. It is as big across as Australia. Dump something in the outback of Australia, and challenge anyone to find it. Silly.
A polite answer is required, but by no means should anyone consider such a request as a serious matter.
Religion and "astoundingly vacuous" do tend to coexist all too often. I don't think that changes when it's an indigenous religion. The response has to be that you can respect their beliefs, and they can respect yours... which entail that "sacred" is a human invention subject to culture.
Now, peacefully disagreeing, we can get on with our lives and our Moon missions.
>The moon is a whole planetoid. To speak of 'the moon' as one place is meaningless.
People speak of 'the moon' as one place all the time. No one, except maybe astronomers in very specific contexts, ever speak of the moon in any other terms.
You're stretching a bit too hard trying to ridicule this.
We also speak of 'Australia' as one place. But if we let go the pedantry, we understand the idea. Which is, the label is a concept. It's too broad to be taken seriously as a detail in somebody's preferences.
It's no more silly than Christians claiming God gave them dominion over an entire continent that other people happened to be living on at the time, or any of the nonsense around the Holy Land. Abrahamists don't accept such limitations on the claims their religions make, because they claim their religion is correct for the entire universe. Why should we insist that other religions be more accommodating?
Of course the Navajo think the moon is sacred. Tons of people consider the moon sacred. Instead of focusing on ridiculing their beliefs we should be considering why they're upset and whether dumping shit on the moon is a good idea at all.
> Nygren wants the launch delayed and the tribe consulted immediately. He noted the Moon is sacred to numerous Indigenous cultures and that depositing human remains on it is “tantamount to desecration.”
What nonsense.
> Then-Navajo Nation President Albert Hale said the action was a gross insensitivity to the beliefs of many Native Americans. NASA later apologized and promised to consult with tribes before authorizing any similar missions in the future.
I'm generally sympathetic to indigenous peoples overtaken by colonialism and modernity. But in a form of legalistic creep, the definition of 'native American sacred sites' has been stretched beyond any useful meaning. I would respect this more if they were arguing that the moon should be off limits for everyone to enjoy equally, rather than asserting some tortured notion of pre-existing property rights.
There’s a general principle here. For any arbitrary human action (or inaction, which is also action) there exists someone who will object on grounds that they believe are reasonable.
If you give each of these objections credence, the result is total paralysis and totalitarian repression of everyone. Vetocracy isn’t democracy. It’s the dictatorship of every minority.
There are people (e.g. Christian fundamentalists) who are personally offended by the mere existence of the Navajo religion too, or its ceremonies. Should we listen to them?
The test is whether anyone is being harmed. Nobody lives on the moon.
It's pointless to criticize religion on the grounds of practical utility, or lack thereof. It isn't "legalistic creep" unless you're suggesting the Navajo just recently decided on this belief to make some kind of property claim on the moon, which I don't think is the case. They're doing what any sovereign nation would do, which is expect treaties made with them to be taken seriously.
Don't forget that Christians claim sacred dominion over the entire planet and that all of creation, every nation on Earth, every people, every resource, the moon and the rest of the universe, were made for their pleasure. If Christians saw the moon as sacred the way that many other cultures do, Americans might never have landed on it, preferring rather to condemn Russia for defiling sacred land when they inevitably did themselves.
I'm not saying NASA should listen to the Navajo - it would be weird if this were the one instance where the American government gave a damn about anything natives had to say - but I also don't like the idea of startups hiring NASA to dump rich peoples' cremains on the moon so I'm nominally on the Navajos' side here, if only to stand in the way of "progress" like that.
> I also don't like the idea of startups hiring NASA to dump rich peoples' cremains on the moon
The only person to date whose ashes have been sent to the moon as a tribute was in 1999, and was the ashes of renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker.
That triggered their first uproar.
> They're doing what any sovereign nation would do, which is expect treaties made with them to be taken seriously.
There is no treaty stipulating that people’s ashes wont be sent to the moon.
>The only person to date whose ashes have been sent to the moon as a tribute was in 1999, and was the ashes of renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker.
>That triggered their first uproar.
And now at least two companies are making it a business venture. If we let this go, in ten years every nation will be dumping its garbage there. In twenty years, nuclear waste. In fifty years, the moon is going to look like a burning New Jersey landfill. Capitalism is going to destroy the Earth, we don't have to let it destroy the moon as well.
>There is no treaty stipulating that people’s ashes wont be sent to the moon.
Fair, apparently it's a "memo signed by the Biden administration that pledged to consult the tribe on matters that impact them. " Still gives the Navajo leeway to complain. As they should. More people should.
>Celestis has a page on the legal and ethical considerations for this sort of thing.
Yes, they're aware that ethical considerations exist, and yet they're doing the thing anyway, because they're a business and couldn't care less. Like every business they expect (or intend to purchase) laws and regulations that favor them.
I'm in favor of treaties being taken seriously; the US has a bad record in this regard. But the definition of 'sacred site' seems impossibly vague.
Don't forget that Christians claim sacred dominion over the entire planet and that all of creation
All of the Abrahamic religions seem to take this approach, and it's why I think monotheism is trash. When I respond to claims of this sort it's with a simple 'I don't share your belief' and a refusal to engage any further with tier axioms.
dump rich peoples' cremains on the moon
I think NASA should split the difference by offering to dump the cremains, but not any identifiable markers about who they used to belong to. Just mix them in with the lunar dust and call it a day.
<pedant> I am a Native American. I was born here. The technical term for those who's ancestors lived here from time immemorial is Aboriginal American I believe. </pedant>
> “It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours. We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the Moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.”
It also sounds like the more straightforward and avoidable issue is that NASA and the federal government both pledged, decades ago and again recently, to at least consult with the tribe on similar missions and then broke that promise. (cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20090108193621/http://amarillo.c...)