https://youtu.be/GlZtEjtlirc?t=292

4:54 mark.

Ben Stein Interview.

Dawkins: Why do you even need to ask (If he believes in gods)


Stein: Stein, well I just wanted to be sure.
So you don't believe in any god anywhere?

Dawkins: Any god anywhere would be completely incompatible with ANYthing that I've said.

Stein: I just wanted to be sure, you don't believe in ANY god ANYwhere?

Dawkins: No!

Did Ben Stein not read,the 1st Chapter of "The God Delusion, RELIGIOUS NON-BELIEVER"?

https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-nmqlMcOu-icCFhIe/The%20God%20Delusion_djvu.txt

"The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.

UNDESERVED RESPECT

My title, The God Delusion, does not refer to the God of Einstein and the other enlightened scientists of the previous section. That is why I needed to get Einsteinian religion out of the way to begin with: it has a proven capacity to confuse. In the rest of this book I am talking only about supernatural gods, of which the most familiar to the majority of my readers will be Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament."

That's the strawman cartoon of God Dawkins has made a career out of fighting to destroy, fruitlessly.

He admits he believes in the "God of the Physicists" or Einsteinian Religion, but says to confuse the two is an act of intellectual high treason.

But isn't that exactly what he does by insisting upon the fact that he has ruled out the existence of any and all Gods, 3 times to Ben Stein, but refuses to make any distinction between the gods of all the world's Judeao Christian Religions, and completely ignorning the gods of Eastern Religion?
Isn't it possible that the Taoist god is one and the same as the God of the Physicists?

How does that conversation never come up in EVERY GD interview of Dawkins?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2017 05:59PM by koriwhore.

Oh, fer crying out loud.

Dawkins runs his mouth too much. Anybody who does that will eventually say stupid stuff. He obliges on a regular basis. He is still an able spokesperson for atheists and against the cultural thuggery of the theists.

Ben Stein OTOH frequently says stupid stuff, all the more surprising because he sounds pretty bright on non-theistic subjects.


And if Dawkins is such a failure, how come so many people know of him and quote him? Why do you keep trying to insist he is a failure? If he was such a failure, you wouldn't have to keep pointing it out.

Just sayin'

An extremely interesting observation I too have thought about. Ben Stein seems like such an intelligent individual and yet has bought into all the intelligent design nonsense and other... strange things.

An affiliation with The Discovery Institute and a degree from an Ivy League school seem completely incompatible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2017 03:42PM by midwestanon.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2017 03:41AM by steve benson.

>>Isn't it possible that the Taoist god is one and the same as the God of the Physicists?

There is no Taoist god. There is no Confucian god. There is no Buddhist god. Somehow a good chunk of the East manages to do without a god. Go figure?

I still like him. And I find him more credible than any religious person I know of.

......exactly, Richard has said a lot of stuff, but Richard has never said that people had better listen to him because of his special standing with god, or else they were going to be punished by God sending them to Hell

I love listening to Richard Dawkins.

I don't believe in any man made Gods or their corresponding holy books or the men who claim they are merely directing/enforcing his orders(commands) via some special authorisation or invisible Holy spirit.

No more superstitious nonsensical praying since my Eureka atheist moment after a lifetime of irrational thinking and mumbo jumbo, signs of the last days, Israel is back in the land as prophesised, Jesus is coming soon..... hahaha

................ and Man made God in his own image and likeness.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2017 06:28PM by Zeezromp.

"The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason "

Of course he never actually says that he, himself, believes in the the "The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists". Since he is not a physicist, he is talking about a god of a class of people that he is not part of, so the statement isn't about his belief in God. It has been a long time since I read any of his books and I can not verify this via the context.

I, as an atheist do not believe in any gods anywhere and still comment that the gods of the ancient Egyptians were light years away from the viking gods and should not be confused. I can say and do this without having any beliefs in those gods, only acknowledging that many of the peoples of the time believed they were true gods.

Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation from
Einstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experi-
enced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose
beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble
reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.' In this
sense I too am religious, with the reservation that 'cannot grasp'
does not have to mean 'forever ungraspable'. But I prefer not to
call myself religious because it is misleading. It is destructively mis-
leading because, for the vast majority of people, 'religion' implies
'supernatural'. Carl Sagan put it well: '. . . if by "God" one means
the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there
is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not
make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.'
What about the God particle, minus the particle?

An explanation of Einstein's religion is irrelevant to the issue of Dawkins belief in God, even Einstein's God.

Dawkins can say that Einstein's God is "is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible" WITHOUT BELIEVING IN EITHER OF THOSE GODS.

Again, Dawkins did not admit to believing that gods exist. You are looking for an inconsistency that does not exist in the source you mention,

I would say "Nice try at dodging the point" but it really was not very good at all.

Richard Dawkins? I thought that was Davie Jones of the Monkees.

The art of advancing as a human being involves taking away things. At some point, you take away God. Or at least, you take away what does not exist. If the only thing that exists is God, what does it matter? It's like approaching infinity from zero, which is just zero flipped on its head.

If anyone's head exploded, I'll go get a mop.

Tell me what Dawkins said that was wrong.
Looks like you theists are grasping at straws.

Why do you feel the need to try to validate your belief to us?

It's just like the Mormons and their lame apologists all over again.

"Look someone famous might have possibly thought like I do. I must be right."

This is just more of that "new Atheist" crap.
Atheists aren't going anywhere.
Be an adult and deal with it.

We can not have a problem with atheists in general and still think Dawkins is full of it. My best friend is atheist and always has been and she doesnt like him. Neither do I.

Come on. Give Mr. Dawkins a break.

Not a prophet.

Does not claim any power of discernment.

Does not claim to be moved by spirits of any kind.

Does not profess any special powers given by unseen beings,

Richard really is "just a man".

AmIDarkNow? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Come on. Give Mr. Dawkins a break.
>
> Not a prophet.
>
> Does not claim any power of discernment.
>
> Does not claim to be moved by spirits of any
> kind.
>
> Does not profess any special powers given by
> unseen beings,
>
> Richard really is "just a man".


I think you nailed it. For some believers, [if not faith], there must be *something* to fill that [faithless] space. The assumption is made that since a god is "flawless," the "replacement" must also be flawless.

I would answer that by saying that one is not born with faith, and that any "space" that "faith" is now occupying was put there by other humans, unless one claims direct contact with a god. "Faith" in humans is not flawless because there is no flawless god underpinning that faith, just the other humans who implanted it.

I will say that faith has been genius in evolving to a point where it claims that one must be dead in order to "know" for sure. In antiquity (as with J. Smith), claims were made of actual gods visiting earth, impregnating females, causing geological and cosmic catastrophes and otherwise toying with their humans. In modern times, all of that godly mischief is procrastinated until the "end times." The sideshows of antiquity are mostly gone, leaving the faithful to claim whatever "flawless god" they wish to own. Those are some pretty big flawless shoes to be filled.

may become, but only after being vicariously necro dunked in Mormon Temple a day or two after his ultimate demise.

The competition will be fierce as to which TBM will claim credit for Bro Dawkins having been vicariously body snatched by the Kolob-Zombie-Eyed Mormons?

Mormons struggle between gods;

On one hand, the god we cannot understand


OTOH, the one we're supposedly similar to-with



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2017 01:43PM by GNPE.

Oh no. I'm sure he is devastated that you don't agree with everything he says.

Cross him off your Christmas card list.


I admire and agree with Tomas Jefferson about a lot of things. I'm NOT so impressed with how he handled slavery.

Same with Dawkins, any philosopher, or guru. I've given up on finding anyone who agrees with me on everything.

There is no one better than Dawkins when it comes to education about evolution. It is impossible to read his books on the topic and not understand it unless someone has decided they don't like his personality.

His personality is off-putting for a lot of people, but I recommend they learn to separate the message from the messenger and evaluate the message without personality bias.

It's his intellectual dishonesty I have a problem with, not his biological theories.
He insists 3 times in the Stein interview that ANY kind of a God is completely incompatible with anything he has said. That's bullshit. Apparently he believes in the "God of the Physicists" or "Einsteinian Religion" which is compatible with his scientific theories. Why does he insist otherwise, 3 times, in Stein's interview?
Isn't conflating "The God of the Physicists" with all other Gods, "Intellectual High Treason"?
He said it was, yet he commits it by insisting he doesn't believe in any gods, when claimed in his book that he does believe in Einstein's Pantheistic god (or at least his "religion")?

Interesting how you keep quiet about the intellectual dishonesty of Ben Stein.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

Wow, if everyone lost all respect for everyone that phrased something in a unclear way, nobody would have any respect for anyone else.

I believe that Dawkins was talking about the actual existence of God, not what someone BELIEVES God to be, including the unproven claims of Physicists, and what the BELIEVE God to be.

Just because Dawkins references someone's MADE UP version of God, does not make what he says about the actual nature of God, as actually existing.

Dawkins can believe:

-The god of the physicists is a made up god god that does not exist, thus NOT A REAL GOD.

The god of the Christians made up, thus does not exist, thus NOT A GOD.

He can then say: "Any god anywhere would be completely incompatible with ANYthing that I've said." And not actually be talking about EITHER of those made up Gods.

Also,, as he stated the God as described by the physicists, and the Gods described by the Theists are, as he correctly states, vastly different things. He, as authors often do, could focus on one of the gods described, and chose the one that people worship, pray to and form religion around.

In other words, the gods would not be incomparable with what you quoted him as saying.

You are "tilting at windmills"

koriwhore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Apparently
> he believes in the "God of the Physicists" or
> "Einsteinian Religion" which is compatible with
> his scientific theories.

Since he's never stated any such thing, how can you say "apparently" about that?

> Isn't conflating "The God of the Physicists" with
> all other Gods, "Intellectual High Treason"?

Since he goes to great pains -- numerous times -- to point out that "Einstein's god" isn't a "god" at all, what's "apparent" is that you've missed the point entirely.

Yet, having missed the point entirely, you still get angry at Dawkins because YOU didn't understand or bother to actually read what he's written/said.

> He said it was, yet he commits it by insisting he
> doesn't believe in any gods, when claimed in his
> book that he does believe in Einstein's
> Pantheistic god (or at least his "religion")?

From your original post:
"He admits he believes in the "God of the Physicists" or Einsteinian Religion, but says to confuse the two is an act of intellectual high treason."

He doesn't "admit" any such belief. He simply points out that the "god" Einstein referred to isn't a "supernatural god." Or a "god" at all, it's just "nature."

Your "intellectual high treason" is showing.
Nature isn't "god." It's nature. Some people called it "god," for various reasons -- not wanting to be publicly labeled "atheist," not wanting to let go of some kind of "religion," whatever. But they were never, ever referring to actual "god" things. That's what Dawkins pointed out, and which you refuse to bother to understand.

I think this happens once you get into a god that has no definition. On one hand, if you can't assign any definition you can say the god is incompatible with everything since you don't know what the god is. On the other hand, you an say it is compatible, since there are no actual qualities.

I have been worse than him over the years. If someone says they define god as the laws of physics, I might say I can believe in that god. Einstein, Darwin and many others have given ambiguous statements about god probably based on audience and the undefined gap people want to assign to a god.

It boils down to definitions and if he didn't clearly define then I can see your issue. Maybe he was trying to find some common ground with Stein. Who knows. Who cares. It's pretty obvious the definition of god would have to be completely obscure to be compatible with most of what Dawkins has written.

Also consider that Dawkins is allowed to refine his views over time just like you or me. I'm a lot more careful around believers now. I'm more likely to say "I don't know" because they keep tweaking the non-qualities of god even though I think what they are saying is most implausible.

I don't know if this is ever going to get through to some but just in case.

Spinoza's god isn't a god. Spinoza's god is the sum of all the parts. When many philosophers, scientists, and sundry say they believe in Spinoza's god they are not professing belief in a god but instead reframing the debate. As evidenced in the quote "I believe in god, if by god you mean".

The word god and supernatural are equal sides of an equation. If you insist on this discussion and fail to make the distinction that you aren't talking about supernatural than you will find inconsistencies like this. Perhaps that is Dawkins failure but it doesn't make him a hypocrite just poorly spoken.

OP Wrote:

"Isn't it possible that the Taoist god is one and the same as the God of the Physicists?

How does that conversation never come up in EVERY GD interview of Dawkins?


**************


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein

Excerpt:

"Prompted by his colleague L. E. J. Brouwer Einstein read the philosopher Eric Gutkind's book Choose Life,[14] a discussion of the relationship between Jewish revelation and the modern world. On January 3, 1954 Einstein sent the following reply to Gutkind, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends…. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions."[15][16][17]"


>>>JUST LIKE ALL OTHER RELIGIONS<<<


A: Perhaps, stop assuming that you know Einstein writings as well as Dawkins (and others, including interviewers) do. To readers of Einstein (and Dawkins), your desperately desired question is moot.

Dawkins' efforts, I guess sadly for you, have not been fruitless.

Happy trails in trying to find physicists to slam for their lack of faith in failing to turn physics into a superstitious belief set. I guess Einstein is on that list.

I wonder when was the exact moment Dawkins gave a shit what you thought of his credibility? What are your credentials and expertise there Kori? You some kinda Oxford chaired professor of sumpin??

HH =)

Dawkins is so full of shit its coming out his ears is all.
This is an open forum for discussing topics like this.
Got a problem with that?
Why are you here?

So you have direct scientific evidence that his "selfish gene" book is riddled with errors? Or that his Endowed Chair at Oxford was inappropriately given?

What are your credentials again Kori? Why should Dawkins care about your loss of faith in him? When did he ask for it exactly.

I completely agree that this is a forum to discuss these things. So I am here discussing your OP.

Hissy-Fit much there cowboy?

HH =)

He waxes poetic in The God Delusion and claims he is a deeply religious Non Believer, like Einstein. He says he believes in Einstein's Religion, Einsteinianism. Einstein believed in Spinozas God.
Einstein described exactly what he belueved about the nature of God/Cosmose.
My thesis is, Dawkins conflates the god he believes in, Spinoza's God, with the Judeo Chrustian God, by denying borh equally by insisting any god would be completely incompatible with any version of god.
Which completely contradicts the enture first ch of his book about the subject.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2017 09:05PM by koriwhore.

And yet, you have been unable to actually point out the "shit".

Yes, this is an open forum and you are free to continue to embarrass your self.

Serioisly?
If you cant see the Cog Dis and herd mentality around here I cant help you.
Your shell is impenatrable.
You are too deep in the cave.

I see the cognitive dissonance coming from you, and your increasing belligerence toward the people that disagree with you, yes.

There are plenty of things to disagree with Dawkins about.
And plenty of things to point out where he's inconsistent, overly-general, and more.

This isn't any of those.

It's like when I saw a picture of Walt Disney smoking a cigarette. At that instant, all of the magic of Disneyland went up in smoke - it was all meaningless. His life's work meant nothing to me. I've never set foot in the magic kingdom since that fateful day.

When I left Christianity, I thought I still believed in a "god," although I hoped/assumed this god had been misquoted in the bible, because if not, then he wasn't worth believing in at all, let alone worshipping.

When I began to realize that the GOTB (God of the Bible) was nothing but an evil prankster--a narcissistic self-worshiper who was likely to stamp his foot and pout and threaten "hellfire eternal" if everybody else didn't worship him, too, I lost all respect for him. (He reminds me of a current political figure in the news a lot...) Of course, the GOTB was also the God of Judaism and Islam, so...for my money, all three Abrahamic religions were hogwash.

I started reading the "new atheists." I liked Hitchens, and loved Sam Harris, but I thought Dawkins was a little too much "in your face" when there was no reason to be. But the longer I lived and the more I read and the more honest I became with and about myself, the better I liked Dawkins. My mother used to say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Well, Richard Dawkins can't say anything nice about religion, but he chooses to not keep his mouth shut and says what he thinks anyway. My dad told me always "To thine own self be true." Dawkins is. So now when I read his stuff, I find that I like him better than I used to.

As for Ben Stein, I used to think of him as an intelligent man. But knowing what I now know of his political leanings and his religious leanings, I have decided he is not so intelligent as I had thought, although he is certainly well educated in many areas. However, as I consider him easily hoodwinked, I'm thinking he's not really as smart as I thought he was, or as he thinks he is. I'm surprised that he hasn't gone all the way and become a Mormon. Or a Scientologist.

I took a class offered in the Zoology department entitled Sociobiology while I attended BYU in the early 1980's. Sociobiology is a controversial idea that attempts to redefine the unit of natural selection as a group of organisms (societies, flocks, herds, etc.) as opposed to the individual organism. It developed to explain behaviors such as altruism.

We were presented with texts written by multiple authors on each side of the argument. The class was not typical 'BYU' and that should be placed in the perspective of someone who does not think their education at BYU is something to be ashamed of.

One of the books we read was The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I thought, and still think, it is a fascinating book (in fact I still have that copy of the text). Dawkins took the debate in a different direction. He redefined the unit of selection as the gene. Therefore behaviors such as self sacrifice can be viewed as behavior that perpetuates a given gene pool. This makes sense especially with respect to altruism in families where such behavior may ensure the survival of shared genes. Given that many animal societies including human (until relatively recently)have consisted of near and distant relatives self sacrificing behavior for members of the group was selected for because the gene survived. Since then I have read other books by Dawkins and I like what he has to say.

But, back to Sociobiology, there were two events that I would have to say were BYU unique. The first involved a young woman who asked the professor on the first day of class if the class was "appropriate." Not sure how she defined appropriate but she was quick to mention that her husband would not want her taking a class if it wasn't. The second involved her and about 20 others never being seen again in class after the opening class of the semester. Our seminar of ten enjoyed the rest of the semester.

Hahaha. Gotta laugh at the That's-Not-Faith-Promoting students at BYU!

I encountered several back in the 70s.

It's like they instinctively know to avoid any class that might teach them something.

I would like to point out that all Dawkins was really trying to say was that the einsteinian "god" doesn't really count as a god at all. In Dawkins own words, pantheism is just "sexed up atheism". Some people like to define god in such a way that literally anything would fit the definition of a god. Even the big bang itself. I am sure that Dawkins believes in the big bang, but also believes it does not qualify as a god. Einstein uses god as a metaphor. He was an atheist.

I would say that Dawkins does believe in something similar to Einsteins god. But like I and he said, that doesn't actually qualify as a god. Even if some people call it that.

Einstein said specifically that henwas not an atheist although he didnt believe in the Biblical God or any other personal god.

bona dea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Einstein said specifically that henwas not an
> atheist although he didnt believe in the Biblical
> God or any other personal god.

Einstein said that he didn't like the "professional atheists" of his time, and he wasn't one of them.

Einstein was also very concerned about PR, as he was a refugee in a very religious country, and he didn't want to "offend" the people in the country that took him in.

So rejecting the label "atheist" as it was used in his time was both honest for him at the time (with regard to the "crusading, professional atheists" of his time), and a bit dishonest, as part of it was simply public relations. That doesn't change the simple fact that, lacking belief in "god," he was an atheist.

I am aware that he didn't consider himself an atheist. But I said that because knowing what he believed, I would still consider him an atheist. I think Dawkins would also consider him an atheist. He was also very clear that he did not believe in a personal god.

Anyways, this whole conversation depends on what counts as a god, and what counts as an atheist. Under mine and Dawkins definition, Einstein was an atheist. Either way, Einsteins god is "light years away" from the type of god in the bible.

Richard Dawkins is a nasty bigot... who has made idiotic comments sbout rape and paedophilia and talked about selective breeding of humans for superior characteristics. Like Ricky Gervais, he is a horrie role model.

Slo.Mo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> he is a horrie role model.


I recommend you don't make him your role model then.

Good luck finding someone who agrees with you about everything to have as a role model. I haven't found anyone yet.

I gotta say though, Ricky can be darn entertaining.

At least Ricky is funny. Dawkins, not so much.
I did love his series, "The Root of Evil" lol
I loved Bill Maher's "Religulous" although Maher is way more hillarious.
I've read his books and know his credentials.
I respect him as a scientist and as "Darwin's Pitbull"
I just don't think that making everybody look like an idiot who speaks with you is a great way to win friends and influence people. Dale Carnegie would hate Dawkins. So would Einstein. He's so rude to religious people, but it's hillarious when he gets asshats like TedHaggard to throw him out of his Mega Church and threaten to call the cops on him for calling his children monkeys.
Fragile much?
God that was epic, especially considering the fact Haggard was doing blow off a gay hooker's ass at the time, while filming Jesus Camp and demonizing gays.
I'm not on either side.
I'm fine right here being a pantheist, like Einstein, Sagan and the Dalai Lama.

I agree.
I think his Egocentric Judeo Christian world view is why he says, that "Pantheism is just sexed up Atheism".
That's bullshit.
Tell every Buddhist, Taoist, confuscists, Shintoist, Native American, Epicurian, Stoic, Einstein, Neal deGrasse Tyson they're atheists. Theyll give you the same answer as Einstein, No, I'm not! I believe in Spinozza's God."
and Sagan.
"An Atheist would have to know far more than me about the Cosmos." said the guy who wrote the book on the subject.
Tell the Native Americans that their "Great Spirit" was really just nothing.
Tell the Stoics their Logos was nothing.
Tell the Romans their Genius was nothing.
Tell the Socrates his Daemon was nothing.
That his divine reason, was demonic.
Tell the Zen Buddhists their Tao is nothing.
And they'll tell you nothing is also everything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2017 09:38PM by koriwhore.

"Buddhist, Taoist, confuscists, Shintoist, Native American" Are NOT pantheists. Even if some are, it is not because they are "Buddhist, Taoist, confuscists, Some may be atheists without being pantheist, some may be pantheists without being atheists. Shintoist, Native American" You do not know what you are talking about.

To claim that Native Americans have a single belief system is nonsense. From what I have read, many have some version of mythology based on spirit animals with supernatural powers (thoug not all the same), which is not pantheism.

koriwhore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree.
> I think his Egocentric Judeo Christian world view
> is why he says, that "Pantheism is just sexed up
> Atheism".
> That's bullshit.
> Tell every Buddhist, Taoist, confuscists,
> Shintoist, Native American, Epicurian, Stoic,
> Einstein, Neal deGrasse Tyson they're atheists.
> Theyll give you the same answer as Einstein, No,
> I'm not! I believe in Spinozza's God."
> and Sagan.

You've gone off the rails here a bit. By grouping religions that don't necessarily have a god but definitely rely on supernatural phenomena and explanations you undermine your point. Einstein, deGrasse Tyson, Spinozza, Sagan, et all. would and have many times rejected out of hand the idea that supernatural explanations and phenomena have a place in their personal world view. You lump all these things together because they have specific things in common, ignoring the many other things that cause them to be different.

> "An Atheist would have to know far more than me
> about the Cosmos." said the guy who wrote the book
> on the subject.

A statement one would expect to hear from someone would require evidence to reject an idea. Simply stated they don't entertain ideas without data.

> Tell the Native Americans that their "Great
> Spirit" was really just nothing.

Isn't it just nothing? I mean what leads you to believe that their great spirit is something. And by the way what great spirit are you talking about because I think you'll find that there is some disagreement about a homogenous great spirit.

> Tell the Stoics their Logos was nothing.

Really, is it the Stoic's Logos? But seriously Logos is closer to intelligent design than it is to the laws that govern the universe. At least to the Stoics the Logos was the active reasoning behind every action in the universe. It isn't really that far off from the Christian concept of god. The most tangible difference being that Christians also believe that god is actively working to enlighten them instead of the other way around.

> Tell the Romans their Genius was nothing.

(swears) You are talking about fucking genies. But on a lighter note this is another belief that Christians coopted. Even Mormons believe that everything has a soul.

> Tell the Socrates his Daemon was nothing.
> That his divine reason, was demonic.

(more swears) You are talking about fucking demons. See above.

> Tell the Zen Buddhists their Tao is nothing.

Really this is tiring, but go back to the Logos blurb. The only difference between the god of Christianity and the Tao is that one is trying to save everyone and the other requires that you save yourself. Tao is a real beautiful concept but at the core it's foundation is outside of the realm of the natural world.

> And they'll tell you nothing is also everything.

Kind of backwards but I'll forgive you. The idea is that nothing matters, or that everything doesn't matter. Again, quite profound but not super helpful.


Just my two cents.

He knows his subject,biology, but is pretty ignorant on lots of other things as well as being a bigot.

Tyson is explicitly agnostic in his own words because he hasn't put in the time and study on the topic. However there is plenty of other video where he decries belief. I'm thinking of a specific one where he mentions that 85% of scientists are non believers. So what is up with that OTHER 15%. Note his use of other putting him clearly among the non believers.

Similarly your use of the other people and groups inputs a belief in divinity they didn't express and convergence with your views which is also unexpressed.

What was that quote earlier about intellectual dishonesty?

Hogan's Heroes was okay, didn't care for the kissing stuff on Family Feud, though.


What?



Not Dawson?



Oh.

Nevermind.