Neil Degrasse Tyson

[Napoléon]

There is a movement whether you like it or not

He never said otherwise, for someone who preaches about basic communication in his very next post I'd have thought that was obvious.

[Dystopia]

There is a movement whether you like it or not

He never said otherwise, for someone who preaches about basic communication in his very next post I'd have thought that was obvious.

He/she objected to calling atheism a movement when it wasn't being done - Neil didn't say atheism itself is a movement, just that there's a movement inside it and that's true - there's actually several movements with different goals

[Napoléon]

It was very rude of people to insist he's an atheist when he's an agnostic.

If he doesn't believe in a god, it's not at all rude to point out that he actually meets the description for such a word that accurately describes such a thing. Agnosticism and atheism aren't mutually exclusive, we all know this. By all means he can call himself what he likes, and identify as what he likes. But a white guy saying "I'm blonde, people should always refer to me as blonde, not white", doesn't stop him from being white. What you're effectively saying is we should call the blonde guy blonde and only blonde, because that's what he likes to be called, but it's bad if we call him white, as though he's not actually white at all.

[Napoléon]

He/she objected to calling atheism a movement when it wasn't being done - Neil didn't say atheism itself is a movement

Where did Neim refer to NDT calling atheism a movement? He was responding to what the OP said, not what NDT said. Like I said, a bit rich to bash everyone else's communication skills when you're not even representing other people properly.

[Longhorn]

There is a movement whether you like it or not, it's just that most of us are not part of it.

Umm....EXACTLY?

I'm objecting to calling atheism IN GENERAL a movement. I'm not denying the existence of atheistic movements. I was objecting to the OP saying that 'we should dissociate him from the atheism movement'. I'm not in a movement, and I don't know who 'we' refers to.

Christianity is simply the belief in the divinity of Jesus - There is nothing else as a requirement, so how is that at least a concise movement?

But a lack of belief provides much less common ground than a belief. That's kind of the fucking point. Christians have an ideology, vanilla atheists per se do not.

[Confused Ape]

If he doesn't believe in a god, it's not at all rude to point out that he actually meets the description for such a word that accurately describes such a thing.

In the video he clearly states his definition of agnosticism as doesn't know because of lack of evidence but will embrace any evidence if it turns up. Also, if it's not there he's not forced to think something that is not supported.  So, he hasn't actually stated he doesn't believe in any kind of Supreme Being or claiming that he knows for a fact that there's no Supreme Being.

- Agnosticism and atheism aren't mutually exclusive, we all know this.

People have come up with various categories of agnostics and atheists and yes, some of the categories do overlap.

 By all means he can call himself what he likes, and identify as what he likes.

He identifies himself as an agnostic - someone who doesn't know.  That's why I think it's rude for Wikipedia authors to say he's an atheist when he identifies himself as being an agnostic.

[Napoléon]

That's why I think it's rude for Wikipedia authors to say he's an atheist when he identifies himself as being an agnostic.

It's pretty well known, and implied by a multitude of talks and quotes, that NDT doesn't believe in a god. Bottom line is, if that's the case, then he meets the criteria for being an atheist. Whether NDT himself likes being called one, is irrelevant to the fact that he is one.

Unless you want to seriously argue that NDT knowingly believes in a god? Because anything otherwise, even saying "I don't know" to the question, is basically, for all intents and purposes == to not believing. And that is the only requirement for being called an atheist.

[Confused Ape]

It's pretty well known, and implied by a multitude of talks and quotes, that NDT doesn't believe in a god. Bottom line is, if that's the case, then he meets the criteria for being an atheist. Whether NDT himself likes being called one, is irrelevant to the fact that he is one.

What he might have implied by talks and quotes is one thing.  He has now clearly stated that he's an agnostic and wishes to be known as one.

even saying "I don't know" to the question, is basically, for all intents and purposes == to not believing. And that is the only requirement for being called an atheist.

If that were true there wouldn't be the term Agnosticism.  Just to make things REALLY complicated, scroll down to Note No.2 from the following Wikepedia article where a still living philosopher would disagree with your definition.

Agnosticism

Rowe, William L. (1998). "Agnosticism". In Edward Craig. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-07310-3. In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in God, whereas an atheist disbelieves in God. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist. In so far as one holds that our beliefs are rational only if they are sufficiently supported by human reason, the person who accepts the philosophical position of agnosticism will hold that neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God does not exist is rational."

NDT is a scientist, not a philosopher so I'm guessing that he's going by the popular definition of the word.

The neuroscientist, Ramachandran, doesn't class himself as an atheist even though he doesn't believe in a personal God.

Noted neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California (San Diego). His work has been featured on a NOVA special 'Secrets of the Mind' [1] on PBS.

From a BBC interview [2]

Like most scientists I'm agnostic. If you're talking about God in some very abstract sense, like in India the Dance of Shiva or in the Spinoza sense of the word God, then I'll say I have no problem with it. But if you're talking about an old guy there who's watching me and making sure I behave myself and that I pray to him every day and that I will be punished in Hell if I do something wrong, I don't believe in that. And I don't want to offend anybody here, but that's my personal view.

He explains his view in this video (start at 1.16) Maybe he wouldn't be too pleased if people insisted he's an atheist just because he doesn't believe in the God of the Bible.

[CapnAwesome]

I think the main reason that he shies away from it is that he doesn't want to become involved in the shitstorm of having to deal with creationists and wackos like Dawkins and Hitchens constantly had to. That's the main thing I got from that video. Also what's wrong with being an agnostic anyway?

[Clueless Morgan]

Whether NDT is an atheist or not really doesn't make a lot of a difference to me. I've heard him explain why he doesn't use that label and favors simply "scientist" instead and if that works for him then what's it to me to say otherwise? In my opinion, he often expresses his skepticism in such a way as to strongly imply that he's an atheist, but I don't really care. He's doing what he thinks is best for him in order to be the most effective science communicator he can be.

With that said, he recently had a Jesuit priest on StarTalk on his apparent deference to all the priests' "gotcha!" questions was really annoying, especially when, had that conversation not been intended for general audiences, the majority of which are probably theistic to some degree, I think he might have gone after the guy a little more. He shows a deference to religion that he doesn't show to other claims, like aliens or big foot or the like, that I, personally think is unwarranted.

But that's just my opinion.

As for him being rather ignorant of what atheism is or isn't or how he might be connecting it to things it's not inherently connected to... yeah, that's also annoying, since it makes it harder for the actual atheist activists (of whom I am not a part of) to fight misconceptions about atheists. NDT linking it to a philosophy or saying that it comes with baggage gives theists a person in a position of "authority" to point to and say, "he says its a philosophy and he's really smart an stuff, so he's right and you're wrong!" and it just makes it harder to explain how *I* see atheism to anyone who talks to me about it. (Which is hardly ever.)