One Christians Response to JL Pattison's "10 Truths About NASA That Christians Conveniently Ignore"

NASA, like every other human institution, is a mixed bag: from an orthodox Christian standpoint we must reject its false philosophies and immoral advocacy, while also refusing conspiratorial claims that go beyond evidence, violate the ninth commandment, or distort Scripture’s teaching on creation and providence.

Below I’ll interact point‑by‑point, trying to stay close to classic confessional orthodoxy (e.g., Reformed/evangelical) rather than “Sola NASA” on one side or “Sola YouTube” on the other.

1. Origins: Nazis, occultists, Disney, Scientology

Christians should unequivocally condemn the sins and ideologies of people like Wernher von Braun (Nazi complicity), Jack Parsons (occultism), and L. Ron Hubbard (fraud and cult leadership).
God often brings relative goods (e.g., technologies, vaccines, or rockets) through deeply compromised people, which is why Scripture distinguishes God’s common grace from personal holiness; using rocket science is not the same as endorsing Nazi or occult beliefs.

From an orthodox standpoint, the proper question is: What does this organization currently teach and do, not “Did any founders have dark backgrounds?” Paul could quote pagan poets and use Roman roads without baptizing paganism or Roman brutality; similarly, Christians may use space technology without swallowing materialism or occultism.

2. “Theft of our labor” and the NASA budget

It is fair for Christians to debate whether ~$24–25B per year for NASA is prudent stewardship, given many competing needs.aas+1
However, calling this “theft” overstates things: Romans 13 treats civil taxation as legitimate even under corrupt regimes, and the U.S. constitutional order authorizes Congress to fund things like science, defense, and infrastructure, whether or not every line item is wise.

A more balanced orthodox critique would be:

• Christians should push for just, limited, and transparent use of tax money, including serious cost‑benefit scrutiny of NASA programs.
• But we should avoid implying that any non‑Christian use of tax dollars is automatically sinful theft, or that cutting NASA would automatically “solve” homelessness or cancer (those are complex multi‑factor problems).

3. Big Bang, evolution, and “Scientism”

Here the article rightly targets scientism—the philosophical claim that only empirical science yields real truth—and the way some NASA‑related outreach assumes a godless, purely naturalistic story of origins.
NASA’s public‑facing materials openly treat the Big Bang and cosmic evolution as the default account of the universe’s history, and its astrobiology program defines life in terms of “self‑sustaining chemical systems capable of Darwinian evolution.”nasa

From an orthodox perspective:

• Christians must not surrender Genesis 1–3 to naturalism; whatever one’s view on age or genre, Scripture attributes the origin of all things to the personal, triune Creator, not unguided processes.
• We should sharply distinguish “operational science” (running satellites, measuring spectra, sending probes) from worldview‑loaded “historical narratives” about ultimate origins; the first can be used in service of God, while the second often needs to be resisted.

That said, it is not necessary—or biblically warranted—to deny that there is a physical universe, that galaxies are very far away, or that light and radiation can be very old; the error is not “outer space exists” but “outer space explains itself without God.”

4. Freemasons in NASA

The article accurately notes that several NASA leaders and astronauts have been Masons, including some 33rd‑degree Scottish Rite members.
From an orthodox standpoint, Freemasonry is incompatible with biblical Christianity because of its religious syncretism, secrecy, and oaths; confessing churches have rightly warned members against joining Masonic bodies.

However, the leap from “many Masons in NASA” to “NASA is chiefly a Masonic deception apparatus” goes beyond the evidence and edges into speculative providence: Scripture never permits us to infer detailed motives or secret plots simply from someone’s lodge membership.
What Christians can say responsibly is:

• Any Christian astronaut, engineer, or administrator should renounce Masonic oaths and syncretistic ritual.
• Christians should be alert to Masonic symbolism and religious messaging in civil life—but we must not bear false witness by imputing conspiracy where we do not actually have proof.

5. “NASA murders” and the Apollo deaths

Orthodox Christianity takes the sixth and ninth commandments very seriously: murder is a grievous sin, but so is false accusation.
The Apollo‑program deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, and others are recognized historical accidents tied to serious technical and safety failures, and have been treated as such in official investigations; no public evidence has substantiated CIA murder claims.

It may be that some whistleblowers were treated unjustly or ignored—large programs often try to protect reputations—but saying Grissom or Baron were assassinated requires more than inference from timing and suspicion.
An orthodox Christian approach is:

• Demand truthful, transparent investigations into all fatal accidents.
• Refuse to pass on “he was murdered by the CIA” as fact when we do not have the kind of evidence Scripture would require in a matter of bloodguilt.

6. Names, pagan gods, and “nasa = deceive”

NASA plainly likes mythological names: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Artemis, Orion, Hera, etc.
Biblically, invoking pagan gods as real deities to trust is idolatry; using pagan names as literary or symbolic labels (e.g., days of the week, months like March or January, planets like Mars) has historically been tolerated by most orthodox Christians, so long as worship is directed only to the triune God.

So, yes, it is spiritually unhealthy when NASA’s culture turns those names into quasi‑sacred icons or couples them with ritualistic gestures; Christians working there should be careful not to participate in anything that mimics pagan worship.
But it is an overreach to claim that using “Apollo” for a mission is equivalent to breaking Exodus 20:3; Paul could refer to Zeus and Hermes in Acts 14 without affirming them.

On “nasa” meaning “to deceive” in Hebrew:

• The Hebrew verb nāśāʼ can mean “to deceive” in some forms, but that is linguistically unrelated to the English acronym NASA (“National Aeronautics and Space Administration”).
• Treating that coincidence as divinely coded proof is the kind of word‑magic Scripture itself warns against; orthodox exegesis does not rest theology on unrelated acronyms.
• Treating an English government acronym as a secret Hebrew code from God is functionally a mix of both: omen‑reading / word‑magic on one side (Deut 18) and speculative, myth‑like use of “genealogies” and word‑chains on the other (1 Tim 1).

7. CGI, staging, and “they’re always lying”

NASA absolutely uses CGI, animations, and artist’s impressions for public communication, especially where real imagery is sparse or impossible; NASA itself routinely labels many visuals as “artist’s concept” or “simulation.”
Some specific images circulated online as “exposed fakes” are indeed identified by fact‑checkers as animations or composited data visualizations, not candid photos.

From an orthodox perspective:

• Christians should insist on truth in representation and clear disclosure when visuals are not literal photographs.
• We should also resist the impulse to say “because some images are CGI, nothing is real”; that treats normal scientific visualization practice as if it were automatically malicious.

Error, spin, or even occasional deceit in one area does not give us license to declare “everything is fake”—that’s a form of cynicism, not discernment.

8. Fear‑mongering, climate, and disaster scenarios

NASA’s Earth‑science divisions participate in modeling climate trends, solar activity, and asteroid risk, and they publicize potential dangers such as climate change impacts and near‑Earth objects.
Some messaging is indeed framed in alarmist, catastrophic terms; that tendency appears across the modern “Science‑Industrial Complex” and can be critiqued as manipulative.

Orthodox Christianity grants that:

• God rules providentially over nature, but we are still responsible to exercise dominion wisely and attend to real risks (Proverbs commends prudent foresight).
• Fear‑driven propaganda that sidelines God’s sovereignty and exaggerates worst‑case scenarios to secure funding or political leverage is not morally neutral, and Christians should call it out.

Yet we should also not swing to the opposite extreme—refusing to consider any environmental or celestial risk because “God is in control.” Divine sovereignty does not cancel human responsibility.

9. Pride flags, LGBT agenda, and Christian allegiance

Here the article’s moral concern is squarely aligned with orthodox Christianity.
NASA facilities have flown the “pride” flag, maintain LGBT‑focused resource groups, and highlight “Pride Month” events; NASA also promotes LGBT recruitment and visibility in its own media.

From a biblical standpoint:

• Homosexual practice and gender self‑definition contrary to biological sex are sins, and celebrating them as identities is incompatible with repentance and faith in Christ (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6).
• But Scripture also lists pride and cowardice—for example in Romans 1:30 and Revelation 21:8—alongside other damning sins, and these often get far less attention from Christians when institutions normalize them.
• Christians should not lend symbolic support (e.g., pride flags, solidarity messaging) to what Scripture calls sin, whether at NASA, a bank, or a tech company.

This does not mean we must boycott every institution that sins; Paul did not call Christians to flee all pagan workplaces. But Christians must be clear in their own consciences: wearing NASA branding is morally indifferent in itself, yet if that branding is being used as an explicit badge of moral rebellion, it may be wise to step back from “fandom” and treat NASA simply as one more fallen employer, not a cause to celebrate.

10. “Jesus not welcome” and religious hostility

The Johnson Space Center newsletter incident—where a Christian employee group was initially told not to use the name “Jesus” in internal announcements—did happen, and religious liberty advocates criticized NASA for it.
However, the legal issue was more about whether the agency might appear to “endorse” a specific religion in official communications, not about a blanket ban on Christians speaking of Christ at work; NASA employs many Christians, chaplains, and church‑attending staff.

From an orthodox perspective:

• Any policy that uniquely censors the name of Jesus, while allowing other ideological or religious expressions, is unjust and should be challenged.
• At the same time, we must distinguish between clumsy First Amendment compliance, which can sometimes overshoot, and an organized agency‑wide theology of “Jesus is banned.”

The swearing‑in ceremonies using books like Pale Blue Dot and Contact, both associated with Carl Sagan’s secular cosmic vision, do reveal something about the personal worldviews of some leaders and about a broader cultural preference for secular humanism.
That’s a real spiritual issue: NASA’s public culture often treats God as irrelevant, and orthodox Christians should not pretend otherwise.

Heaven, cosmology, and “Sola NASA” vs “Sola Scriptura”

The article argues that accepting a vast physical universe and spaceflight necessarily contradicts biblical cosmology and “dethrones” God; it presents a flat‑earth / firmament‑as‑solid‑dome reading as if it were the only truly orthodox option.
Historic orthodoxy, however, has allowed a range of views on the geometry of creation while being firm on its theology: God created all things ex nihilo, upholds them by His word, and reigns bodily from the ascended Christ at the Father’s right hand.

Key points from a classic orthodox perspective:

• “Heaven” in Scripture is both God’s invisible dwelling and, at times, the visible sky; describing God as “above” is real but also analogical—He is not located at a fixed altitude that rockets can “invade.”
• Texts like Isaiah 14 and Genesis 11 condemn prideful attempts to rival God, not instrumentally going upward in the atmosphere; a pilot at 35,000 feet is not more “rebellious” than someone on a hill.

So Christians can wholeheartedly confess that God’s throne is above all creation and that Christ ascended bodily, while also affirming that rockets can orbit a spherical Earth and that the heavens declare God’s glory at immense scales.
The problem is not “outer space”; the problem is a heart that uses outer space to forget its Maker.

How an orthodox Christian should finally view NASA

Putting it all together:

• Affirm what is good
  • Technological skill, careful measurement of God’s creation, the beauty of astronomy, and the potential for real human good (e.g., communications, weather prediction, hazard tracking).
• Reject what is false and evil
  • Scientism and evolutionary materialism as overarching narratives.
  • Idolatrous symbolism, pagan‑flavored rituals, and any attempt to make humanity “gods” of the cosmos.
  • NASA’s explicit celebration of sin (LGBT ideology, pride as virtue).
• Avoid bearing false witness
  • Don’t baptize NASA as a quasi‑Christian ministry.
  • Don’t turn every accident into an assassination, every acronym into a hidden code, or every animation into proof that “nothing is real.”

In practical terms, a thoughtful, orthodox believer might:

• Use NASA data, images, and tools as stewards of creation, while clearly teaching children that Scripture, not NASA, sets the boundaries of what is ultimately true.
• Refuse to participate in or endorse NASA’s moral and spiritual messaging where it contradicts Christ.
• See NASA as one more fallen, conflicted institution in a fallen world—neither a messianic savior nor a uniquely satanic temple, but a mission field.