Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 07:44:29 -0600, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 07:53:36 +0200, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

The existence of radio communication is definitely knowable. A few
centuries ago, it would have been considered supernatural to be
able
to send messages apparently instantly (and definitely much faster
than with a courier riding a fast horse) over long distances, even
when direct visual contact was not possible.

Sure. But it's difficult to imagine what we might find supernatural
today. Today we understand most of nature. I doubt Clarke's Law
applies anymore. I don't imagine we could encounter any technology
advanced enough to appear as magic. We now have enough knowledge to
recognize the likely natural law underlying anything we encounter,

You sound like a physicist from the late 1800's. Back then, physics
was believed to be understood almost completely. Only a few minor
details needed to be clarified. However, those "minor details" soon
expanded into relativity and QM, making physics quite different
compared to earlier...


even if we lack perfect understanding.

Btw I encountered some new worlds the other day:

Nontheism - vaguely similar to atheism but still different. There
are
nontheistic religions for instance, like some varieties of
Buddhism.

In actual usage, nontheism and atheism are synonyms.


Apatheism - having no interest in the question about the eventual
existence of deities. An apatheist is therefore neither a theist
nor
an atheist. You say apatheists do not exist, but if so, why invent
a
word for a non-existing property?

"Apatheism" is a portmanteau of "apathetic" and "atheism". A recent
word which refers to unreflective atheism. An apatheist is an
atheist
who doesn't give the matter any thought and isn't interested in any
underlying philosophical questions about the matter. All apatheists
are atheists, but not all atheists are apatheists.

Why couldn't an apatheist just as well be a theist? He mcould believe
there might be deities but he doesn't care about them.

Og course an apatheist is nonreflective. But being nonreflective is
getting fashionable these days. Consider the increasing number of
people believing in a flat Earth. Or the election of Donald Trump as
the US president.