patrick.net

Vicente says

Hilarious. Was there this kind of indignation when the original came out? I watched it as a kid. Rewatched it as adult a few months ago and was struck by how casually he dismissed religion, which I hadn't remembered at all.

More sensitivity now. The right wing has been whipped into an imaginary state of victimhood which would make an Assistant Professor of Latina Oppression proud.

marcus says

Iosef V HydroCabron says

The Catholic Church only admitted Galileo was correct in 1992

That's total BS cheapshot. That's maybe when some official statement was made, but the church is made up of it's members, none of which have taken issue with gallieo for centuries.

Because Galileo was dead and hasn't been a threat for centuries. The Catholic Church still had a problem with science.

"It's OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God." - Pope John Paul II

Whenever the truth shows that the Church is full of shit and should have no power, the Church opposes that truth and whoever spreads it. The Church's opposition is as violent and cruel as it can get away with being in whatever society it currently operates.

Heraclitusstudent says

Well, sorry but.... the dogmas of the church are not decided by what its members believe. The pope is infallible. What he says is basically dictated by God. If you dismiss it as "official rubber-stamping", you're not clear on what the Church is and how it works.

The Catholics weave a novel interpretation of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Instead of a particular Scotsman who is declared to not be a Scotsman, it's just the country. So all Scotsmen are a-okay, it's just Scotland as a whole which is not Scottish.

Catholic after Catholic: "I have left the Church." But they still follow every bit of news of and often attend mass or tithe. Andrew Sullivan is a classic case.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

They should be pleased that Obama has saved taxpayer money.

If you want to save taxpayers money, keep NASA and get rid of 90% of the military.

I think Realtor's need this as well.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/5JDmzNMyUU8

I think you would have to perform an exorcism first!

marcus says

If your goal is to help fundamentalist idiots realize the flaws in their belifs, what do you think is better ? Providing them with facts and interesting science? OR attacking their beliefs ?

The answer is a no brainer. Attacking their beliefs only makes them dig in and defend them more. It has to be their idea, their realization that their beliefs might be in disagreement with reality and the truth.

They have been presented with facts science for ever to no avail. Some people are just not capable of understanding facts.

Heraclitusstudent says

If you dismiss it as "official rubber-stamping", you're not clear on what the Church is and how it works.

And you didn't read this. http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

Because if you had you would know that the pope did not officially weigh in on Gallileo (as gods representative).

There are plenty of practicing Catholics, even a majority who aren't particularly tied to the Pope's "infallibility" that is if they even believe in it.

Just got done watching it. Was impressed with Tyson and how he handled the opening, the closing, and the bit about Bruno.

Not so impressed with the zippy tour of the solar system. Perhaps I've seen that too many times. Maybe it's Brannon Braga and modern approach with lots of fast zooms and spiffy graphics, dunno that part left me cold.

Definitely will watch next episodes, because after all what else is there to watch right now as far as documentaries and science?

marcus says

And you didn't read this. http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

Galileo had wealthy and powerful friends that prevented him from being executed by the Inquisition - but not from having his writings prohibited on the Index, nor being confined to house arrest.

Giordano Bruno did NOT have powerful friends, and his reading of Lucretius the Epicurean, also in the Index of Restricted Books - and Lou's ideas about infinite universes and atoms being the building blocks of all matter - and so was executed.

marcus says

There are plenty of practicing Catholics, even a majority who aren't particularly tied to the Pope's "infallibility" that is if they even believe in it.

The source of the idea of pope "infallibility" is the same as the source of many other catholic ideas. So this leaves me with 2 questions:

1 - Isn't it hypocritical to belong in an organization when you don't believe its teachings?

2 - Isn't it a terrible lack of intellectual honesty to pick and choose what ideas you believe, even when they obviously come from the same place?

Episode 4 was great. Tyson took time to slam the Young Earthers by noting if the Universe is only 6,000-ish years old we'd only see stars out to about the Crab Nebula.

Vicente says

if the Universe is only 6,000-ish years old we'd only see stars out to about the Crab Nebula

UFRL, they have a counter-argument that distance measurements aren't reliable beyond parallax capabilities, which is a few hundred light years.

No idea why they don't figure that stars which have no detectable parallax must be pretty gosh-darned far away, but such is the mind of the creationist.

(At least they don't believe in BenghaziCare!)

Heraclitusstudent says

Isn't it a terrible lack of intellectual honesty to pick and choose what ideas you believe, even when they obviously come from the same place?

You don't know how this works, do you?

Any ideas from "infallible" texts and authorities which are embarrassing or uncomfortable to adhere to are discarded with a shrug: "That's allegorical", or "They don't really mean that - must be a misprint."

Another alternative, when the embarrassing Catholic is not the Pope, is to declare that the so-and-so in question is not a "real Catholic."

This comes up again and again in discussions with conservatives. No conservative, or conservative policy, can ever fail, because nothing that fails is truly conservative.

Google "no true Scotsman" or see Indigenous's posts on all the wars started by "liberals", including G.W. Bush, who ceased to be conservative when he started a failed war.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Vicente says

if the Universe is only 6,000-ish years old we'd only see stars out to about the Crab Nebula

UFRL, they have a counter-argument that distance measurements aren't reliable beyond parallax capabilities, which is a few hundred light years.

No idea why they don't figure that stars which have no detectable parallax must be pretty gosh-darned far away, but such is the mind of the creationist.

(At least they don't believe in BenghaziCare!)

Put a telescope in a higher solar orbit and that parallax argument goes away.

New Renter says

Put a telescope in a higher solar orbit and that parallax argument goes away.

I believe that secular parallax - interesting terminology - using the motion of the sun as it orbits the galactic center - will blast even larger holes in that one (4 A.U. per year of motion), but if these types could be convinced, they would have given in by now.

They're like anti-vax fanatics on hormones.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the new Prince of Middlebrows.

Turning science into The Science for people who think research means watching a series on PBS and reading a glossy coffee table book by Dawkins, Hawking and a computer regenerated Sagan.

John Bailo says

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the new Prince of Middlebrows.

Turning science into The Science for people who think research means watching a series on PBS and reading a glossy coffee table book by Dawkins, Hawking and a computer regenerated Sagan.

Pretty much.

I have been saying this for years about Sagan: Goes on television, slowly enunciates facts which should be common knowledge, and is hailed as a great scientist and educator.

It's not that these guys are bad at what they do; it's the embarrassingly low level of scientific education among even PhD's in non-scientific fields. I have had bosses who don't know that seasons are due to axial tilt, and co-workers who are surprised to learn that a year is not 365 days on the nose. I have repeatedly tried to explain to my wife that lunar/solar eclipses occur at full or new moon, respectively. Holy living fuck, people are stupid about astronomy!

Remember that e-mail forward about Mars growing as large in the sky as the moon?

John Bailo says

Turning science into The Science for people who think research means watching a series on PBS

Educating and engaging people with science is never a waste of time. Except for "highbrows" like yourself I suppose.

Real scientists are like alchemists I suppose, they keep it all to themselves.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Holy living fuck, people are stupid about astronomy!

What's really depressing are the people who believe intersellar trarvel is around the corner and lush class M planets are everywhere just waiting for humans to arrive.

marcus says

Providing them with facts and interesting science? OR attacking their beliefs ?

'Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger. - http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/#sthash.vtvrqouO.dpuf

It's funny to see how the usual praisers and worshippers of big government sponsorship of science (and sponsorship of everything else) is missing the detail that even Giordano Bruno was a Dominican Friar; i.e. a minor Catholic Church office holder, in between his numerous short appointments as professors at Catholic Church founded (and run) universities.

I'm not saying that without the Church those universities and leisurely research/philosophizing positions could never have existed, but they would have been much harder to come by in the 1500's than in the 1900's simply because the economic productivity was much lower back then. There was simply less "surplus" food to go around and feed "thinkers" 400+ years earlier. The market place is much more capable of supporting thinkers and their research today than it was 500 years ago.

When you have a political monopoly running big science, of course weird narcissistic theologies like earth and human being the center of the universe, and global/universal warming being due to human activity would shackle people's minds and even seek corporal punishment for dissenters.

I've enjoyed cosmos, although I missed this last episode.

It doesn't bother me exactly, in fact I've found the part of the show that reflects their antireligion agenda interesting.

But honestly, I did not expect it to have as much of an agenda with regards to religion as it does.

Robert Sproul says

'Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds

As a young kid who watched the Sagan originals, it was fantastic. Look there are lots of kids out there who can benefit from this, I wouldn't expect it to change the thinking of the people who run this place:

http://creationmuseum.org/

Iosef V HydroCabron says

It's not that these guys are bad at what they do; it's the embarrassingly low level of scientific education among even PhD's in non-scientific fields. I have had bosses who don't know that seasons are due to axial tilt, and co-workers who are surprised to learn that a year is not 365 days on the nose. I have repeatedly tried to explain to my wife that lunar/solar eclipses occur at full or new moon, respectively. Holy living fuck, people are stupid about astronomy!

Very true, but why should that be a surprise? Even around here we have people with small knowledge base pontificating everyday on subjects that they don't understand and are not capable of analyzing. OTOH, would you prefer marrying a woman who knows why lunar/solar eclipses take place or would you prefer the girl who knows how to . . . make you happy? LOL.

Dan8267 says

The only reason most Christians today aren't as bad as Islamic terror organizations is because of us "non-believer" types keeping the power of this vile religion in check.

Interesting observation about the Islamic Religion. When you never hear about dissent among their ranks, it makes you wonder if Islamism is actually a religion or rather a political club imposed to effectively hold people together?

carrieon says

Dan8267 says

The only reason most Christians today aren't as bad as Islamic terror organizations is because of us "non-believer" types keeping the power of this vile religion in check.

Yeah right.

It has nothing to do with the tens of millions of Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc, not to mention the more conservative of the evangelicals.

Plenty of peole in these denominations are essentially non believers when it comes to the more extremist views. They get there all by themself without the help of atheists, just by being educated thinking humans.

The fact that Christianity allows for the existence of fundamentalists, is not an argument that all Christians are pulled toward fundamentalism.

I guess it could be argued that if you convince more of the more rational and conservative Christians to stop believing that then the proportion that are fundies goes up. That is, it could be argued that quite the opposite is in fact true.

I would attribute the fact that Christians (esp in the US) aren't as bad as Islam with respect to terrorism, to the fact that we aren't living in third world squalor. As stupid as we are (on average) we are still a relatively educated people. Not that we couldn't be way more so, which in turn would be reflected by our government, which sometimes acts in ways not so unlike terrorists (ie drone attacks). But that's not due to Christianity as much as it is due to fear of Islamic terrorists.

Neil is an Ass!

He's done how many Universe shows, and have narrated countless others, has been the expert curator in to many to list. He's smugly is up there talking about science using cartoons, to show how the establishment, A.K.A the Church persecuted free though through out the century. In the meantime, the news is chocked full of the Left leaning entities bullying any press or thoughts that are in conflict with their own.

The Professor bullying the Pro Life girls, the Feminist meeting discussing pay inequality, harassing and bullying a female reporter, because they deemed her to be from the Conservative press. Schools sending kids home because of what they wear on their shirt, say or write, while promoting any radical agenda subjects they see fit, from sexual to lifestyle to political leanings, and building a curriculum around it. SO that way if parents refuse to allow their kids to write essays on Lesbian UFC satanic rappers, their child could fail for the year.

He's not going win Sciencelums converts, by being crass and a hypocrite.
And the Mansplain he goes about tying the cosmos in to ungodliness.

The Idiot has no ephn' Idea what so ever, that the Christians have seen this movie.
The ending means to them, God created the Big bang, and 6,000 years ago, isn't 6,000 years ago today. That thought was abandoned decades ago.
Christians have no problem what so ever, believing the Big bang happened, and that there are countless other Galaxies out there. They also abandoned the belief that the Earth is the center of the Universe like a almost a millennia ago.

Who's got Neil wraps the seiries up with tying global warming to religion, and because the cosmos exists, that is why it is important that we do what every the Liberal Political regime says, to save us all from Global Warming... Oh and those mother fuggin' Christians!

What a phony sack of Shit!

I'll bet that this show will be his last high profile television show ever. And it will be the end of his household name. Say what you want about Science and Religion, but the new Pope is still more popular than the periodical table.

Especially this one.

depends on your definition of "corner"...

New Renter says

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Holy living fuck, people are stupid about astronomy!

What's really depressing are the people who believe intersellar trarvel is around the corner and lush class M planets are everywhere just waiting for humans to arrive.

marcus says

extremist views

You are simply whitewashing Christianity by using a vague and meaningless term such as "extremist views". The belief in an afterlife without any evidence is an extremist view. If one actually took that belief seriously, it would be quite reasonable to commit suicide in order to be reunited with loved ones such as this girl did.

You use the term extremist to make No True Scotsman arguments. Any religious person who behaves badly or stupidly, you simply dismiss as an "extremist" who doesn't represent the typical religious person. Unfortunately for your argument, such dismissals would discard
1. The vast majority of religious persons throughout human history.
2. Hundreds of millions of modern day Muslims.
3. About one third of modern Americans.

That's hardly no true Scotsman.

There is a BIG misunderstanding about what papal infallibility is and is not, but I think I'd need a new thread for it.

The church hasn't always been on the right side of history, (see inquisition for prime example) but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a place for religion and science to coexist and I can't speak for all faiths, but the Catholic church is, in this day and age, is generally supportive so long as moral lines are not crossed.

Keep in mind just because one CAN do something, doesn't mean they SHOULD do it.

carrieon says

it makes you wonder if Islamism is actually a religion or rather a political club imposed to effectively hold people together?

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are better described as families of religions than as religions. These families of religions are based upon a loose and overlapping set of myths.

A religion is an hierarchical power structure based on a mythology. For example, Christianity was once a religion. However, it is the nature of religions and other hierarchical power structures to expand and fragment as people fight over power.

The religion Christianity went through such a division during the Great Schism in which the one religion split into two: the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. At this point, one would say that the religion of Christianity no longer existed and that Christianity became a family of two religions with a shared mythology and history.

Later splits in the Catholic Church formed the various Christian religions we see today.

Essentially the same applies to Islam and Judaism.

The important thing is the power structure. That is what controls people's behavior. And any power structure based on lies is going to be corrupt. Any power structure that refuses to tolerate truths that contradict those lies which serve as the basis for its power is going to be very corrupt and ultimately evil and self-serving. This is why religion can never be truly a force for good. Sure, there are little things the religion can do to foster its reputation, but ultimately one cannot serve two masters, and serving a lie is always a bad thing.

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

The church hasn't always been on the right side of history, (see inquisition for prime example)

Um, slavery and the holocaust come to mind. Pope John Paul II sitting down with George Bush and not calling him out on torturing human beings also comes to mind. The plague of AIDS decimating Africa because of the Church's anti-condom stance is also mentionable.

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

There's a place for religion and science to coexist

No. And why should we even want this? Science is about finding out and understanding the truth no matter what it is. Religion is about maintaining power and suppressing all truths that contradict the lies upon which the religion is based.

Why should humanity want to maintain religion? What good does it do that cannot be done without it? Why should be want to persist in the lies and the delusions of religion? The real nature is far more beautiful.

Morality is far better served as a mathematical and engineering discipline than as dogma. Religion has been keeping morality in the Bronze Age and there are dilemmas we have to deal with today that we cannot because morality has been held back for thousands of years by religion.

We are morally failing in areas like animal rights, the rights of other sentient beings on our planet (whales, chimps, dolphins, etc.), environmental management, and the building of economic systems because we have no morality that can deal with these issues. These are modern issues, not Bronze Age issues, and we cannot make moral policies as long as we let that great failure we call religion dictate morality. We need morality to advance as fast as software and hardware does, and the only way to do that is to remove the very subject of morality from religion and put it in engineering where it is supposed to be.

Dan8267 says

We need morality to advance as fast as software and hardware does, and the only way to do that is to remove the very subject of morality from religion and put it in engineering where it is supposed to be.

What a coincidence. You're an engineer (or might as well be one).

So I see, this is all about you. Everyone needs to be like you.

Well, isn't that convenient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQW_4kowyZ4

Why not put computers in charge of everything ?

I would say you have it somewhat backwards. Just like politics and our leaders reflect how far we have yet to evolve (collectively), our spirituality and religions also reflect where we are as a species. THe fix for that is better education, not doing away with God.

You find cause and effect where there is no evidence. That is if you think one can be extremely moral if and only if they are an atheist.

Sure, you can write a few thousand words about the evil done by religion,...fine. OR point to one of many threads where you have done so. That's not proof that spiritual beliefs in general are the cause of ignorance or lack of the highest morality.

You might even be able to prove that evil people have used religion for their purposes. Even that does not prove that religions need to be gone for us to evolve. In the song "imagine" when John Lennon says "no religion too." I didn't take that to mean no spiritual beliefs, or that everyone needs to be an atheist. He just meant no large scale organized religion. Nice to imagine such a world.

Besides, there will always be religion. OR certainly there will be for the next few hundred years, which will more than determine if we survive. So any sensible person would lobby for better religions, and or spirituality, rather than none.

But then you would have to know what that might even mean. I get it, that in your world you either buy the child's fantasy religion with heaven and hell, the old white dude in the clouds and all, or you're a hard core atheist.

I remind you that some of us know the truth which is that we don't know. And not knowing does not make me uncomfortable or insecure.

marcus says

We need morality to advance as fast as software and hardware does

That would be nice. MAybe a dictatorship is the answer.

marcus says

So I see, this is all about you. Everyone needs to be like you.

A typical Straw Man argument by Marcus. You can't even remotely address what I say, so you make up a bullshit argument that has nothing to do with what I posted.

I've told you a thousand times that the messenger is irrelevant. Yet, in your arrogance and willful ignorance, you continue to make everything about me. Yes Marcus, I'm vastly more intelligent than you are. Get over it. Deal with it already. Your tantrums are getting boring.

It does not matter that I'm the one posting the argument here. The argument stands or falls on its own merit, not on the reputation of who wrote it. For a person claiming to be a teacher, you sure don't seem to understand that simple point.

Stop personalizing objective truths. The world is round regardless of how you feel about the person who told you it is. There is no god or afterlife regardless of how you feel about the person who told you that. You are way to ego-centric. Ironically, you've missed the entire point of Cosmos and what Neil deGrasse Tyson calls The Cosmic Perspective. The very concept could not be understood by someone so willfully ignorant as you.

marcus says

Why not put computers in charge of everything ?

Another Straw Man argument. Although only a fool would say that computers serve no purpose in mapping out moral codes. One simply has to look at a Prisoners' Dilemma competition to see how software can aid in mapping moral problem spaces. More advance versions of the game including communication failures and breeding of algorithms.

marcus says

Besides, there will always be religion.

That's a pretty big fucking assumption. And even if it were true, that's no reason not to fight it anymore than one would give up the fight because someone says
- there will always be poverty, so no point in doing anything about it
- there will always be rape, so no point in prosecuting it
- there will always be corruption, so no point in increasing transparency and accountability in government
- there will always be war, so no point in striving for peace and stability
- there will always be dumb people like Marcus, so no point in improving education and spreading knowledge

Thankfully, most of us don't give up as easily as Marcus.

hmmm..Looks like someone got a good confessional spanking in the olden days...
Dan8267 says

marcus says

Besides, there will always be religion.

That's a pretty big fucking assumption. And even if it were true, that's no reason not to fight it anymore than one would give up the fight because someone says

SoftShell says

hmmm..Looks like someone got a good confessional spanking in the olden days...

Your statement is based on the ludicrous assumption that a person can only oppose an evil that directly harmed him or herself. This assumption is easily dismissed. I've never been murdered in my life, yet I strongly oppose murder and believe in prosecuting murderers.

Dan8267 says

We need morality to advance as fast as software and hardware does, and the only way to do that is to remove the very subject of morality from religion and put it in engineering where it is supposed to be.

marcus says

What a coincidence. You're an engineer (or might as well be one).

So I see, this is all about you. Everyone needs to be like you.

Dan8267 says

You can't even remotely address what I say, so you make up a bullshit argument that has nothing to do with what I posted.

I've told you a thousand times that the messenger is irrelevant. Yet, in your arrogance and willful ignorance, you continue to make everything about me. Yes Marcus, I'm vastly more intelligent than you are. Get over it. Deal with it already. Your tantrums are getting boring.

I see.

For the record, I find your supposed genius argument more than lacking. You're the one that will say it's because I don't understand it.

What's lacking is that you presuppose that religion is holding morality back. My point was that the kind of religion we have (and the type of politics and govt we have) are a reflection of how evolved (unevolved) we are.

Not the other way around.

Dan8267 says

Yes Marcus, I'm vastly more intelligent than you are.

I don't know about that. But you're pretty funny sometimes. I'll give you that.

Dan8267 says

That's a pretty big fucking assumption. And even if it were true, that's no reason not to fight it anymore than one would give up the fight because someone says

- there will always be poverty, so no point in doing anything about it

- there will always be rape, so no point in prosecuting it

For a genius, you sure are thick.

I said that since religion will always be around, or certainly for the critical next few hundred years, why not focus on having better religions rather than no religion. A battle that can be won, or at least where inroads could be made.

It's a fact that as people leave established moderate religions such as Presbytarians or Catholics, you are increasing the percentage of fundamentalists. This has been the trend in recent decades.

So why don't you and the other genius adolescent children go on r/atheists and talk more Catholics and moderate protestants into becoming atheists. That's really going to improve the world.

Science is a religion. It is a faith on the negation of faith.

Another genius.