WhatFinger

Especially when a more serious look at science points to God.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Christmas trolling is not worth Christians' attention

By Dan Calabrese ——--December 29, 2014

American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

A lot of Christians got upset on Christmas Day when "Cosmos" host Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted the following - in a clear and obviously successful attempt to irritate people of faith:
I get frustrated when I see Christians taking bait like this. This is what Tyson does. He pretends he's just a guy looking to promote "science literacy," but he constantly implies that belief in Christian doctrine is the opposite of science literacy. Tyson actually followed up his tweet with this Facebook note in which he disingenuously pretends the whole Issac Newton thing was in no way intended as anti-Christian. By the way, I don't know if you watch Cosmos or pay much attention to this stuff, but the left absolutely adores Tyson - not because they give rip about astrophysics, but because he is their current poster boy for the false dichotomy they're setting up between faith and science. The more people like Tyson extol the superior virtues of science, the more they hope to imply that scientific knowledge is the antithesis of faith in God. But don't get upset. Tyson may have impressive credentials but all he's using them for these days is to run around as a high-profile, activist troll. What's more worth paying attention to is the cultural movement he represents, which attacks faith at every turn and is currently using the idolization of science as the popular method of the day. What you're better off doing is learning what a crock this is. A far more worthwhile Christmas Day offering came from Eric Metaxas in the Wall Street Journal. Metaxas lays out what Tyson and those of his ilk want you to miss, which is that the more we learn about science, the more it argues for the existence of God. The whole piece is excellent but here is the best part:
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being? There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp. Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?
Science is not, and never has been, in opposition to faith. Science is simply what we can learn about how God did what He did. I made a similar argument a few months back here. If you take science seriously and really think it through, the conclusion always leads you to the Creator. If all you want to do is bother people, then you use science the way Neil deGrasse Tyson does. He's just a troll, folks. Now, he is part of a cultural attack on Bible-based morality that you should understand. But there's no sense getting angry about someone who is obviously very book-smart but isn't interesting in using that education to do anything more worthwhile than being a jerk.

Support Canada Free Press

Donate
Subscribe

View Comments
Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

VIEW Comments

Sponsored