This statement is incorrect, because of death. If you could stipulate that there was no afterlife, then I would agree. That is why I always thought that Bunny's theism was unstable. At one point he believed in God but not in an afterlife. Under those assumptions, given that it is not possible to experimentally detect God, how is that different than there being no God?

But as we confront existence, death is that experiment. Given the existence of death with its unknown consequences, your statements are not equivalent.


You could postulate, but you would have to seek an experiment to detect that creature. That happens all of the time in science. People postulate a multiverse but there is no evidence that such a construct exists. Before you get confused, a theoretical model that includes a multiverse is not evidence. There are theoretical models for every failed scientific concept that has ever been tested. It is not until some physical evidence is gathered that it is proper to accept them as valid.

This is not an equivalent situation. The FSM argument is weak to the point of useless. It is over specified and thus says nothing. "God" is a very broad concept with a real possibility of existing. As one specifies the nature of God more closely, the chances of the description being accurate fades. Replace FSM with TUC (The Undetected Creature). And what is that? A living creature on the earth which has never been detected or identified. Do you think that exists? After all, there is no evidence (by definition) that it does. That is a better (admittedly not perfect) analogy for God.

Again, there is. My reaction to statements like this is that if you can actually say something that is so clearly and demonstrably wrong, then you have not given enough thought to something that may actually be important enough to deserve more consideration. My advice in all sincerity would be to stop treating this like a junior high school debate that you can win, stop listening to only one side of the argument with real attention and give it some serious thought.

At some level it bothers me to say it, but I kind of agree with this. It seems sometimes as if both sides of this debate are just guessing at the answer without much thought. It is disturbing to me because it seems like too important a question to guess at the answer.

I agree that this is part of what he is saying. I still have two "problems" with this. For one, this training can be achieved without reaching an elite level, and in this model, you would still be able to berate "laymen", because they could theoretically be just as qualified as the "elite" if they are literate in these areas. Secondly, he is implying that any hypothesis of God is necessary flawed (the mistake he lets laymen getaway with). This seems like a strong stance, and I'm not entirely sure it is valid. I know many people (including here) espouse this view, but is this really the consensus?

The Spaghetti Monster is a subset of God.

Okay, I watched the video. I don't think Tyson is saying that only elite scientists are qualified to make judgments about whether God exists. Rather, he seems to be assuming that god doesn't exists and arguing that we shouldn't berate people who believe there is a god. The reason why is this: since even some of the most educated and knowledgeable people--elite scientists--still believe in a god, we should think that there is some cause for this belief over which those people have no control and so berating them is not fair.

That makes sense only if you think that most scientists who believe in God have come to their conclusion through pure thought. For example lets say that ten percent of all people have a disease that causes them to reject atheism. Now lets say that ten percent of scientists are theists and 70% of non scientists are. See where I am going with this?

Yeah, I don't think Tyson's argument is very good here, I was only describing what it seems like Tyson is saying.

Thanks for listening to the video. I agree with you that his ultimate point was that there could be some other cause for a belief in God, but it's not this claim that I was interested in, specifically.

His assumption of God's non existence is seemingly based on his confidence in the knowledge that the natural sciences provide. It is more of a belief than an assumption. His entire argument hinges on the implication that God's non existence can be deduced by the natural sciences, and therefore those who are experts in them but still believe in God must be making a mistake, or are being led to believe by some cognitive force.

I accept his premise as an opinion, that God's non existence can be deduced as such, but I don't believe that his conclusions necessarily follow. The fact that there are some elite-scientists that do believe in God could simply mean that the knowledge of God's non existence is not necessarily deduced.

Also, David Sklansky brings up a good point in that there is an assumption that all atheists came to the conclusion by the same deduction through these sciences.

I liked NdT at first, but the more I listen & read him, the more I come to believe he's a huge narcissist. Plus his "proof" of a manned moon landing on Joe Rogan was lol bad.

I used to be a big fan as well. But I'm not sure if he is just dumbing down his speech for mass audiences, because I'm finding more and more bad logic from him the more I watch/read him. Some of his narration on Cosmos is very what is this I don't even.

What I mean is that in that talk (at least, as much of it as is on the video) he is just assuming it--he is providing no argument against the existence of god. Thus, the bolded is just a guess (correct for all I know) about the reasons why he doesn't believe in a god. But I would want to see him actually argue for it before I start disagreeing with him about it.

Maybe it's just his tone, but he seems pretty certain about his conclusion, and that it's shocking that there are elite-scientists with these fallacious beliefs. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, I just thought it was strange for him to portray so much certainty, when his premise doesn't appear (to me) to be concrete.

I actually thought that was pretty good. You didn't find him convincing?

Okay, let's assume that Tyson is, as you say he seems, very certain that there is no god. That doesn't really tell us anything about why he is so certain does it?

Edit: Looking into it a bit more, Tyson says he doesn't consider himself an atheist, but rather an agnostic, so I'm not sure that your view about his certainty is correct either.

I don't have a source, but he has said that he doesn't appreciate the term "atheist", like he likewise doesn't believe that there should be a term for the disbelief of things that likely don't exist. I don't think he's so much embracing the idea that there could be a God and simply doesn't know, but instead just doesn't like the idea of a label being used to define him as not believing in something. Everything he says points to him rejecting the idea of God.

Philosophical agnosticism aside, he believes that the natural conclusion of elite-level knowledge of the sciences should result in the knowledge of God's non-existence, or more aptly, does not point to God. If he did not hold this view, he may concede that some elite-theist-scientists may simply have a different, yet possibly true, conclusion. Instead, he believes they are in error, because their conclusions are wrong, because these sciences do indeed point to God's non existence.

Perhaps i'm wrong on both accounts, in understanding his stance, and the implications of his stance, although it seems to be that he's making a mistake in his assumption.

You're just repeating yourself here. Clearly enough, Tyson doesn't believe that a god exists. That hardly makes him unique. If you have a problem with why he doesn't believe this, you should find a source where he talks about that rather than just guessing at his reasons. The video you linked to in the OP is not that source. In that talk he is addressing the rise of the New Atheists, and is actually critical of how they berate theists, not giving his reasons for not believing in a god.

Edit: Also, I would assume that by calling himself an agnostic Tyson is explicitly denying the claim that "elite-level knowledge of the sciences should result in the knowledge of God's non-existence."

I thought his reasons were clearly implied in the video, that the evidence shown by the sciences does not point to God, but you're right, I'm starting to repeat myself, and it is not explicitly stated as such.

In the video linked in the OP, Tyson is explicitly arguing that scientists should not be criticizing other people for believing in a god, so....

Lot's of people think that science doesn't point to a god who don't also think that they know that there is no god. Some theists even make this claim (eg RLK I think). In fact, in this very thread, David Sklansky said that it would be moronic to claim there is no god simply because we have no evidence of a god. So I think you are going well beyond what is implied by the claim that the sciences do not point to God to whatever argument you think is clearly implied here.

For my part, I think you have fairly captured my point of view. I do not feel that science points to the existence of God. On the other hand, I think that in tone and implication Tyson is projecting the assumption that there is no God, even if he stops a little short of stating it.

Yes, I agree with all of this, but I'm not sure that I'm going beyond what is implied.

Edit: This clip is from the same video, where he explains in a little more detail why he rejects God.

Yes, I think his conclusion needs him to explicitly reject the possibility of God, or else he would not make the conclusion he does.

Naked Rectitude said this: "[Tyson] believes that the natural conclusion of elite-level knowledge of the sciences should result in the knowledge of God's non-existence, or more aptly, does not point to God" (my emphasis). Since no agnostic would claim to know that a god doesn't exist, I am pretty confident that Tyson (a self-described agnostic) doesn't even believe this, let alone thinks that elite-level knowledge of the sciences leads to that view. Rather, Tyson would seem to be, like you, an agnostic about our knowledge of god's existence, but unlike you, also doesn't believe in the existence of any god.

If you are looking for why he doesn't believe in a god (and this seems to be what Naked_Rectitude is interested in), you'll have to go beyond the linked video, as there is no discussion of that point. Maybe he thinks that we shouldn't accept the existence of anything for which there is no scientific evidence. Maybe he thinks that the problem of evil is enough to not believe in a god. However, these are all just guesses, because he doesn't say anything about it in the video.

How can you agree with this? I am explicitly denying what you claimed earlier in the thread. You said that Tyson claims to know that God doesn't exist. I'm pointing out that Tyson doesn't claim this in the video, in other places describes himself as an agnostic, and that the inference from what he does think (that science doesn't point to god) to that claim is invalid.

It is clear enough from the video that Tyson thinks there is something wrong with scientists who believe in a god. However, it is not clear from the video whether Tyson thinks this because he thinks the scientific evidence proves or shows there is no god, or because he thinks there is no evidence for a god and scientists shouldn't believe in things for which there is no evidence (which is of course not the same as believing that if there is no evidence for something existing, that it doesn't exist).

You seem to be just assuming it is the first, but Tyson's other statements indicates that it is more likely to be the second.

Two points. First, this video is purely negative--it is meant to show that the design argument fails to provide evidence for a god, not to show that there is no god.

Second, his conclusion doesn't need him to explicitly reject the possibility of God--that is exactly the claim I am arguing against. One common reason to not believe that god exists is because you think it is false that god exists. Another common reason is because you think there is no good reason for believing that god exists.

I agreed with this:

Lots of people agree that science doesn't point to God, yet are still agnostic, and that you should not claim there is no God as a result.

I thought they were the same thing, since either way he is confident enough to make the claim that theists are in error, but I'll think about it a little more.

Yeah, I'm having a difficult time differentiating between the differences you bring up, I see that they are in fact different reasons, but I'm just not sure why it matters much. If his conclusion wouldn't need him to explicitly reject God, wouldn't he then be able to concede that those elite theists are not necessarily in error?

The video at 4:00 I took him to be patronizing. It is like he thinks theism is some sort of genetic illness so lets not blame those poor people for their affliction. It seemed like he still thinks that believing in an invisible being is crazy but now he'll keep it to himself because he found out some very important people in his profession believe it as well. OTOH he'll be happy to tell the average person how ignorant he is for not believing in little invisible vibrating strings that he says make up all of existence.