Neil Degrasse Tyson

[Cephus]

I wanted to know your guys' thoughts on Neil, because I have a very different view of him than many other atheists might have.

I believe that he is a great scientist and is really smart, however his attitudes towards atheism are very cowardly. In the video below he makes many cringe worthy statements. For example at around the 25 second mark he calls atheism a philosophy and claims that with it comes baggage. He also is extremely ignorant when it comes to the terms atheism and agnosticism.

I think it is time that we completely disassociate him from the atheism movement, because that is what he wants us to do. 

First off, there is no atheist movement.  That's absurd.  Secondly, Tyson, like everyone, is free to label himself however he wants to label himself.  Third, even if there was an atheist movement, which there isn't, but even if there was, there is no mechanism by which we could eject anyone from the imaginary movement so this is entirely moot.

[Cephus]

Political correctness at its finest.

Tell me about it. We really need to eliminate all progressives for the sake of humanity.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

[Dystopia]

I wanted to know your guys' thoughts on Neil, because I have a very different view of him than many other atheists might have.

I believe that he is a great scientist and is really smart, however his attitudes towards atheism are very cowardly. In the video below he makes many cringe worthy statements. For example at around the 25 second mark he calls atheism a philosophy and claims that with it comes baggage. He also is extremely ignorant when it comes to the terms atheism and agnosticism.

I think it is time that we completely disassociate him from the atheism movement, because that is what he wants us to do. 

First off, there is no atheist movement.  That's absurd.  Secondly, Tyson, like everyone, is free to label himself however he wants to label himself.  Third, even if there was an atheist movement, which there isn't, but even if there was, there is no mechanism by which we could eject anyone from the imaginary movement so this is entirely moot.

There is no Christian movement either, there's just groups of Christians who think similarly

[Dystopia]

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.

Really? Why should people love each other and get along just because they both believe in the divinity of Jesus? What if I thought Jesus was divine and was a hardcore racist and my friend was a hardcore anti-racist - Should we get along automatically just because we think Jesus is divine? It's kinda like saying one thing in common should unite people right away, that's not how it works, otherwise there would be just one Christian movement, and one Muslim movement, etc etc

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.

The OP was obviously talking about mainstream atheist movements like the legion of Richard Dawkins supporters, "secular" foundations, conventions, youtube atheists, etc - There is a set of common ground between all those activists and the OP is saying we (not necessarily all of us here on board) should dissociate NDT from the movement because he's taking a contrary stance.

[Dystopia]

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.

Tu quoque?

[Dystopia]

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.

This is true however like he said he just thinks there shouldn't be a word for atheism - It's not that I agree with him, but it's his position, he doesn't call himself an atheist just like he doesn't call himself an agolfist.

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.)

I don't think he called atheism a philosophy - Though being an atheist can cause people to have a lot of philosophical questions that religions often answer - He just said that associating with any label, whether it is an idea, a philosophy, a position of belief, etc, brings baggage and that's true for any category of people. In this case, the baggage is probably being associated with people like Richard Dawkins who he once said disagrees with when it comes to the methodology.

[Shuffle]

First off, there is no atheist movement.  That's absurd.  Secondly, Tyson, like everyone, is free to label himself however he wants to label himself.  Third, even if there was an atheist movement, which there isn't, but even if there was, there is no mechanism by which we could eject anyone from the imaginary movement so this is entirely moot.

Define a movement.

[Dystopia]

First off, there is no atheist movement.  That's absurd.  Secondly, Tyson, like everyone, is free to label himself however he wants to label himself.  Third, even if there was an atheist movement, which there isn't, but even if there was, there is no mechanism by which we could eject anyone from the imaginary movement so this is entirely moot.

Define a movement.

A group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or  ideas:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/movement

This seems accurate.

[Napoléon]

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."

You do realise that even by using the definition you are using (which I wouldn't recommend, I'd suggest Oxford English dictionary, it's far more universally accepted and less wishy washy), it doesn't even make it incompatible with atheism nor does it justify in any way your assertion that NDT is not an atheist.

Let's look at what your definition actually says though, seen as you brought it up:

"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"

So what your definition describes, despite it seemingly contradicting itself by first talking about disbelief* in 'the popular sense' and then clarifying with only talking about belief in 'the strict sense', is someone's view on what is knowable, or rather, what is rational to accept. And in both your definition, and the definition that Oxford uses, agnosticism refers directly to a view about knowledge, or what a person deems to be a rational position.

This really isn't even a difficult concept. 

Gnosticism = about knowledge

Theism = about belief

So your definition, my definition, any definition, does absolutely nothing to suggest that NDT cannot hold these views and also lack belief. And anyone with a grain of intellectual honesty knows NDT lacks belief in gods, that's evident in everything he's ever written and said. He's quite famous for saying that science and belief are incompatible, for example. If this doesn't strongly suggest that he disbelieves in gods (which by definition, is atheism), then I don't know what does. 

Now for step 2. 

Look up the definition of atheism in the Oxford dictionary. If you argue after that then you really are a plank. 

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.

That's all nice and rosy but it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to anything here and it's actually, completely irrelevant. You need to really understand the word 'atheist'. If you do that, then to argue that NDT is not one, you have to demonstrate that he actively believes in a god. Good luck with that. 



To simplify my points: neither believing nor disbelieving isn't really possible. Your own definition admits as much, despite opening with it. Likewise it's not possible to both believe and disbelieve at the same time. So you either do one or the other, and if you're 'agnostic' about something, especially a claim, and say 'you don't know', by default, by definition, you lack belief that it is either true, or false. Because how can you actively believe in something while maintaining (that by your own definition) it's irrational to hold the belief that said thing is true? Now NDT could well be an agnostic theist, but that would make him irrational. If there's one thing about NDT we can all work out, it's that he's not a very irrational man.


*a very important point to note is that disbelieving is not the same as believing something is not true. I think this does a better job of explaining than I could: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquest...belief.htm

[Longhorn]

Really? Why should people love each other and get along just because they both believe in the divinity of Jesus? What if I thought Jesus was divine and was a hardcore racist and my friend was a hardcore anti-racist - Should we get along automatically just because we think Jesus is divine? It's kinda like saying one thing in common should unite people right away, that's not how it works, otherwise there would be just one Christian movement, and one Muslim movement, etc etc

Are you serious right now, or do you just enjoy disagreeing?

Christianity is a whole set of ideas, not just that Jesus was a god. Don't pretend like it isn't, it's dishonest. Its an entire religion, with organizational structures and hierarchy and doctrines. Atheism, on the other hand, is a disbelief and nothing more. Do you honestly not see the fucking difference?

The OP was obviously talking about mainstream atheist movements like the legion of Richard Dawkins supporters, "secular" foundations, conventions, youtube atheists, etc - There is a set of common ground between all those activists and the OP is saying we (not necessarily all of us here on board) should dissociate NDT from the movement because he's taking a contrary stance.

Yeah, OBVIOUSLY. To you, maybe. How about let OP clarify what he OBVIOUSLY meant? (apologies if he already did)

I can tell you're a law student -_-