Neil deGrasse Tyson Exposes Myths of Christmas, Sets Off Creationist Alarm Bells

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/neil-degrasse-tyson-exposes-myths-christmas-setting-creationist-alarm-bells

Neil deGrasse Tyson and the producers of Cosmos have been under constant fire from creationists since the very first episode shared the beauty and wonder of our universe without crediting a higher power for any of it.

Each week, after the broadcast of each Cosmos episode, an online battle ensues between science supporters and creationists across various platforms, from Twitter to message boards. What creationists tend to lack is evidence for their claims. What do you do when you can't win the argument against scientists? Simple: you attack the non-substantial parts of Cosmos, the ones that do nothing to change the show's message.

Jay Richards, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, a prominent organization tasked with defending religion against scientific explanations for natural phenomena, decided to attack Tyson in the Federalist. He went after Tyson, Seth McFarland, the writers and even the producers of Cosmos for some small minor historical blunders, claiming these mistakes discredit the whole show.

Richards wrote:

The producers spent one fourth of the first episode telling a misleading story about Giordano Bruno, a sixteenth-century Dominican burned at the stake for a laundry list of unrepentant heresies. He wasn’t a scientist and had virtually nothing to do with the history of science. But Cosmos needed a martyr for science, and since there were none available, Bruno would have to do.

Cosmos was not in need of a martyr for science. But if they were looking for examples, there are plenty. Top of the list would be Galileo, who was put under house arrest and forced to recant his claim that the earth revolved around the sun. While he may not have been killed for his belief, it is very damning that the church would ruin someone’s life for something we know is so obvious today and that does nothing to threaten religious belief, only doctrine.

[NutmegYankee]

1. The story on Bruno was highlighting one of the big themes in the History of Science.

The use of Organized Religion to oppose it.

[tclambert]

18. And Organized Religion opposed their use of the story

as well as the point of the story, and took the opportunity to attack science that doesn't genuflect before the dogma of their particular religious sect.

The story of Galileo's persecution teaches us that when science and religion disagree, science always wins . . . but it may take 400 years.

[hobbit709]

2. I believe science more than the heat induced hallucinations of itinerant sheep herders.

[Major Nikon]

12. Homosexuality is a sin, says the book that laid out rules for selling your kids into slavery

[Ed Suspicious]

29. love that photo

[Tom Ripley]

22. +1000

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

3. Sometimes it hurts....

When your eyes are opened for the first time and the light comes in.

[Exposethefrauds]

4. Arguing with the creationists is a pointless endeavor and only gives credence to their POV

Better to laugh at them and walk away.

[Tom Ripley]

23. ^^THIS^^

[Solomon]

5. Idiots. The burning of Bruno is precisely

why Galileo and Copernicus shut the fuck up.

[rgbecker]

6. For those like me who are clueless. Giordano Bruno:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

[Orrex]

7. I loved Sacha Baron Cohen's biography about him.

[justiceischeap]

25. After reading that I have to wonder what they found objectionable

granted I didn't see the show and I've only read the paraphrasing of the history of Bruno but it sounds about right to the Wiki article, unless, of course, that is wrong too.

Also, please someone correct me if I'm wrong, there really wasn't such a thing as science or scientists back then, it was more theoretical thinking that led to what was later developed as science, correct?

[arcane1]

26. Bruno believed that the stars were other suns, and likely had planets and life too

But in his case it was more like speculation, since he had no evidence to confirm his belief.

[JackInGreen]

8. As always the Christian Right

would have us use only the examples and only the situations they find pertinent. Heaven FORBID someone tell history they don't agree with.

[Snarkoleptic]

9. I was astonished at the creationist pushback when Chicago's Adler Planetarium

unveiled a "Solar Deity" sky show in the Grainger Sky Theater several years ago. It was an eye opener as I had no idea there were so many of these, starting with Horus and the day/night battle between Ra and Set.

Here's a must see video that covers much of the same ground and also discussed the ages, symbolism, the cross, solstices, etc.

[DaDeacon]

19. ^ this video...

Is based off utter BullS*ht A little looking up is all it takes people. If you don't believe in a faith that's fine, good on you! Just don't go around posting knocks that are just as crazy paints!

[Ino]

34. Interesting conclusion at that link...

The real difference between Egyptian mythology and the story of Jesus is that the former is clearly a fable full of beings with super powers, whereas the latter is told in realistic terms with the occasional miracle thrown in. The simplest explanation for this is that the New Testament is largely about a real person, with embellishments added to impress the rubes or make a doctrinal point. I venture to say this was the working assumption among a sizable fraction of scholars for a long time, and many still hold to it. But I’d also say there’s a hardening realization that, setting aside obvious supernatural elements, we’ll never know which if any parts of the Gospel describe actual events and which are made up.

The story of Jesus is "realistic" with the "occasional miracle thrown in"... it's largely about a "real person" with "embellishments added to impress the rubes." LOLOL

[DaDeacon]

36. That paragraph was a bit kettle and pot...

However, the rest of the article was spot on and that video is based largely on nothing much...

[Ino]

37. Well, I suppose it's difficult...

to find a link that agrees totally with your own opinion. One does needs to cherry pick what's "spot on" and what's to be ignored, eh?!

[arcane1]

27. Jesus definitely represents the sun in the age of Pices.

The bible gets more interesting when viewed that way, with Aries and Taurus too.

[The Wizard]

10. I don't know about you

but I remember when the Earth was flat----------------------Never mind.
Once faith trumps fact there's no point is being reasonable. Trying to talk science with a true believer makes as much sense as pissing into the wind.

[hobbit709]

11. Mark Twain had it right “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference"

[hedgehog]

13. I don't know which is sadder - the fundamentalists who insist

that every word of the Bible is literal truth, or educated people who are excited thinking they are the first person ever to realize it is not!



There are a huge number of Christians who understand how the various books of the Bible came to be written, and who accord different levels of importance to different verses.

There are a huge number of Christians who understand that old "pagan" festivals were kept and "baptized" as Christian celebrations.

Yet at every major Holy Day/ holiday, there are smug comments about how, for example, Christmas is really Saturnalia, etc.

[amuse bouche]

16. "I don't know which is sadder"

The saddest, is believing there is any comparison between the two at all, especially since the second group, is utter nonsense that you fabricated

[hedgehog]

24. As far as the second group goes -

"Tyson claimed in Episode 7—and rightfully so—that almost all Christian holidays are stolen from pagan or other holidays from the past, and they directly focus on Christmas, one of the most sacred of Christian holidays. "

"What Tyson and writers actually set out to do was explain why creationists are wrong for trying to proclaim the age of the earth based on Biblical scriptures. To do so you must trust that the dates in the Bible are accurate and historical events, yet an event like Christmas holds no weight. The holiday itself isn’t historical in the sense of Jesus' birth marking a particular date in time, because Romans had been celebrating that time of the year for centuries before. "

Since the Bible only gives a year for the birth of Jesus, suggesting that the Bible indicates a false date because Saturnalia preceded Christmas is a bit of a stretch.

If you really want to stump Creationists, why not point out that there are two different accounts of Creation?

[Nine]

17. +1 (nt)

[amuse bouche]

21. -5 (nt)

[jeff47]

31. The saddest are those who must construct a "both sides do it" to feel superior. (nt)

[Silent3]

32. +1 n/t

[amuse bouche]

33. The 'both sides' nonsense

just makes them look so stunningly stupid

[chrisa]

14. I'm going to have to marathon this show when GoT is finished.

Saw a few episodes - it's very solid. The visuals are great, and it's entertaining enough to talk about science without being a sleeping pill for the average person.

[Cyrano]

15. There's big money in peddling creationism

Many of the bible beaters who scream the loudest are those who run "ministries" that bring them personal wealth. They don't want those who contribute to that wealth to be informed, educated, or thinking for themselves.

[amuse bouche]

20. The whole lot makes my skin crawl

[Gothmog]

28. I love Cosmos

The fact that the right wingers are upset makes this show even better

[Jemon]

30. About time Fox aired something good nt

[MisterP]

35. using Bruno (or Galileo, or Hypatia) as some sort of "science martyr" is one of those

things that just get retransmitted because they're "interesting" and "covered up"--but it's really in the same vein as "did you know that the IRS is illegal because Ohio was never a state"
but as a historian with a strong Renaissance interest I don't want to see an accurate cartoon about Bruno: I want to see something about Tommaso Campanella and his city based on Atlantis with a Solar temple at the center, its walls covered in hieroglyphs that automatically made the inhabitants better; I want to see THAT Dominican treating the Pope with music in the friggin' hypolydian mode (since that's Venus's musical scale) while arranging the current planetary positions with their respective gems on a Zodiacal circle carved on a table; I want to see Giulio Camillo's Teatro with the symbols that read you back as much as you read them; I want to see Paracelsus's salamanders; I want to see Agrippa writing about the star-dæmons that ruled each third of a Zodiacal sign; only then can we START talking about ol' Bruno
it's not just that this or that historic figure is being badly misappropriated as some technocratic goody two-shoes, or that they're the same sources as used by Jack Chick and Dan Brown: it's that that very worldview has been totally obliterated by any professional medieval or Renaissance history written after Aby friggin' Warburg