Petition for Revered Elder: Neil deGrasse Tyson

I can't pretend to understand what goes through the heads of religious people. There must be some excitement that they can only get through revelation. What I can say is that I get the same heightened rush (now this is huge for me to say) from music, reading, Super Bowl XXXII, all of those things provide the same rush for me that I get when Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks. I get excited. I want to jump up and scream Amen. I want to touch the hem of his garment. It isn't the science or the passion (both of which are just amazing), it's him explaining how we descend from a higher order. The higher order he speaks of is an order of the cosmos. And he's right. Look at the basic elements on the periodic table. Everything that we see, taste, feel, and and everything we are is made up of those elements.

We can trace these elements to the cosmos, and the cosmos brought forth life, but there is something profound and deep that connects us, and as long as we keep putting up barriers that separate and label us as Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Atheists (and the list goes on...) we keep ourselves from discovering the true nature of the universe and potentially the great life force (and maybe even a G/god) that connects us. I just can't help but feel we're missing something here. And it's not that these religions are wrong (though logically speaking if one of them is right, then all the others are wrong), or that people should stop finding new ways to worship. It's just that we need to start making what makes us the same more important than the things that make us different. And to quote the great Bill Hicks, when we do that "we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace."

I'll shut up and let the great Neil deGrasse Tyson do his thing.



EDIT: More Tyson Awesomeness!!!

The Big Bang!

This great article about the big bang talks about physics, time, and the elements of universe formation.

I post this here because it is a good concise view of some leading physicists, but also because it bring up an important point.

People that have an unending faith in science as the end all and be all, can't agree on some of the fundamental foundations of the universe. This shouldn't surprise anyone, all we can do is observe from the crust of the Earth and make educated guesses about what these observations mean for the universe. Scientists come up with baffling theory after baffling theory, and it continues to blow away the layman.

This does have a point.

When I think of a possible intelligent hand that guided or introduced life to earth, I think that hand would not only be invisible to the eye, but would be so baffling that our minds couldn't comprehend that such a life form could exist. But I have a hard time believing that such a being is watching over us at all times counting how many times I lie, or think about sex. This "God" doesn't care if someone I love is a homosexual. This "God" doesn't oversee an ultra exclusive night-club in the sky while sending those that don't belong to a Sea of Fire.

But that's just me I guess.

Reason and Belief: Thoughts on communication practices

I am notoriously agnostic. Actually I am able to identify better with the atheist movement than anything else, but I do not call myself an atheist. As fellow Deacon and co-music director of the Church of What's Happening Now, Ian has noted: we share a natural disposition to be frustrated by wishy-washy people, but when it comes to the question of God we (at least I) find it almost noble. Now I suppose that raises the point of that making us wishy-washy, but that's another question better left for another post.

But one thing I notice by the fundamentalists of the atheist and the theist camps is that there is a tendency to use reason (or science) as a term that is the opposite of belief (or religion, or God). It's natural to think this way when we are confronted by it at all turns. Pro-choice vs. Pro-Life is my favorite example. Do you think that those that identify themselves as "Pro-Life" are constantly living their lives as though life is paramount to all things? Of course they don't all believe that. I point to the tired example of pro-life proponents that are advocates for the death penalty. This is one example of people using polarizing language and thought patterns but don't think about the consequences of the language they use.

Richard Dawkins, Bill O'Reilly, Ben Stein (stay-the fuck-tuned), Sam Hitchens, all of these men use this same communication habit, and when people attempt to engage in honest dialog about religion, they fall into the same trap. This isn't to say that faith or reason aren't real things with real qualities on both sides, just that they don't seem to be antonyms in my mind.

Do reason and faith intersect? I think it's clear that there are important people in each field that are being ignored to make way for the fundamentalists. There is no reason that these two fields cannot be related, or that one can have utter faith in one over the other. But the habit of saying faith vs. reason, or science vs. God, as though these two things are mutually exclusive is pathetic and unreasonable.

Look, I'm not trying to say that I have a better answer than anyone else, but living as though science doesn't exist is ignorant and wrong. And as Trey Parker (creator of South Park) put it (through Stan Marsh) "Couldn't evolution be the answer to how and not the answer to why?" I'm not convinced, and I've read some of Dawkins' stuff
and haven't found anything that suggests the existence of God is completely out of the question. But again this is probably left for a different post.

Here's my point: these terms are not used to benefit either movement, they are just meant to tear the other one down. That is no way to construct positive communication, but that should surprise no one. Neither side seems to want to convince anyone that they are right, just that another side is wrong.