I watched part of the first part of Cosmos, a series about (what else)
the cosmos, on Fox TV and also on the National Graphic
Channel, on Sunday evenings, with Neil deGrasse Tyson as narrator. This
is an upgrade of a previous series, with the same name, with Carl Sagan
as narrator, which may have been the most widely watched TV series of
all time. It looks like the new one is going to be a great series, with
great graphics, and magnificent subject matter, but Tyson
unfortunately started it off by quoting Sagan, who said that "The
cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." (Cosmos, p. 4. New
York, Random House, 1980.) That's an interesting statement. It may even
be true, although I personally don't believe it, because the Bible
contradicts it -- the Bible says that there is a God who is superior to
the cosmos. And it's not a scientific statement at all. It's a
philosophical statement, one that can't be proved or disproved by
science. Sagan didn't do any experiments that showed it to be true. Neither did Tyson, or anyone else.
Here's the Wikipedia page on the new series. The Sagan series also has a Wikipedia article -- see the "previous series" link above.
Thanks for reading.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
4 comments:
My problem with the show and Tyson was that they desperately tried to make Giordano Bruno a scientific martyr. He wasn't. It was the scientific community of the day that rejected his scientific views.
He was killed for being a heretic because he was a universalist, a unitarian/Arian, and a bunch of other -ists that got people killed in the 1600s. His beliefs on the order of the universe were barely mentioned in his conviction orders.
I didn't watch long enough to see that.
The Wikipedia article on Bruno agrees with you on the cause of his execution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
Thanks.
I found it of note that they mentioned Jesus, amongst other religious icons as certainties for birth ~ placing them in the last minute of the cosmic calendar.
I was skeptical because the executive producer, Seth McFarlane is an atheist as was Sagan, and as is Tyson (who claims agnostic over atheist).
The show I felt, while visually stunning, was harsh on science in the church.
Thanks, atlibertytosay. I haven't seen more of the series, but the previous commenter, on Giordano Bruno, probably was reinforcing your point about science in the church.
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