On “11 Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes That Debunk ‘Religious Science’”
Under consideration is the Atlanta Black Star article, “11 Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes That Debunk ‘Religious Science’, March 24, 2014 AD.
It is noted that Neil DeGrasse Tyson “has written and broadcast extensively about his views of God, science, spirituality, and the spirituality of science” which means that as an astrophysicist, he delves into areas far afield of his field of expertise.
This is not simply a case of well, like, the dude can say what, like, ever he wants—just like you and stuff. This is because his cachet proceeds forth from being an astrophysicist and this provides him an open forum from which to spout off on anything and everything and appear to be authoritative regardless of the topic.
As an FYI: the term “Religious Science” is not a specific reference to the religious group which goes by that name (see here) but to any attempts to correlate “faith” (see here for a definition) and “science.”
I. Tyson stated the following regarding belief in a higher power:
Every account of a higher power that I’ve seen described, of all religions that I’ve seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.
This is indicative of the problem with Tyson and those who eat us his undercooked red herring in an un-skeptical manner. Note that such a statement has come hot on the heels of the mounting evidence of the universe being fined tuned for organic carbon based life and how the Earth is situated just so therein.
Tyson’s reply is to turn the fine tuning claim on its head by claiming that the universe wants to kill us (anthropomorphically speaking). I would say that this is a fantastic counter argument to an argument that no one has made and is thus, fallacious and meaningless. This is because there is not one single religion nor argument in favor of fine tuning that claim that the universe as a whole was created and/or designed so as to sustain organic carbon based life but only the Earth which is situated within that fine tuned universe.
However, perhaps I am reading too much into Tyson. After all, at least within this isolate quotations, he references the claimed benevolence of a higher power, yet that the universe wants to kill us and how he finds it hard to reconcile these.
Well, that which is “hard” for him to do is irrelevant as it is merely subjective. Thus, perhaps there is a manner whereby to reconcile them whether it is hard for Tyson or not.
For example, what is the higher power is benevolent which designed and brought into existence a perfect creation in keeping with its benevolence. Then the creatures with which it populated that creation caused that which we will call a “fall” which brought about what may be termed “entropy.” Thereafter, the designing creator assures the creatures that it will redeem and recreate them and their home in another display of its benevolence.
This is the story revealed within the Bible narrative or creation, fall and redemption.
II. In The Sky Is Not the Limit, p. 183 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
Great scientific minds, from Claudius Ptolemy of the second century to Isaac Newton of the seventeenth, invested their formidable intellects in attempts to deduce the nature of the universe from the statements and philosophies contained in religious writings….Had any of these efforts worked, science and religion today might be one and the same. But they are not.
It is certainly painting with a broom to claim as such of a 15 century timespan. Yet, let us go with it and not two main follies.
One is that the implication is that the reason that science and religion are not one and the same is that attempts to deduce the nature of the universe from the statements and philosophies contained in religious writings failed. Of course, this is generic since, for example, one religious writing might claim that the Earth sits atop the back of turtle which stand up an elephant and another that “In the beginning [time], God created the heavens [space] and the earth [matter]” such that Tyson’s generalizing lumping it erroneous.
It could, in the selfsame manner, be stated that great scientific minds, from (somewhere around the time of) Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827 AD) to Neil DeGrasse Tyson (born 1958 AD), invested their formidable intellects in attempts to deduce the nature of the universe from the statements and philosophies contained in Atheistic and had any of these efforts worked, science and Atheism today might be one and the same. But they are not. In fact, Atheism has utterly nothing to do with science and science has utterly nothing to do with Atheism. And yet, Atheistic astrophysicist, cosmologists and cosmogonists such as Tyson, Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss continued to attempt to talk us into believing that philosophy and mathematical models that are premised upon their Atheistic worldviews accurately reflect reality.
Moreover there are at least two reason that today science and religion are not one and the same. Technically, science and religion deal with different subjects, something akin to science telling us the “how” and religion the “why.” Also, ever since the essential takeover of “science” (often merely science so called) by Atheists, they continue to do that which they can to censor deviation from the Atheist orthodoxy de jour.
Of course, some would argue that Tyson’s entire premise is faulty since the history of science is a history of statements and philosophies contained in religious writings, the Bible in particular, serving as the very premise upon which the scientific method is based and so science and religion, the biblical ones in particular, are one in the same.
III. In Death By Black Hole, p. 353 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
They (scientists of centuries past) call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.
Again, this is generic enough to be meaningless. Atheist one liners imply that creation scientists write in the manner of, “And the way that H is combined with two O is that, well, I dunno so God did it.”
He cannot simply bypass the very history of science by attempts at clever talking points. Yet, if he wants to do that route then could we likewise states that the scientists of today call on the nothing of the gaps, or time of the gaps, or matter of the gaps, or uncased of the gaps, or accidents of the gaps, or mutations of the gaps, or common ancestor of the gaps, etc., etc., etc. only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, such gaps gets hardly a mention.
IV. In The Sky Is Not the Limit, p. 183 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.
Well, I suppose that even merely by number 4 of 11 I will have to stop pointing out the generic nature of generalizing about, for example, that which generic “people” have done with generic “religious documents” and I will only reply from a biblical perspective.
Let us put Tyson’s statement to one single test since, after all, his generalization is such that one data point against it discredits it. Based on the Bible it is predictable that the universe had a beginning as consists of a time, space, matter continuum. As aforementioned, Genesis 1:1 states, “In the beginning [time], God created the heavens [space] and the earth [matter].” Thus, Tyson is, yet again, infamously wrong.
V. In The Sky Is Not the Limit, p. 188 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
I simply go with what works. And what works is the healthy skepticism embodied in the scientific method. Believe me, if the Bible had ever been shown to be a rich source of scientific answers and enlightenment, we would be mining it daily for cosmic discovery.
Well, just how are we expected to take an Atheist missionary seriously on such a point? Indeed, Tyson has spoken openly about the need to “convert” his term, not mine, even more scientists to Atheism, see Is Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist?
A word about his supposed pragmatism: it may work for me to steal from my neighbors rather than, you know, doing all of that hard work and stuff but that does not make it right. Likewise, it may work for me to accept, based on Atheistic philosophy and mathematical models, to conclude that nothing caused nothing to explode for no reason and made everything but that does not make it true.
Well, for centuries theologians, philosopher and scientists have in fact mined the Bible cosmic as well as Earthly discoveries. For example, the aforementioned accurate depiction of the universe and, as one example, the discovery that there are streams in the ocean based on the Bible—read up on Matthew Fontaine Maury as the father of oceanography for example.
VI. Neil DeGrasse Tyson stated the following: Center for Inquiry’s New York Academy of Sciences, July 21, 2009 AD:
We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet…I’m perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, I don’t know yet, and we’ve got top people working on it. The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you’re doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.
Good to know, I will therefore states that we’ve got top theologians working on _________________ (fill in the blank with whatever an Atheist is challenging you with) and be done with it.
I believe that Richard Dawkins would call Tyson’s remark a “science stopper,” even though Dawkins has made many similar statements.
I do not know which “religious community” claims to have answers to “every possible question” but then again, I do not share the pitch of Tyson’s imitation ivory tower with him so must be lacking some key data.
VII. At The Amazing Meeting, 2008 AD, Neil DeGrasse Tyson stated the following in his keynote speech:
I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church, but I’m going to be up in your face if you’re going to knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. Because that’s when we’re going to fight.
I don’t have an issue with what you do in the Atheist pep-rallies such as the Amazing Meeting, but I’m going to be up in your face if you’re going to knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your fellow Atheists. Because that’s when we’re going to fight.
In Protecting the Science Classroom I demonstrate how personages such as Tyson do not have to sneak Atheism into the public school’s backdoor as Atheism is coming right into the front door within textbooks that are supposed to be about science—and all at tax payer’s expence, of course.
VIII. At the same Amazing Meeting, Neil DeGrasse Tyson stated:
There’s no tradition of scientists knocking down the Sunday school door, telling the preacher, That might not necessarily be true. That’s never happened. There’re no scientists picketing outside of churches.
This is utterly irrelevant for at least two reasons: scientists accomplish the very same goal in the round about manner of having churchgoers being forced to pay taxes to bring the aforementioned Atheist catechism textbooks into the public schools and by censoring dissenting voices.
IX. In Universe Down To Earth, p. 34 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
If all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity, then ideas can never be proven wrong, you have no predictive power, and you are at a loss to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature.
This is one of the very many reasons why even Tysons’ own fellow Atheist traveler Massimo Pigliucci had to school him on philosophy ( see here). At least in the quote, he merely asserts that “If all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity” then it follows that “ideas can never be proven wrong, you have no predictive power, and you are at a loss to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature” but he does not tell us why his conclusion is valid.
As already noted, the fact of the history of science is a history of a premise which is essentially that “all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity” and yet, via the scientific method based on that premise “ideas can” indeed “be proven wrong” and there is “predictive power” since the premise provides you the basis upon which "to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature.” This is a simple and uncontroversial historical fact—and logical fact and theological fact and philosophical fact and scientific fact.
XI. In Death By Black Hole, p. 361 Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote:
Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes….The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.
Yet, note Tyson’s bait and switch: “Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source” or cause “of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes” which is an effect. The hurricane does not cause itself but is the result of causes outside of, beyond itself.
Once upon a time, people identified the cosmogonic steady state theory as the accurate depiction of the universe, so what of it?
XII. In “Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion and Survival,” Salk Institute for Biological Studies, November 7, 2006 AD, Neil DeGrasse Tyson noted:
Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don’t know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.
I am uncertain about how Tyson’s subjective neo-Pagan Atheism is supposed to debunk “Religious Science” but I went ahead and added this quote to my article Atheism Spirituality.
It appears that the reason so many Atheists are obsessed with science is actually not that they are obsessed with science at all but that they have manipulated science into scientism and use it as a way to appear respectable while engaging in nature worship.
And we finally come to number XIII of “11 Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes That Debunk ‘Religious Science’”—hey, don’t ask me, I just reply to 'em as I see ' em, it is the Atlanta Black Star that referred to 13 quotes as 11 quotes.
In any case, in Death By Black Hole, p. 345 Tyson wrote:
So what is true for life itself is no less true for the universe: knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.
The problem is that very many Atheists have appointed themselves as the one who will tell us where we came from (yet, not why we came in the first place) which is from nothing and by nothing and where we are going (yet, not why we are going there in the first place) which is to nothing.
Well, this has been a lesson on why we ought not to think that just because a person holds to some expertize in a very, very narrow field of knowledge that automatically makes them an expert on every field of knowledge regardless of how cool or excitable they may be.
As for the Atlanta Black Star; the article was an utter failure with regards to Tyson debunking anything except for his own utter misunderstandings of that which he seeks to address when he take one step outside of his field.
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