Religion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,318 posts)and as I said then, he said that educated people know not to use the bible as a science textbook, but that it's the religious fundamentalists who are the problem. So I think your understanding of what he said is extremely muddled. I've transcripted some of it, to show you, with the bits where he says roughly what you seem to think he ought to have:
He's asked "do you give people who make the case that this (the Big Bang) was the beginning and that there had to be something that provoked the beginning - do you them an A at least for trying to reconcile faith and reason?"
He says he doesn't think they're reconcilable, and that nothing will come from attempts to reconcile the science of the Big Bang with faith. He talks about how Genesis and the bible tell you things about the stars or the formation of the earth that are flat wrong, and an attempt to describe the universe using the bible would fail.
"What happened was, when science discovered things, and you want to stay religious, or you want to continue to believe the bible is unerring, what you would do is say "let me go back to the bible and reinterpret it". Then you say things like "oh, they didn't mean that literally, they meant that figuratively". So this whole interpretation of how figurative the poetic passages of the bible are came after science showed that this is not how things unfolded. And so the educated religious people are perfectly fine with that. It's the fundamentalists who want to the that the bible is the literal truth of God, and want to see the bible as a science textbook, who are knocking on the science doors, trying to put that content in the science text.
Enlightened religious people are not behaving that way. They say "yes, science is cool, we're good with that, and use the bible to get your spiritual enlightenment and your emotional fulfillment. "
Moyers then focuses on a Carl Sagan phrase "the cosmos is all there is, and was, and ever will be", and how some people might think that excludes God. NdGT replies that people are free to believe in whatever gods they want to, but:
"the problem arises is if you have a religious philosophy that is not based in objective realities, that you then want to put in the science classroom. Then I'm going to stand there and say, no, I'm not going to allow you in the science classroom. I'm not going to tell you what to think, I'm just telling you in the science classrom, you're not doing science. This is not science, keep it out. That's when I stand up. Otherwise, go ahead. I'm not telling you how to think."
He then talks about a 'god of the gaps', and says "if you're going to stay religious at the end of the conversation, God has to be more to you that just 'where science has yet to tread'. So to the person who says "maybe dark matter is God" (Moyers' example) - if the only reason you're saying it is "it's a mystery", then get ready to have that undone".
I think you need to start quoting the exact things deGrasse Tyson said that you object to, rather than relying on your memory and subjective impression of what he said.