Neil deGrasse Tyson and Neil Gaiman - Religion vs. Science, God of the Gaps

which is why does religion have such a persistent hold on human thought despite all that we know of science uh yeah I think there are several ways one can address that question I let me address it in the consider not long ago when so much of the Western world was the state was the religion and we have actually moved quite a distance from that compared with 200 years ago 300 years ago 400 years ago the era the Inquisition and this sort of thing and so so to say that it has such a grip it has a fraction of the grip that it once did on the operations of human conduct and of society so the real question is if implicit in that is given what we know of science why would religions still have any grip at all not to why does it still have a big rip because it's not a big rip when you look in the developed world so in fact most of Europe or just there a you know your whole countries where religion has essentially disappeared entirely and the countries are not the countries are not full of violence and you know it's just the assumption that you have to be religious to be moral is a false one it's empirically false cuz you just look around in places where that's the case so so so so that's one vent and we pull away from that a little there's plenty of what goes on in religious tax that has tremendous value to how to think about life and how to treat one another in fact Jefferson created what was essentially what you can think of as the Jefferson Thomas Jefferson the Jefferson Bible I don't know if you ever heard of this he went through the Bible and I think both the old and the New Testaments and he crossed off everything that was sort of mythical magical things that clearly violated known laws of nature and kept the rest and said here is the the stuff of the Bible that will should have value to any modern person going forward with you look at people who are religious today who are not in conflict with science they have viewed their religious tax as a spiritual something that gives them spiritual support not as a science textbook the inner the conflict in society is when you have those who are still religious who want to use their religious texts as their access point to understanding the natural world and persistent efforts of the past to make that happen have just simply failed that the the Bible does not work as a science textbook in fact Galileo knew this and he himself was a religious man he's famously quoted as saying the Bible tells you how to go to heaven not how the heavens go so on that scale that the conflict comes about when that subset of the religious community feels threatened by scientific discoveries that are different from how they interpret what should the natural world should be in the Bible I think it's a point where you get to the concept of the God of the gaps the the you go we do not understand this you know science takes us so far but we don't understand anything beyond that therefore that's God the stuff that we don't get that's good and the trouble with that is the moment that you actually go no we do understand that now is people going oh god just go away there and it goes back you know nice simple things like the rainbow the point where you go will the rainbow actually it's an optical effect it's not something magic that gets put up in the sky to memorialize the flood plus did you know that everyone sees a unique rainbow no that's right the rainbow is an optical effect for the person who sees it so if you stand 10 feet to my left you see an actual a different rainbow than I see it's a remarkable fun fact about rainbows my favorite fun fact about rainbows is the fact that they were originally believed to have six color bands but that Newton added added indigo and violet like he likely liked this effort in number seven you have a mystical feeling for the number seven throws in indigo that no one else sees nobody who actually goes indigo there's the indigo yeah oh another thing about the rainbow because each rainbow is unique to the viewer it can only be a rainbow that is exactly face on to you you've never seen a rainbow that was like at an oblique angle think about it they're exactly hemispherical in front of you that's why you can never get to the base of the rainbow because that would mean your perspective on it would change that's what makes it a good place to hide the goal in case you didn't know all right [Applause] [Music] are you are you outing yourself here as an unbeliever in leprechaun that steaks and and another thing just you mentioned the god of the gaps in in a free society a free pluralistic society where the freedom of the expression of religion is constitutionally protected which was a fundamental part of why America was so attractive to immigrants from around the world whose religious differences were not being supported in their hometown I will never be one to tell you what you should believe or what you should not believe what I will say is that if you want to say that where we don't understand things that's where God rests that's where God operates the God of the gaps argument cuz I get asked that all the time what was around before the universe I don't know must have been something but God so they got a stick in God where we're not there yet and I just say well I got we got top people working on that that's it's a current frontier we're not there yet and given the history of the moving frontier where people had previously said well God must be operating with long past that we those explanations have come and so I I don't there's no compelling reason to say God did it and then sort of give up and go on to the next problem my issue with the God of the gaps is that if you feel that way you should not be writing the science curriculum of a classroom okay that's all okay because if you do you are undermining the very process of what science is all about because the God of the gaps principle is like a it's a philosophy of ignorance whereas science is a philosophy of discovery and that's an important distinction between the two and if you remove that foundation for what builds science you are undermining the capacity of your culture of your nation to compete technologically in this the twenty-first century so it is not without consequence to have conduct in that way [Applause]

Channel: CTFORUM

Views: 367,502

Rating: 4.8845177 out of 5

Keywords: neil degrasse tyson, space, astrophysics, neil gaiman, religion, science, astrology, bible, god, american gods, panel, discussion, live, theater, pluto chronicles, nova, ctforum, forum, connecticut

Id: 4IzHxftS8MI

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 17 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/MASSIVE-HOOKER-FISH]

I love the huge Rainbow tangent they go on.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/lumpking69]

Anyone have a link to the full video?

[u/[deleted]]

There are a lot of people that say religion and science don't clash. History and God in the gaps has shown otherwise. Science often says things that are contrary to what the bible teaches, without some sort of magic thrown in the mix.

[edit]

I'm not saying the two can't coexist, i'm saying they contradict each other when taken literally.

[u/BillMurraysTesticle]

That was interesting haha. Never knew you could only see rainbows at a 90 degree angle but makes perfect sense.

[u/[deleted]]

I'd rather them have some religious scholars on stage as well, instead of just atheists/agnostics/anti-theists to keep things less circle jerky.

[u/Vexing]

What I don't understand is, why cant god have created all these rules of the universe? Just because it's not in a text doesn't mean it wasn't there. I'm sure if there is a God he's not just sitting up there going "Where did all this science come from?!"

I'm not religious myself, but my mother is. She feels this way and I think it's reasonably logical, as far as faith goes. It's not a very popular opinion in my parent's church, though.

[u/drbeanz]

I wish there was no audio from the audience, when they cheer for the anit-God comments it makes seem like a atheist rally.

[u/echo4joe]

I only wish I could think on his level.