Neil deGrasse Tyson BEST Arguments Against God — Transcript

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1. 0:00Neil, do you you're an agnostic, right?
2. 0:04>> That's that word comes closest to
3. 0:06describing my circumstances. Yes.
4. 0:08>> Uh,
5. 0:08>> have you really looked into Jesus Christ
6. 0:10and if he um if he is the true God?
7. 0:14>> Yes, I have. Yes. So, I I I look more
8. 0:17broadly and I take a step back and I
9. 0:19look at the world's religions and I look
10. 0:20at the world's gods that have been
11. 0:23praised throughout the history of our
12. 0:25species. And that number is huge. It's
13. 0:28almost an unlimited scroll. Where I find
14. 0:31myself returning is uh to 1755
15. 0:35in uh Portugal, Lisbon. Tens of
16. 0:39thousands of people were killed in the
17. 0:41church
18. 0:43during this uh this case. Then because
19. 0:46the epicenter was offshore,
20. 0:49it wasn't just the earthquake. There was
21. 0:51a tsunami that followed that basically
22. 0:54wiped Lisbon from the map. something
23. 0:56like 80,000 people died. There is a God.
24. 1:00That God is either not all powerful
25. 1:04or not all good because many innocent
26. 1:08people died or maybe 80,000 people were
27. 1:11all criminals. But were the children
28. 1:12criminals? Were the you know the women
29. 1:15and children who were just trying to you
30. 1:17know keep the household. So there's no
31. 1:20good answer to that other than the the
32. 1:22the repeated one which is God works in
33. 1:25mysterious ways. Well, that means you
34. 1:27don't really understand God. And if you
35. 1:29don't understand God, why do you believe
36. 1:30you understand him if something nice
37. 1:32happens? Oh, that's God working
38. 1:34miracles. No, if you don't understand
39. 1:35God, are you going to cherrypick how and
40. 1:37when and where you claim to understand
41. 1:39the motives? So I step back and I see
42. 1:41this and all I can say is I remain
43. 1:46unconvinced
44. 1:47that there is any kind of divine power
45. 1:50at work anywhere in the universe based
46. 1:53on what I see.
47. 1:54>> Why does religion have such a persistent
48. 1:56hold on human thought despite all that
49. 1:59we know of science?
50. 2:00>> Uh
51. 2:02yeah, I think there are several ways one
52. 2:04can address that question. Consider not
53. 2:07long ago when so much of the western
54. 2:12world was the state was the religion and
55. 2:17we have actually moved quite a distance
56. 2:19from that compared with 200 years ago,
57. 2:23300 years ago, 400 years ago, the era,
58. 2:25the Inquisition and this sort of thing.
59. 2:27And so so to say that it has such a
60. 2:31grip, it has a fraction of the grip that
61. 2:34it once did on the operations of human
62. 2:37conduct and of society. So the real
63. 2:40question is if implicit in that is given
64. 2:43what we know of science,
65. 2:45why would religion still have any grip
66. 2:48at all? Not does why does it still have
67. 2:50a big grip? Because it's not a big grip
68. 2:52when you look um in the in the developed
69. 2:55world. So in fact most of Europe are
70. 2:58just they're a you know the whole
71. 2:59countries where religion has essentially
72. 3:01disappeared entirely and the countries
73. 3:04are not the countries are not full of
74. 3:06violence and you know it's just the
75. 3:09assumption that you have to be religious
76. 3:10to be moral is a false one. It's
77. 3:12empirically false because you just look
78. 3:14around in places where that's the case.
79. 3:17So um
80. 3:22so so that's one fact and pull away from
81. 3:26that a little. There's plenty of what
82. 3:29goes on in religious texts that has
83. 3:32tremendous value to how to think about
84. 3:34life and how to treat one another. Uh in
85. 3:38fact uh Jefferson created what was
86. 3:41essentially what you can think of as the
87. 3:42Jeff Thomas Jefferson the Jefferson
88. 3:44Bible. I don't know if you ever heard of
89. 3:46this. He went through the Bible
90. 3:49and I think both the Old and the New
91. 3:52Testaments and he crossed off everything
92. 3:54that was sort of mythical, magical,
93. 3:56uh things that clearly violated known
94. 3:59laws of nature and kept the rest and
95. 4:02said here is the the stuff of the Bible
96. 4:06that will should have value to any
97. 4:08modern person going forward. If you look
98. 4:11at people who are religious today who
99. 4:14are not in conflict with science, they
100. 4:17have viewed their religious texts as a
101. 4:20spiritual
102. 4:22something that gives them spiritual
103. 4:23support, not as a science textbook. the
104. 4:26the inter the conflict in society is
105. 4:29when you have those who are still
106. 4:30religious who want to use the religious
107. 4:33text as their access point to
108. 4:36understanding the natural world and
109. 4:39persistent efforts of the past to make
110. 4:43that happen have just simply failed that
111. 4:46the the Bible does not work as a science
112. 4:49textbook in fact Galileo knew this and
113. 4:52he himself was a religious man he's
114. 4:55famously quoted as saying the Bible
115. 4:58tells you how to go to heaven, not how
116. 5:00the heavens go.
117. 5:04So on that scale, the the the conflict
118. 5:07comes about when that subset of the
119. 5:10religious community feels threatened by
120. 5:12scientific discoveries that are
121. 5:15different from how they interpret what
122. 5:17should the natural world should be in
123. 5:19the Bible. I I think it's that point
124. 5:21where you get to the concept of the god
125. 5:22of the gaps the the you go we do not
126. 5:26understand this you know science takes
127. 5:29us so far but we don't understand
128. 5:31anything beyond that therefore that's
129. 5:33God
130. 5:34>> the stuff that we don't get that's God
131. 5:36and the trouble with that is the moment
132. 5:38that you actually go no we do understand
133. 5:40that now is people are going well did
134. 5:42God just go away then
135. 5:45and and it goes back you know nice
136. 5:47simple things like the rainbow
137. 5:49the point where you go, "Wo, the rainbow
138. 5:51actually, it's it's an optical effect.
139. 5:52It's not something magic that gets put
140. 5:54up in the sky to memorialize the flood."
141. 5:57>> Plus, did you know that everyone sees a
142. 5:59unique rainbow?
143. 6:00>> No.
144. 6:01>> That's right. Um, the rainbow is an
145. 6:04optical effect for the person who sees
146. 6:06it. So, if you stand 10 feet to my left,
147. 6:09you see an actual a different rainbow
148. 6:11than I see. It's a remarkable uh fun
149. 6:13fact about rainbows. My my my my
150. 6:16favorite fun fact about rainbows is the
151. 6:19fact that they were originally believed
152. 6:20to have six color bands, but that Newton
153. 6:24added added indigo and violet.
154. 6:27>> Newton liked he liked
155. 6:28>> because he liked his seven
156. 6:29>> the number seven. He had the mystical
157. 6:30feeling for the number seven. Throws in
158. 6:33indigo that no one else sees.
159. 6:34>> Nobody I mean hands up here who actually
160. 6:37goes
161. 6:38>> indigo violet. There's the indigo. You
162. 6:40don't. You just go
163. 6:42>> purple.
164. 6:43>> Yeah, exactly. go back purple. But
165. 6:47>> another thing about the rainbow, because
166. 6:49each rainbow is unique to the viewer, it
167. 6:51can only be a rainbow that is exactly
168. 6:55face on to you. You've never seen a
169. 6:57rainbow that was like at an oblique
170. 6:59angle. Think about it. They're exactly
171. 7:02hemispherical in front of you. That's
172. 7:04why you can never get to the base of the
173. 7:06rainbow,
174. 7:08cuz that would mean your perspective on
175. 7:10it would change. That's what makes it a
176. 7:12good place to hide the gold. Okay,
177. 7:16in case you didn't know. All right.
178. 7:20>> Now, when you talk about these things,
179. 7:23somebody in the audience must come up, I
180. 7:25assume, and say, "Well,
181. 7:28>> oh, we only understand 4% of this
182. 7:30stuff."
183. 7:31>> Yeah, that's great. So, how how is that
184. 7:34different from Bill O'Reilly saying,
185. 7:35"Well, in that case, the rest of it's
186. 7:36gone. We You guys are just You're just
187. 7:39expounding beliefs here. You've got no
188. 7:41evidence
189. 7:43>> for the 96%.
190. 7:44>> The difference is we do understand the
191. 7:47tides. The tides are part of the 4% we
192. 7:49understand. So Bill O'Reilly is giving a
193. 7:52list of things that are fully
194. 7:53understood. If he had given a list of
195. 7:56things that are not understood, okay,
196. 7:58that would be a different reaction and
197. 8:01it would be less susceptible to comedic
198. 8:04mockery
199. 8:06than saying tides come in and out. You
200. 8:08can't explain that. He's like, "Yes, we
201. 8:10can. We've known that one for the last
202. 8:11couple hundred years. Give me a better
203. 8:14example." So, if he said, "There's dark
204. 8:16matter and there this dark energy
205. 8:20forcing an expansion of the universe
206. 8:23so fast that it's accelerating." You
207. 8:24can't explain that, right? We can't
208. 8:27explain that. Okay.
209. 8:30I don't think he knows enough physics to
210. 8:31be able to tell us what it is we don't
211. 8:33understand yet. That would have been a
212. 8:35more interesting exchange with the
213. 8:36atheist guy. I I forgot his name.
214. 8:38forgive me but the guy who who he was
215. 8:40interviewing now if he wants to use that
216. 8:43as evidence for God but then we just
217. 8:46have to come back and say well
218. 8:50doesn't mean if you don't understand
219. 8:53something and the community of
220. 8:55physicists don't understanding
221. 8:57understand it that means God did it is
222. 8:58that is that how you want to play this
223. 9:00game because if it is here's a list of
224. 9:03the things in the past that the
225. 9:06physicist at the time didn't understand
226. 9:08and a talk show you might have conducted
227. 9:10200 years ago would have said the
228. 9:12planets do retrograde can't understand
229. 9:14that must be a god
230. 9:17and we'd say you know you're right and
231. 9:19then 10 years later we understand it so
232. 9:21what do you do so you're if that's how
233. 9:24if that's how you want to invoke your
234. 9:26evidence for God then god is an ever
235. 9:28receding
236. 9:29pocket of scientific ignorance that's
237. 9:33getting smaller and smaller and smaller
238. 9:36as time moves on. So just be ready for
239. 9:38that to happen if that's how you want to
240. 9:40come at the problem.
241. 9:42So that's just simply the god of the
242. 9:44gaps argument. It's been around forever.
243. 9:48>> So in fact people who want to make
244. 9:49arguments
245. 9:50>> and by wait and I don't I don't even
246. 9:52mind I don't even care if someone wants
247. 9:56to say you don't understand that God did
248. 9:59it. That doesn't even bother me. What
249. 10:01would bother me is if you were so
250. 10:04content in that answer
251. 10:06that you no longer had curiosity to
252. 10:09learn how it happened. If the day you
253. 10:11stopped looking because you're content
254. 10:13God did it, I don't need you in the lab.
255. 10:15You're useless on the frontier of
256. 10:18understanding the nature of the world.
257. 10:20>> Speaking of Earth, how do you feel about
258. 10:21the people that think it's only 6,000
259. 10:23years old?
260. 10:24>> Uh it's they they if they think that,
261. 10:26they think that because that is mandated
262. 10:29by their religious philosophy.
263. 10:30>> Exactly. uh okay you know I mean just
264. 10:34keep it out of the science classroom
265. 10:35that that's all I I don't try to confuse
266. 10:38that with doing science
267. 10:40>> science we have learned science has
268. 10:42completely transformed our culture it's
269. 10:43doubled our life expectancy it has
270. 10:46brought comfort and uh health and
271. 10:48well-being and and not only science but
272. 10:50the fruits of science the technological
273. 10:52fruits of science and of course you need
274. 10:54to be good shepherds of this power
275. 10:56because in the wrong hands it could be
276. 10:59used for evil right this is the great
277. 11:01sort of dichomy of great the great of
278. 11:04unlocking the secrets of nature.
279. 11:06>> So, uh so I don't I'm not going to fight
280. 11:09them to tell them the universe is not
281. 11:12your way.
282. 11:12>> No, no, no, no. My just the science
283. 11:14classroom.
284. 11:15>> No, no. And and and if you want to put
285. 11:17it in a science classroom, understand
286. 11:19the ramifications.
287. 11:20>> Your country will go bankrupt because
288. 11:23you will no longer be in a position to
289. 11:25forge the economies of tomorrow that
290. 11:27will require uh science and
291. 11:29technological innovation. And at least
292. 11:30the next question cuz a few people on
293. 11:32the lines are asking, "Do you believe in
294. 11:33God?" I I'm I'm not convinced if if here
295. 11:37here's the thing. If every every time I
296. 11:39talk about God with someone who's a
297. 11:41believer, God is is is all powerful and
298. 11:45all knowing and and and all good, right?
299. 11:47The the good is a big part of this.
300. 11:50>> And then I look at all the ways earth
301. 11:53wants to kill us,
302. 11:56>> strike us.
303. 11:56>> You know, a tsunami takes out a quarter
304. 11:58million people. hurricanes, earthquakes,
305. 12:00tornadoes, floods, and and I add all of
306. 12:04that up. Either
307. 12:08the God is not all powerful
308. 12:11or is not all good. But it can't really
309. 12:14be both given all the ways the universe
310. 12:18wants to kill us. And and and and if
311. 12:21Earth is not finished killing you,
312. 12:23there's the asteroid that could come in.
313. 12:25an asteroid rendered 70% of all life
314. 12:29forms extinct back in that's the famous
315. 12:32one in 65 million years ago that took
316. 12:34out the dinosaurs. So there's so many
317. 12:37ways to die not at the hands of someone
318. 12:39else who has free will that I I don't
319. 12:42know what what is the nature of the god
320. 12:45that you're talking about.
321. 12:46>> I I I got to like try to like use your
322. 12:49logic back at you. But don't we define
323. 12:51what what is good and what is bad? So we
324. 12:53see a tsunami wipe out a whole bunch of
325. 12:55people and we're as human beings going,
326. 12:58"Wow, that's bad." Because we define
327. 13:00what bad is maybe in God's brain, eyes,
328. 13:03whatever the hell that that's not bad.
329. 13:05>> Well, but except you defined what God
330. 13:07is.
331. 13:07>> Oh boy.
332. 13:09>> Wow.
333. 13:09>> Now you So why why do you have the power
334. 13:12to define who and what God is
335. 13:14>> but not have the power to define what
336. 13:16good is?
337. 13:16>> Yeah. My point is we just don't know it
338. 13:18all. Not even close.
339. 13:20>> Oh, sure. So, so therefore, uh, if
340. 13:23you're going to say God actually is good
341. 13:26and a quarter million people dying from
342. 13:28an earthquake and a tsunami and and
343. 13:30other natural disasters,
344. 13:32>> um, and God presumably has control over
345. 13:34that and God is good, then you have to
346. 13:37then say God works in mysterious ways,
347. 13:39right? That's that. But people only say
348. 13:42that when their understanding of God
349. 13:45fails them,
350. 13:46>> when it's something bad.
351. 13:48>> No, no. They can't understand it. They
352. 13:49told God works it in mysterious ways,
353. 13:51but somehow in these other ways you did
354. 13:53understand him,
355. 13:54>> right?
356. 13:54>> How are you saying, well, this is the
357. 13:56this is the handywork of God. This
358. 13:58you're doing God's work. God wants you
359. 14:00to do this. Somehow you know God's
360. 14:01motives every other way. When but but
361. 14:04when a quarter million people get wiped
362. 14:05out, God works in mysterious ways. Why
363. 14:08do you why why do you even claim to have
364. 14:12access to God's mind in some context and
365. 14:15not others? Just admit you have no clue.
366. 14:18and get on with life. That's how I look
367. 14:20at it.
368. 14:20>> We just don't have a a clue when it
369. 14:22comes down to it.
370. 14:23>> Well, I'd like to think that preserving
371. 14:25health and longevity, that is a nice
372. 14:28operational definition of something
373. 14:30that's good,
374. 14:30>> right?
375. 14:31>> How can you argue why how can you debate
376. 14:33something that keeps you alive and
377. 14:35healthy? That's got to be a something
378. 14:38that's good. I I can't I'm I'm I refuse
379. 14:40to allow someone to say, "I'm going to
380. 14:43give you cancer, birth defects, and
381. 14:45shorten your life and somehow call that
382. 14:48good." I I I'm not going there.
383. 14:49>> I hear you. I'm not going there.
384. 14:52>> In the vast darkness of the cosmos,
385. 14:54humanity once looked up and saw mystery.
386. 14:56Lightning, eclipses, plagues, the birth
387. 14:58of life itself, all seemed like the
388. 15:00signature of gods. When we didn't know,
389. 15:03we invented answers. This is where
390. 15:05religion began. as our first attempt to
391. 15:07explain what we could not understand.
392. 15:09But there's a pattern. Every time
393. 15:10science uncovers the mechanism behind a
394. 15:12once mysterious phenomenon, the space
395. 15:14where we placed God shrinks. This is
396. 15:17what we call the god of the gaps.
397. 15:19Wherever our knowledge has holes, some
398. 15:21insert the divine as a placeholder. But
399. 15:23with each discovery, those gaps close
400. 15:25one by one. Thunder is no longer the
401. 15:28voice of Zeus. Disease is no longer the
402. 15:30punishment of an angry deity. The earth
403. 15:32is not the center of the universe and
404. 15:34never was. Science does not kill wonder.
405. 15:36It expands it. It replaces fear with
406. 15:38curiosity, dogma with evidence, faith
407. 15:40with understanding. Religion may offer
408. 15:43comfort, but science offers answers.
409. 15:45Answers that work. Answers we can test,
410. 15:47build upon, and use to shape the future.
411. 15:50The more we know, the less room there is
412. 15:52for gods. And perhaps that is the most
413. 15:54profound revelation of all that the
414. 15:56universe is not shaped for us but that
415. 15:58we have the power to understand it
416. 15:59anyway.