Neil Degrasse Tyson

[Shuffle]

Yes. That is what I meant. 

[Dystopia]

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 -_-

I'll take that as a compliment but seriously the OP wasn't implying we are all one big movement with a church, to suggest that is wrong because there's no rational basis.

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?

No, it is simply the belief that Jesus was a messiah and was divine, that's a core belief that describes a follower of Christ. The organizational structures, the bible, commandments, rules, ideologies are all optional and people have the right to choose which ones they prefer. A religion is simply a spiritual or else ideological or metaphysical belief that people have in common, but it's a too broad concept. The Pope doesn't have political power outside the Vatican, he can only tell people what he thinks is right and wrong, and people can obey or not according to their will and morality, etc - You don't need to go to church to be a Christian so churches are not a fundamental component of Christianity. All you need is the core belief. That's the only thing guaranteed to be common ground on Christians but aside from that there's Christians will all kinds of disagreements inside christianity and religion itself. I never said that both were equal (disbelief and belief) but to suggest a simply common belief brings common ground is incorrect because it doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have so many christian sects, some of them completely contradictory to each other. A lack of belief can bring people together as well, it's not so much if there is a holy book or commandments but if those people feel the need to search for someone similar to them, organize themselves in groups and make points or protests about a cause they care about. The fact atheists don't have a holy book or a Pope isn't as important as what (I'm talking about organized atheists only) they do in practice and how they behave - You don't need a holy book to engage in stupidity and you can make up social rules without writing them down. For example, while there isn't a commandment about this I'm going to suggest with reasonable certainty that in some organized atheist circles it is probably very objectionable to suggest religion might actually do good as well - And this is an example of how social groups create rules and groupthinking. No group should be unchecked, and the idea that groups organized around disbelief shouldn't be criticized is bad because it leaves them unchecked and free to roam around. To think one social group, even if it's a group of nonbelievers, is different, is what allows groups to behave badly in the first place.

Non-belief isn't equivalent to belief, that was never my point - I know the difference - It was just that belief doesn't unite and allow us to make assumptions as much as people think - Churches, holy books and rules are optional compared to core beliefs and you can't assume every X inside Y religion will follow them because it comes down to personal choices. Groups of religious people unite themselves because they share common goals, but that's not mandatory to be religious, and groups of non believers, deists or any other social group can unite themselves as well, and all of them can create dogmas, unquestionable principles and behave immorally. You may think that the bible is holy for most Christians, but what if I told you that some followers of Dawkins take the God Delusion as something very close to a bible, not in a spiritual sense but as if the book had all the answers about religion and they don't need to read any other books because they already know everything about religious people? Do you think this is a mentality that ought to be supported?

[BitchinHitchins]

I strongly admire NDT and I think he is a brilliant man. I definitely see his point of view on not wanting to label himself and the perception people have towards the word atheist. However, he actually does go on in this video do defend his label as an agnostic. So, in the long run, he is actually classifying himself within a certain group. Either way it is all semantics, and theists are always going to have a certain perception/label for every being that opposes their beliefs.

So what if there is a certain negative perception toward the word 'atheist'? Why not chose that label and destroy the stereotypes?

[Napoléon]

the OP wasn't implying we are all one big movement with a church, to suggest that is wrong because there's no rational basis.

O rly?

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

No, no rational basis at all.

[Shuffle]

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

No, no rational basis at all.

That is why I said, because that is what he wants us to do. I was implying that whoever was continuing to "own" him, as he stated, should stop. All I was saying is that whatever anyone is doing that is making him mad, should stop.

[Brian37]

I hate the word coward. I think he avoids terms like athiest and or agnostic athiest because of his empathy and sense of fairness. Cosmos was hardly kind to theism and watch tons of his videos on YouTube you know he does not take god claims seriously. He comes across to me more like a couple when they break up who says "Its not you, its me"

[Confused Ape]

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.

It's not my definition. William Rowe is a philosopher and that's his definition.  I quoted it because he's saying that people who disbelieve there's a God are no more rational than people who believe there is a God.  This goes further than the online Oxford Dictionary which just says - "A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God."  I thought that an interesting point of view.

"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 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. 

What we do know from that video is that NDT disagrees with atheists who claim that all agnostics are really atheists. He's also based his definition on what Thomas Henry Huxley said.

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.

I quoted Ramachandran to show his idea of what being an agnostic is. He doesn't believe in a personal God but is agnostic about some of the Hindu deities. This suggests that individual agnostics mightn't see themselves exactly as philosophers and dictionaries say they should

You need to really understand the word 'atheist'.

Maybe NDT is confused about the real meaning of the word 'atheist'.  After all, a lot of people in the now defunct Richard Dawkins forum believed that atheism is some kind of ideology full of shoulds and oughts and missions such as stamping out religion.

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. 

Maybe he just thinks that the existence of some kind of deity is impossible to prove or disprove so he doesn't want to be bothered with the question. We'll never really know unless somebody from this forum emails him and asks him to provide exact details of his views.  All we can be certain of is that he'd be very annoyed if the email included the statement that he's actually an atheist.

Likewise it's not possible to both believe and disbelieve at the same time.

Here's a video which raises questions about the human brain.  Maybe there are people who are literally in two minds about the existence of some kind of deity but their hemispheres can't be questioned separately unless their brains are split.

[Napoléon]

It's not my definition. William Rowe is a philosopher and that's his definition.  I quoted it because he's saying that people who disbelieve there's a God are no more rational than people who believe there is a God.  This goes further than the online Oxford Dictionary which just says - "A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God."  I thought that an interesting point of view.

I think we all know what I mean when I say "your definition". Let's not be overly pedantic.

And it's a nice point of view (well, not really, but I'm not here to argue philosophy, personally I think it's a bullshit POV), but massively sidetracking from any kind of point and is totally irrelevant. A definition that directly implies claims like this is somewhat of a dodgy definition IMO.

What we do know from that video is that NDT disagrees with atheists who claim that all agnostics are really atheists. He's also based his definition on what Thomas Henry Huxley said.

He can disagree all he likes, doesn't make him right.

I quoted Ramachandran to show his idea of what being an agnostic is. He doesn't believe in a personal God but is agnostic about some of the Hindu deities. This suggests that individual agnostics mightn't see themselves exactly as philosophers and dictionaries say they should

Again, his idea is not a definition. It's just his idea. All these people seem to have differing ideas of what agnosticism is and by your own admission here, don't view themselves as what actual definitions would describe them as. Well I'm sorry, the individual person doesn't get to pick and choose what words mean and dictate to everyone else that this is what it should mean specifically for them. Definitions exist for a reason. And I come back to the whole point here: saying it's rude that NDT is labelled as an atheist on his wiki page, when by all accounts he is one, is pretty stupid IMHO.

Maybe NDT is confused about the real meaning of the word 'atheist'.

Then you've just proved my point for me.

After all, a lot of people in the now defunct Richard Dawkins forum believed that atheism is some kind of ideology full of shoulds and oughts and missions such as stamping out religion.

It's not these people who get to dictate what the definition of a word should be though. These aren't some mystical and abstract concepts we're talking about here that have a variety of multiple meanings. They're two words with very straightforward meanings that by all accounts are not mutually exclusive in the slightest. What exactly about this is so hard to comprehend?

Maybe he just thinks that the existence of some kind of deity is impossible to prove or disprove so he doesn't want to be bothered with the question. We'll never really know unless somebody from this forum emails him and asks him to provide exact details of his views.  All we can be certain of is that he'd be very annoyed if the email included the statement that he's actually an atheist.

How do you come to the conclusion that because of his agnosticism, he's thus not an atheist?

The existence of a deity likely is impossible to prove/disprove. Yet last I checked, it has no bearing on someone being identified as an atheist or not. In the definition of atheism, it has absolutely fuck all about proving gods, knowing about gods or proofs of gods. It concerns nothing but belief, and lack of belief. You believe in a god? Theist. You lack belief in a god? Atheist.

It's. Not. That. Hard.

You seem to be adding all this baggage and ignoring the fairly simple question "does he meet the definition for being an atheist?", the answer is a resounding yes. But ofcourse, you'd need to know the basic definition first in order to get that. Seems to me that's the stumbling block.

Here's a video which raises questions about the human brain.

Literally, nothing to do with anything.

[Cephus]

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.

I'm not the one saying one exists.  You did.  You define it.

[IATIA]

The problem with television is that, like any other job, one must 'play the game'. It is not in one's best interest to alienate the majority of the viewers. Sponsors frown on that. It may taste like shit, but it keeps the belly full.