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



 
 
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  #151  
Old September 25th 18, 03:53 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 12:47:51 AM UTC-6, Ninapenda Jibini wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote in
:

On Monday, September 24, 2018 at 10:24:41 AM UTC-6, Jibini Kula
Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

Reality does not require your belief to be reality.


“I reject your reality and substitute my own.” – Adam
Savage

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Just don't whine when people point and laugh at you.


Aw-w-w, really? Why n-o-t?
  #152  
Old September 25th 18, 03:56 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 3:27:16 AM UTC-6, Mike Collins wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote:

On Monday, September 24, 2018 at 10:24:41 AM UTC-6, Jibini Kula Tumbili
Kujisalimisha wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote in
:

I believe that anything that exists is knowable (potentially).

Reality does not require your belief to be reality.


“I reject your reality and substitute my own.” – Adam Savage

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Douglas Adams had this to say about religion:

“I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does
mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.”
Douglas Adams


I consider Adams to be good for a laugh or two.
  #153  
Old September 25th 18, 03:58 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Posts: 659
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 2:47:08 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Monday, September 24, 2018 at 9:12:14 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


It's better to be right. About some things, at least.

Being wrong can lead to you being happy temporarily, and then dead
permanently. One needs to be as aware as possible of the reality of
the world around you, including the things that are not as you wish
them to be, in order to maximize your chances of survival.

John Savard


Indeed:

"Life's tough..... It's even tougher if you're stupid." -- John Wayne
  #154  
Old September 25th 18, 07:25 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
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Posts: 331
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

Gary Harnagel wrote in
:

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 12:47:51 AM UTC-6, Ninapenda
Jibini wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote in
:

On Monday, September 24, 2018 at 10:24:41 AM UTC-6, Jibini
Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

Reality does not require your belief to be reality.

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

Adam
Savage

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Just don't whine when people point and laugh at you.


Aw-w-w, really? Why n-o-t?

QED.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

  #155  
Old September 25th 18, 07:26 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
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Posts: 331
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

Mike Collins wrote in

rnal-september.org:

Gary Harnagel wrote:
On Monday, September 24, 2018 at 10:24:41 AM UTC-6, Jibini Kula
Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

Gary Harnagel wrote in
:

I believe that anything that exists is knowable
(potentially).

Reality does not require your belief to be reality.


“I reject your reality and substitute my own.” – Adam
Savage

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Douglas Adams had this to say about religion:

“I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting.
But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it
seriously.” Douglas Adams

But then, Adams was a comedian.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

  #156  
Old September 25th 18, 09:01 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:26:36 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
On Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 8:43:48 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter

wrote:

On Sun, 23 Sep 2018 06:11:40 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 4:11:07 AM UTC-6, Paul

Schlyter
wrote:

Your failure to provide the evidence I asked for noted. And

here
you also used the flawed argument "since you cannot disproved

me,
must be right".


"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

I presented probabilities that are almost certainty that

civilizations
exist in the universe billions of years older than ours, and you
(dishonestly) prattle about "evidence."


Exactly what do you mean with "the universe billions of years old

er
than our universe"?


The antecedent to "ours" is "civilization" not "universe."


And how do you know that intelligent civilisation will not
self-destruct within a few millennia or so?


I object to your conclusion "almost certainly" when there are no
known positive cases.


Reject all you want, but that's just your biases and prejudices

speaking.
Anyone with a grasp of probability theory and no preconceived

notions
would disagree with you.


No, they would disagree with you. You do need a sufficient base of
actual data to be able to say anything about the probability,
otherwise you are just guessing. You are the one who is biased here,
not me, since I have not claimed any probability figure about that.
We just know too little to be able to do that reliably.


Intelligent life exists on at least one place in our galaxy:

here
on Earth. It may exist elsewhere too but we know nothing

about that.

We DO have brains that can THINK. We deal with probabilities

daily
much less certain than the probability of advanced

civilizations.

You should read Aristotle's writings about nature as an example

of
how erroneous conclusions a brain that THINKS can produce in the
absence of evidence. Such thinking is mostly wishful thinking.


Aristotle didn't have probability theory to guide him.


That didn't prevent him to declare erroneous claims as facts.


Isn't Satan supposed to be a fallen angel? Are angels not
deities?

If Satan isn't a deity it must be a mortal biological

creature.
If so, Satan must be dead by now since it lived thousands of
years ago.

False dichotomy. Are angels "deities"? Were they created?

Who
created them? What about "spirits"?


All these are supernatural deities with supposedly supernatural
powers...



Nope. You failed to copy the scriptural evidence I listed to

promote
your preconceived notions.



"the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh" -- Numbers 27:16



"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison"
-- 1 Peter 3:19



The next line I didn't list explains that the spirits referred to
were disobedient in the time of Noah. From this it is clear that

after
death they became disembodied spirits who weren't "deities" since

they
had to be preached to.



And YOU have a particular definition of "supernatural" that

apparently
means "anything that physics hasn't encountered/detected." I reject
that definition :-)


Nope! Something supernatural is something which contradicts physics.


There's a LOT of evidence that our own spirits exist, but it's

mostly
anecdotal (I say MOSTLY but not ALL).


Anecdotal "evidence" is not real evidence. But if evidence for the
existence of spirits exists, why isn't it a field of scientific
study? And why isn't theology an exact science like physics? Why
aren't our most powerful computers running simulations of God?

There, now you have some things to think about...
  #157  
Old September 25th 18, 09:16 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:26:58 -0600, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 12:03:48 +0200, Paul Schlyter
wrote:


I'm not assuming it's an intellectual decision at all. It is an
intellectual decision to learn critical thinking and apply it,

which
naturally leads one to become an atheist. But I make no

supposition
as
to the nature or quality of the evidence involved in reaching

some
state of belief. It may be academic, it may be emotional, it may

be
programmed childhood dogma. The point is, in our culture we are

all
exposed to some combination of these, and that makes it extremely
unlikely that anybody can honestly have no opinion at all on the
question of the existence of gods.


Why is it unlikely to have no opinion about something you've

realized
is unknowable?


Why should knowability influence opinion? I think it is likely that
the true nature of reality, the underlying "why" of universal laws

are
unknowable.


So what is your opinion about this unknownable "why"? Why are the
universal laws as they are, according to your opinion?


It does not stop me from believing with high confidence
that the mechanisms we can observe accurately describe these things.
Theologically, I can easily argue that the existence of gods is

likely
unknowable (unless they reveal themselves), but nevertheless

believe,
on the face of the available evidence, that they do not exist.



Compared to that bowl with sand and the question about whether the
number of grains of sand in that bowl is an even number or an odd
number. That too is, in practice, unknowable, and it would be

quite
natural to have no opinion about that.



The answer in that case is perfectly knowable. I can count the

grains
and know for certain.


I would like to see you count several billion of grains of sand. One
single miscount would make you producera the wrong answer. And during
the counting process some grains are likely to split into two or more
parts, changing the number of grains. Finally, if you would count one
gran every second, 24 hrs per day every day all year around year
after year, one human lifetime would be insufficient to count a few
billion grains.

I cannot examine the Universe for a god that has
the power to hide itself.


Sure you can examine it, but you may of course fail to find any
deities. But who knows, maybe you are able to outsmart god?


For those who have realized that the question about the existence

or
nonexistence of deities also is unknowable it would be just as
natural to have no opinion about that question. After all, your
opinion about it would say something about you but not anything

about
our universe.


I've certainly never met anybody who had no opinion on the question

of
gods.


True, you haven't met me...

Pretty much for the same reason I've never met anybody with no
opinion on the shape of the Earth. Nobody is that poorly informed on
either issue.


To have no opinion about the existence of God is no stranger than to
have no opinion about why the laws of nature are like they are.
  #158  
Old September 25th 18, 09:22 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Posts: 1,551
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

Spirit is the ability to be inspired and inspiring unless mathematicians didn't get the memo -

"God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4

Astronomy is like music, it takes no effort and no notation to enjoy what is in front of people, it becomes a resonance found in the spirited individual hence Pascal's comment that mathematicians look ridiculous when they try to treat spiritual or intuitive matters from the bottom up -

"We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians are intuitive and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all men, and only a few can feel it."
Pascal


Nobody can deny spirit/inspiration therefore the attempt to sound authoritative just looks hapless leaving you all to bite each other based on your own indoctrination instead of relying on your own talents.



  #159  
Old September 25th 18, 10:51 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 09:24:54 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:
Why is it mandatory to "choose side" here?


Because that is what the majority of people do when faced with a

binary
yes or no question (and what polarises US political debate too).


Why is it mandatory to do what the majority does?

A majority of the people don't watch the skies. Does that mean we all
must stop stargazing?
  #160  
Old September 25th 18, 11:45 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
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Posts: 1,551
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

To be fair to Pascal, he did say -

"But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical."

For a pastime a few decades ago, I considered the Pi proportion first and not so much whether it could end in an even or odd number but rather the non periodic arithmetic behind it as it is neither organised nor random in its expression of the proportion between circumference and diameter. With all the dull minds setting a lower geometric limit for length, it was a simple matter of determining that the Pi value cannot become periodic.

Now the Pi proportion is one thing but the Phi proportion is something else and specifically quasi-crystal growth and their antecedent tiling on the plane made up of four angles. Dull minds can't make heads nor tails of the old symbol which incorporates a bottom up and a top down proportion to create the same thing -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Quasicrystal


I think you are all better off arguing over the evidence for god or some other meaningless pursuit for only a love of creation and the one geometric thing which distinguishes from all other planets ,in this case the Phi proportion in nature, allows individuals to pass through this heaven on Earth loving how all things participate to make our lives possible, from the rainy day to the motion of the solar system through the galaxy.

It isn't that you have small minds but small hearts clouded in schoolboy convictions.



 




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