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



 
 
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  #411  
Old October 28th 18, 09:23 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 1:11:47 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?


Perhaps there is a God of some sort, and an afterlife of some sort. That would
be nice, but it's hard to tell. But basically, except for being nicer to one's
fellow man, there is little one can do on the basis of such a simple conclusion.

Now, if there were evidence in favor of this church, or that holy book, telling
us Who God is, and what He wants us to do, that would require a response.

Instead, there is an overabundance of evidence that all such claims are nothing
but schemes to control and manipulate people. And given the existence of so many
such schemes, that evidence of a general nature in favor of a God or an
afterlife, which would make people more receptive to such schemes, would be
falsified, or otherwise influenced by generated predispositions, becomes more
likely.

Egregious cases might be the exception and not the rule, but the founders and
leaders of great world religions do not seem to inspire trust by outsiders.

John Savard
  #412  
Old October 28th 18, 10:50 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 Sun, 28 Oct 2018 12:11:44 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?


Well, if you think those meager data is some evidence for a God -
which God? The catholic God? The protestant God? The orthodox God?
The Sunni Muslim God? The Shia Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Hindu
God? The Zoroastrian God? The Bahai God? The Norse God (which one of
them)? The Roman or Greek God (which one of them)?

Which one? And don't just tell your own belief, instead evaluate the
meager data and tell which one of these gods those data support the
existence of. And do motivate your choice.
  #413  
Old October 28th 18, 10:50 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 Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 2:23:08 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 1:11:47 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?


Perhaps there is a God of some sort, and an afterlife of some sort. That
would be nice, but it's hard to tell. But basically, except for being
nicer to one's fellow man, there is little one can do on the basis of
such a simple conclusion.


Perhaps that's enough :-|

Now, if there were evidence in favor of this church, or that holy book,
telling us Who God is, and what He wants us to do, that would require a
response.

Instead, there is an overabundance of evidence that all such claims are
nothing but schemes to control and manipulate people.


All? Have you investigated them ALL? Aas to your second point, was the
early Christian church with the Apostles and prophets a "scheme" to control
and manipulate people? They all suffered greatly at the hands of Jews and
Romans alike, the leaders being hunted and killed for their faith.

And there are many honest preachers today who have only thoughts of the
welfare of their followers. I think back to Reverend Bragg who was a
circuit preacher in my youth. Congregations paid him to come around on
Sunday, preach a sermon etc. and move on to the next congregation. My
only criticisms of him today is that he only had a part of what the early
Apostles had and his was a paid ministry.

And given the existence of so many such schemes, that evidence of a
general nature in favor of a God or an afterlife, which would make people
more receptive to such schemes, would be falsified, or otherwise
influenced by generated predispositions, becomes more likely.

Egregious cases might be the exception and not the rule, but the founders
and leaders of great world religions do not seem to inspire trust by
outsiders.

John Savard


Perhaps THAT'S why He doesn't provide such evidence? :-)

So you might ask, "Why doesn't he provide sufficient evidence to single
out The One True Church?" I can think of several answers to that :-)
  #414  
Old October 29th 18, 12:02 AM 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 Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3:50:13 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 12:11:44 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?


Well, if you think those meager data is some evidence for a God -
which God? The catholic God? The protestant God? The orthodox God?
The Sunni Muslim God? The Shia Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Hindu
God? The Zoroastrian God? The Bahai God? The Norse God (which one of
them)? The Roman or Greek God (which one of them)?


The human race has invented a LOT of gods. Some founders of religions
may have had some experience with The One True God and then added
trappings (and subtracted things) from them. Others founded religions
based upon certain concepts of there own. The question is, which GOD
would you be most comfortable with? (You, of course, would prefer a
nonexistent one :-)

Which one? And don't just tell your own belief, instead evaluate the
meager data and tell which one of these gods those data support the
existence of. And do motivate your choice.


Actually, the data only supports that "something" leaves the body at
death that can't be accounted for scientifically. It is ASSUMED to be
spirit (we might as well call it that since we have no other name for
it, just like we have no idea what dark matter is).

If it's ACTUALLY a conscious spirit, then it supports a number of religions
and implies that there is life beyond the grave. It seems to me that the
pure Christian religion taught in the Bible supports a loving, personal,
prescient God whose goal is to make us become like Him. All other religions
would have us either be groupies to God (even some Christian religions today
advocate that - see Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth")), or we
"transmigrate" from lower animals to higher animals to human to ? or we
attain nirvana or whatever. They don't seem reasonable to me. That' what
"motivates" my choice. We're all free to choose, but:

"He chose ... poorly" -- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  #415  
Old October 29th 18, 04:19 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
palsing[_2_]
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Posts: 3,068
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 4:02:26 PM UTC-7, Gary Harnagel wrote:

... It seems to me that the
pure Christian religion taught in the Bible supports a loving, personal,
prescient God whose goal is to make us become like Him.


How unfortunate for this point of view that god is quoted in the bible, in many places, to have said...

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Romans 12:19

Does this sound "loving, personal" to you? Really? How about...

"... But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."
Romans 13:4

Nice loving fellow?
  #416  
Old October 29th 18, 04:52 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Posts: 7,018
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 9:19:04 PM UTC-6, palsing wrote:

"... But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."
Romans 13:4

Nice loving fellow?


That depends on how "wrong" is defined.

If "wrong" is defined as not obeying the local priesthood and stuff like that,
such sentiments may be frightening.

But bringing justice to those who have started wars, run cruel tyrannies, robbed
from the poor, and so on... that may be something the common people would hope
that a loving God would do. Perhaps the knowledge that this would be their fate
might even ease the burdens of those who tend to end up as victims.

John Savard
  #417  
Old October 29th 18, 10:57 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Martin Brown[_3_]
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Posts: 189
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On 28/10/2018 09:57, Martin Brown wrote:
On 28/10/2018 09:52, Paul Schlyter wrote:
In article ,
says...

On Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 12:56:35 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

You are a very wise person since debate is worthless.* The only
thing that counts is experimental data, and the only experimental
data in existence is a bit thin.* I find it very interesting that
when thin data exists, there are many who will prefer to beat the
drum for an opposing position which has NO data.

That is quite natural when people like you are over exploiting this
thin set of experimental data, claiming e.g. "this is PROOOOF that
a human soul exists" when it's not that at all.

I NEVER said it was proof.* You are being dishonest.* And you are
conflating
"soul" with "spirit" after I have explained the difference (a minor
matter
but indicative of your sloppiness).


So then please clarify - what has a mass of about 3/8 ounces? The soul or
the spirit?


Approximately 1 mole of water vapour which is probably about the amount
that would be lost due to evaporative cooling of a still warm corpse
when the heart stops pumping blood around the body.


I had a suspicion that the charlatan quack that did this "experiment"
might be up to no good and now I have some more proof.

Dogs lack sweat glands except on the paws and predominantly adjust their
body temperature by panting (which obviously stops when they die).

http://www.pethealthnetwork.com/dog-.../do-dogs-sweat

So far from proving that dogs have no souls and humans do all he has
proved is that human sweat glands still work for while after death (as
do many of the other organs which is what makes transplants possible)
and that dogs don't have very many sweat glands at all.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
  #418  
Old October 29th 18, 03:05 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 Monday, October 29, 2018 at 3:57:17 AM UTC-6, Martin Brown wrote:

On 28/10/2018 09:57, Martin Brown wrote:

Approximately 1 mole of water vapour which is probably about the amount
that would be lost due to evaporative cooling of a still warm corpse
when the heart stops pumping blood around the body.


I had a suspicion that the charlatan quack that did this "experiment"
might be up to no good and now I have some more proof.


My, but you are quick to grasp at straws.

Dogs lack sweat glands except on the paws and predominantly adjust their
body temperature by panting (which obviously stops when they die).

http://www.pethealthnetwork.com/dog-.../do-dogs-sweat

So far from proving that dogs have no souls and humans do all he has
proved is that human sweat glands still work for while after death (as
do many of the other organs which is what makes transplants possible)
and that dogs don't have very many sweat glands at all.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown


You have come to a false conclusion without doing a single calculation!

The first problem is the GUESS that about one mole (18 grams) of water
would be lost from "a still-warm corpse" with NO indication of the time
frame over which that would occur. The amount of water that a human body
loses is normally about 600 grams/day:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...rmo/sweat.html

That's 24 grams/hour or about 0.5 grams/minute. The loss of 14 grams
(average) noted by MacDougall occurred in a few seconds. Even with an
elevated temperature of 5°C, the vapor pressure of water increases by
only 30%:

http://intro.chem.okstate.edu/1515sp...e/vpwater.html

Say, 0.7 grams/minute, or less than 0.1 gram in a few seconds.

Unsubstantiated opinions are worthless.
  #419  
Old October 29th 18, 08:54 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3:50:13 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 12:11:44 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?


Well, if you think those meager data is some evidence for a God -
which God? The catholic God? The protestant God? The orthodox God?
The Sunni Muslim God? The Shia Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Hindu
God? The Zoroastrian God? The Bahai God? The Norse God (which one of
them)? The Roman or Greek God (which one of them)?


The human race has invented a LOT of gods. Some founders of religions
may have had some experience with The One True God and then added
trappings (and subtracted things) from them. Others founded religions
based upon certain concepts of there own. The question is, which GOD
would you be most comfortable with? (You, of course, would prefer a
nonexistent one :-)


You see? With your question "The question is, which GOD would you be most
comfortable with?" you admit that man created God, for the purpose of
getting comfort. Because that's your criterion for "The One True God":
the one you feel most comfortable with.... Since people have different
dreams and different desires, they will choose different "One True God"
and all of them are creations by the human imagination.


Which one? And don't just tell your own belief, instead evaluate the
meager data and tell which one of these gods those data support the
existence of. And do motivate your choice.


Actually, the data only supports that "something" leaves the body at
death that can't be accounted for scientifically.


HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?

Not your words here. You didn't write "that hasn't been accounted for
scientifically", instead you wrote "that can't be accounted for
scientifically". Thus you are making claims about the ultimate capacity
of science, and in particular about future science.

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE? Isn't that quite arrogant?


It is ASSUMED to be
spirit (we might as well call it that since we have no other name for
it, just like we have no idea what dark matter is).


By religious people like you, it is assumed to be a spirit, of course. A
lot of people are victims of wishful thinking.

You also assume that those meager data (one measurement by one signle
person, which has never been replicated by anyone else) are trustworthy.
Any sane person would instead want confirmation by other intependent
measurers before finding it worthwhile to even start speculating what it
is. Girst it must determined whether it is, or not.


If it's ACTUALLY a conscious spirit, then it supports a number of religions
and implies that there is life beyond the grave. It seems to me that the
pure Christian religion taught in the Bible supports a loving, personal,
prescient God


Here you sound like a Jehovas Witness. Are you a Jehovas Witness?

whose goal is to make us become like Him.


Do God really want competitors? Because that's what would happen if we
became like him - that would make us God-like, right?

All other religions
would have us either be groupies to God (even some Christian religions today
advocate that - see Mark Twain's "Letters from the Earth")), or we
"transmigrate" from lower animals to higher animals to human to ? or we
attain nirvana or whatever. They don't seem reasonable to me. That' what
"motivates" my choice. We're all free to choose, but:

"He chose ... poorly" -- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade





Anyway, George Carlin, in his video "Religion is bull****" (can easily be
found on YouTube), was indeed very very right. I quote from it he

------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the bull**** department, a businessman can hold a candle to a
clergyman. Cause I got to tell you the truth. When it comes to bull**** -
big time, major league, bull**** - you have to stand in awe, in awe of
the all-time champion of false promises and exaggreated claims: religion!
No contest! No contest!

Religion easily has the greatest bull**** story ever told. Think about
it! Religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible
man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute and
every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does
not want you to do! And if you do any of these ten things he has a
special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and
anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and
scream and cry, for ever and ever till the end of time!

But he loves you! He loves you, and he NEEDS MONEY! HE ALWAYS NEEDS
MONEY! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, all-wise, but somehow
just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay
no taxes, and they always need a little more...

Now, you talk about a good bull**** story - HOLY **** !!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------




  #420  
Old October 30th 18, 12:17 AM 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 Monday, October 29, 2018 at 1:54:30 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3:50:13 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2018 12:11:44 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

My point is that why should one draw the conclusion that there is no
afterlife nor God from absolutely NO evidence when there is SOME
evidence that there is?

Well, if you think those meager data is some evidence for a God -
which God? The catholic God? The protestant God? The orthodox God?
The Sunni Muslim God? The Shia Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Hindu
God? The Zoroastrian God? The Bahai God? The Norse God (which one of
them)? The Roman or Greek God (which one of them)?


The human race has invented a LOT of gods. Some founders of religions
may have had some experience with The One True God and then added
trappings (and subtracted things) from them. Others founded religions
based upon certain concepts of there own. The question is, which GOD
would you be most comfortable with? (You, of course, would prefer a
nonexistent one :-)


You see? With your question "The question is, which GOD would you be most
comfortable with?" you admit that man created God, for the purpose of
getting comfort. Because that's your criterion for "The One True God":
the one you feel most comfortable with.... Since people have different
dreams and different desires, they will choose different "One True God"
and all of them are creations by the human imagination.


But that's what most humans do, even atheists. They choose a nonexistent
God not because it makes sense but because it makes them more comfortable.
Yet they hypocritically assert that it is scientifically correct.

Which one? And don't just tell your own belief, instead evaluate the
meager data and tell which one of these gods those data support the
existence of. And do motivate your choice.


Actually, the data only supports that "something" leaves the body at
death that can't be accounted for scientifically.


HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?


Because it hasn't been accounted for scientifically, just like dark matter
hasn't been accounted for scientifically.

Not your words here. You didn't write "that hasn't been accounted for
scientifically", instead you wrote "that can't be accounted for
scientifically". Thus you are making claims about the ultimate capacity
of science, and in particular about future science.


No, I'm not. English isn't precise enough for you to claim that I was
talking about all future science or just present science. In fact. I
believe that spirits will be detected scientifically some day.

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE? Isn't that quite arrogant?


You sure do jump to unwarranted conclusions fast, don't you :-)

It is ASSUMED to be spirit (we might as well call it that since we have
no other name for it, just like we have no idea what dark matter is).


By religious people like you, it is assumed to be a spirit, of course. A
lot of people are victims of wishful thinking.


Just like atheists are.

You also assume that those meager data (one measurement by one signle
person, which has never been replicated by anyone else) are trustworthy.
Any sane person would instead want confirmation by other intependent
measurers before finding it worthwhile to even start speculating what it
is. Girst it must determined whether it is, or not.


You keep applying strict scientific procedures as an argument, but you
seem to keep forgetting that I have stated that the PROBABILITY that
spirits exist (and therefore God exists) must make atheists question
their position. Although there are no additional experiments that
confirm MacDougall's data, there are also no experiments that refute it.

If it's ACTUALLY a conscious spirit, then it supports a number of
religions and implies that there is life beyond the grave. It seems
to me that the pure Christian religion taught in the Bible supports a
loving, personal, prescient God


Here you sound like a Jehovas Witness. Are you a Jehovas Witness?


No :-))

whose goal is to make us become like Him.


Do God really want competitors? Because that's what would happen if we
became like him - that would make us God-like, right?


So you're off with another false assumption. Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and His Father were one. There is NO competition.

All other religions would have us either be groupies to God (even some
Christian religions today advocate that - see Mark Twain's "Letters
from the Earth")), or we "transmigrate" from lower animals to higher
animals to human to ? or we attain nirvana or whatever. They don't seem
reasonable to me. That' what "motivates" my choice. We're all free to
choose, but:

"He chose ... poorly" -- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade


Anyway, George Carlin, in his video "Religion is bull****" (can easily be
found on YouTube), was indeed very very right. I quote from it he

------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the bull**** department, a businessman can hold a candle to a
clergyman. Cause I got to tell you the truth. When it comes to bull**** -
big time, major league, bull**** - you have to stand in awe, in awe of
the all-time champion of false promises and exaggreated claims: religion!
No contest! No contest!

Religion easily has the greatest bull**** story ever told. Think about
it! Religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible
man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute and
every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does
not want you to do! And if you do any of these ten things he has a
special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and
anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and
scream and cry, for ever and ever till the end of time!

But he loves you! He loves you, and he NEEDS MONEY! HE ALWAYS NEEDS
MONEY! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, all-wise, but somehow
just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay
no taxes, and they always need a little more...

Now, you talk about a good bull**** story - HOLY **** !!!


The fallacy is that he's picking and choosing certain Christian religions,
like the televangelists and a few others (including Reverend Jeff on the
Young Sheldon show). It is not good for a religion to have a paid clergy.
 




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