We conclude, considering portions of an interview between Bill Moyer and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil deGrasse Tyson Tells Bill Moyers Why Faith and Reason are Irreconcilable.
The segments of which this consideration will consist, in toto, are:
On the Bible and the Qur’an / Koran
The historical meaning of – star
The biblical meaning of – star
On science proving the Bible wrong
The faith of the Atheist (Dogmatheism)
THE FAITH OF THE ATHEIST Shockingly, Bill Moyer confronts Neil deGrasse Tyson with a very good point, which is actually not his own point. Then again, he could simply have been lobbing him a softball to hit out of the park.
BILL MOYER: I have known serious religious people, not fundamentalists, who were scared when Carl Sagan opened his series with the words—Carl Sagan, from “Cosmos”: The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.
BILL MOYER: I mean, that scared them, because they interpret that to mean, then if this is it, there’s nothing else. No God and no life after.
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: For religious people, many people say, “Well, God is within you,” or God, the, there are ways that people have shaped this, rather than, God is an old, grey-bearded man in the clouds. So if God is within you, what, I’m sure Carl would say, in you in your mind. In your mind, and we can measure the neurosynaptic firings when you have a religious experience.
We can tell you where that’s happening, when it’s happening, what you’re feeling like at the time. So your mind of course is still within the cosmos.
So now, the dichotomy is between serious religious people vs. fundamentalists. In any case, I do not know about being “scared” of the Atheist Carl Sagan’s Cosmos motto but it does speak volumes. Tyson hosted the remake of the Dogmatheism catechism; Cosmos, see: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Cosmos” fact or fiction?
To open a show that is supposed to be about science with the words “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” is to open it with an Atheist assertion, a worldview philosophy, a faith based statement. Sagan, Tyson, Moyer, et al. simply cannot prove the motto but can only authoritatively claim that it is the case.
It does not “scared them, because they interpret that to mean, then if this is it, there’s nothing else. No God and no life after” but because it was shown in public schools and was nothing but Atheist propaganda in thin disguise. It taught a generation, and now another, scientism, naturalism, materialism, reductionism and faith-based-Atheism.
Despite his incoherence, Tyson appears to be making a similarly fallacious and anachronistic claim that is tantamount to the one about reinterpreting the Bible only when (behold!) science proves it wrong. It is simply not the case that God was seen as an old, grey-bearded man in the clouds and later a being who could be within you, etc. The God of the Bible, YHVH, stated that no image can be made of Him as no image can contain Him, no image can reduce the eternal God into the restrictions of a form.
Note Tyson’s inaccurate claim 1) If God is within you… (which, according to Christian theology, only occurs after repentance). 2) We can measure the neurosynaptic firings… 3) And your mind of course is still within the cosmos.
4) Ergo, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
Of course, this syllogism fails as measuring that which is within the continuum, the universe, does not amount to the sort of faith-based absolute knowledge that Tyson is simply demanding that we accept dogmatheistically. Consider the following syllogism: 1) A voice and music proceed forth from a radio within a building. 2) We can measure the electro-circuits. 3) The radio of course is still within the building.
4) Ergo, “The building is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
Keeping in mind that all metaphors eventually break down as they are, after all, just that; metaphors: the fact that the radio is sending out sound waves does not prove that it is not receiving signals from outside of the building or that the building is all that exists.
Simply stated, Sagan, Tyson, Moyer, et al. are presupposing that which they are supposed to be proving or otherwise evidencing. And they cannot prove or evidence it via science because science (not mere curiosity, not mere observation nor mere experimentation but the rigors of the scientific method) is a tool that was designed (by Bible believers) to explore the material realm and it cannot tell whether or not there is an immaterial realm even though, it has been able to discern design in nature, etc.
Overall, Neil deGrasse Tyson is exemplary of a very intelligent person who has been so restricted in this learning and thinking to a very narrow field that once he sets his foot even one inch beyond his field of knowledge, he discredits himself by very loud, oft repeated and televised examples of utter ignorance.