Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Cybsled_sl said:

Aggressive atheists are just as obnoxious as aggressive religious nuts. Honestly I would see NDT as being more of a pantheist/agnostic...humility to understand that you probably will never be able to truly know (people always say Agnostic is same as Atheist, but it's not. Atheist is stating an absolute: There is no god. Period. Agnostic is stating: There may be or not be a god, but I don't have sufficient information or evidence to say one way or the other. The 2nd is open to the possibility, while the 1st has already stated a firm position). There's also the view that the universe and the laws that govern it are essentially god, so it basically becomes a distinction between that and a personal human god which most of the organized religions believe in.

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I agree Cybsled 100%.

Cybsled_sl said:

Aggressive atheists are just as obnoxious as aggressive religious nuts. Honestly I would see NDT as being more of a pantheist/agnostic...humility to understand that you probably will never be able to truly know (people always say Agnostic is same as Atheist, but it's not. Atheist is stating an absolute: There is no god. Period. Agnostic is stating: There may be or not be a god, but I don't have sufficient information or evidence to say one way or the other. The 2nd is open to the possibility, while the 1st has already stated a firm position). There's also the view that the universe and the laws that govern it are essentially god, so it basically becomes a distinction between that and a personal human god which most of the organized religions believe in.

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I believe his school of thought is that no one knows for certain. Since he is a scientist he likes evidence and not hypothesis. All we know is that the universe was created somehow. We don't know if a God did it or how it happened. And until there is proof given one way or the other he'll just have a "no comment" approach to the situation. Which is a smart way of looking at it. Which I'm just kind of summarizing your post anyways.

Depending on who you ask, atheism and agnosticism may or may not be mutually exclusive.

supertouch_sl said:

Depending on who you ask, atheism and agnosticism may or may not be mutually exclusive.

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This is the part where someone posts the agnostic/gnostic atheist/theist chart - which I think has it's own problems.

Even if you can't distinguish between them clearly in terms of the exact philosophical stance, there's a huge gap in attitude and behavior, generally speaking, especially with the rise of the "militant" (I think 'dogmatic' would be a better phrase) atheist types.

Tenks_sl said:

I believe his school of thought is that no one knows for certain. Since he is a scientist he likes evidence and not hypothesis. All we know is that the universe was created somehow. We don't know if a God did it or how it happened. And until there is proof given one way or the other he'll just have a "no comment" approach to the situation. Which is a smart way of looking at it. Which I'm just kind of summarizing your post anyways.

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While I agree with you generally speaking this is, as I have learned, a misunderstanding of the atheist position. Atheism is not stating the absolute "there is no god." What they are stating is that they are "without belief." That anyone who is without belief in a god is, by definition, an atheist. This includes those who state firmly that god does not exist and those who state that they do not know if god exists and therefore do not believe in a god.


So you have
Theism: There is absolutely a god.
Agnostic Theism: There is a god it is impossible to prove (<--- This is the position I least understand)
Agnostic Atheism: Currently does not definitely believe in god but does not assert that god's existence is impossible.
Atheism: God definitely does not exist.

The problem with atheism vs agnostic is that agnostics generally don't want to be lumped in the same group as someone who runs around screaming there definitely is no god. Atheism has become a word synonymous for "those who claim god does not exist" despite it's actual definition because these people are the loudest. The problem is our society's ignorance when it comes to language not the definition of the word atheism.

While I call myself an atheist, I allow for the possibility of anything. I simply don't know. Every atheist I know personally feels the same. However, I don't think this show is the place for that. The science should be on showcase, not putting religion on trial.

Of course the most reasonable thing to do is to say that you don't know and that it is equally plausible that the story of creation in the bible is true. Hence not being too overly burdensome on the feelings of the religious.

Selix_sl said:

While I agree with you generally speaking this is, as I have learned, a misunderstanding of the atheist position. Atheism is not stating the absolute "there is no god." What they are stating is that they are "without belief." That anyone who is without belief in a god is, by definition, an atheist. This includes those who state firmly that god does not exist and those who state that they do not know if god exists and therefore do not believe in a god.


So you have
Theism: There is absolutely a god.
Agnostic Theism: There is a god it is impossible to prove (<--- This is the position I least understand)
Agnostic Atheism: Currently does not definitely believe in god but does not assert that god's existence is impossible.
Atheism: God definitely does not exist.

The problem with atheism vs agnostic is that agnostics generally don't want to be lumped in the same group as someone who runs around screaming there definitely is no god. Atheism has become a word synonymous for "those who claim god does not exist" despite it's actual definition because these people are the loudest. The problem is our society's ignorance when it comes to language not the definition of the word atheism.

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I think one of the big issues is that when you say you're an atheist you get assumed to be someone who hates religion and belittles people who are religious. Which may be true for the fedora neckbeard demographic of atheists but isn't true for everyone. Like I said I'm an atheist. There is no proof of a higher being and it has never been observed -- ever. Just because someone says something outlandish the burden of proof doesn't fall to me to prove them wrong. It falls to the person making the claim to prove it right. So far that has not happened with the concept of a God. But I'm not so egotistical to believe that everyone operates and thinks the way I do. Just because it makes zero sense that a God exists in my mind I can flip the coin and I can understand how it makes zero sense in someone else's mind to believe a God doesn't exist. It is the internet warriors giving atheism a bad name by actively mocking those who believe in religion why I think many atheists play the "Well I don't know for sure" stance. Or possibly my views are more extreme than I believe them to be.

But this is really devolving the thread. I think we can all agree the church did some really shitty stuff and really set science back a great deal in the dark ages. Even religious people would agree to that. We can also agree that we're glad Cosmos didn't actively go on the offensive against religion and instead just presented the facts of the matter.

Intrinsic_sl said:

Yes, can't wait until the next episode so we can talk about space shit and that awesome Flight of the Navigator lookin' ship.

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I was also pretty buzzed while watching the episode but I almost teared up when NGT was talking about his relationship with Sagan. And I never cry outside of immediate family members dying.

Kirun_sl said:

Sure, if we want to follow that logic down the rabbit hole, Spider-Man is "equally" possible as well.

Is it possible there is a highly advanced/evolved species somewhere in the universe, a proverbial "god"? It's almost a mathematical certainty. However, even if this race is so advanced as to be "godlike", they'd certainly have no interest in our daily affairs. Do you care about the daily affairs of ants? Furthermore, the notion of a "god" or "godlike" being as depicted in the Bible and other religious texts, is quite obviously a complete fallacy. Nothing more than a human construct, crafted to conquer the one thing we can't(yet): death.

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I agree with you.

I've watched a lot of Tyson and his "new atheist" ilk, and while he won't say the story of creation from the bible is possible, he won't say it's not. He will simply say how old the earth is and skip over the whole 6000 years in the bible. He just needs to expose the facts, and let people make up their own minds. I think because of his position and his "rockstar" status (as far as scientists go), he will steer away from controversy as much as he can, and will let the likes of Dawkins and Krauss take the offensive in the good fight.

It was him, or maybe Hitchens, who said he understands how making a controversy over facts is a religious tactic. Facts are facts, but people think if there's a controversy over it, that there's not a consensus on the facts. It's important to him to get the facts across in a way that the facts themselves are not considered debatable.

Edit: I think his biggest challenge will be explaining the concept that Nothing is not Nothing as quantum theory suggests to us. This seems to be a big sticking point in the debates I've seen. Human minds were not developed, and nurture hasn't lent to, understanding that concept for a lot of people.

Agnostic Theism: There is a god it is impossible to prove (<--- This is the position I least understand

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Basically it is Theism, but understanding that we cannot understand or know. In other words, it rejects current religions because it is impossible for man to understand a being such as a god. Essentially, how can a being with limited senses observe and understand a being that we assume exists outside of that range.

Time is a difficult thing to grasp. I always remember a short story by Stephen King where a scientist develops teleportation, but the side effect is your conscious mind doesn't teleport instantly and is trapped in a "nothing" for an unknown period of time (father guesses it may feel like millions of years). They counter this by putting the person to sleep. Anyways, the father is telling his young son this before a teleport and the curious kid decides to fake taking the sleeping pill. Father wakes up after teleport and basically finds his kid in full Event Horizon mode (he tears his own eyes out) and screaming "it's longer than you think, dad!!!".

I think Sagan would have been proud of this, and I can't think of higher praise.

Too many special effects, not enough humanism and philosophy.