Thanks for the link.

I am still ploughing my way through that video. His looking to mathematics for truth strikes me as interesting. The idea of virtue as being of supreme importance strikes me as being extremely repulsive. One thing that strikes me is that howsoever much I might agree or disagree with him, at least he thought about things that matter to many people. I can go with his emphasis on clarity of thought. The likes of Islamic State did not exist when this recording was made. I am taken by his acknowledgement of the wide health and wealth gap that existed even in his own time. His crystal ball about China's dominance of the world was wonderful. I value his value of doubt.

One of the things that strikes me is his clarity of thought, even if I disagree with some of his prognistications.

Ah yes, critical thinking skills, which skills seem to be even less common than common sense.

@anglophone sadly true......

Yes, Tyson is great and an excellent educator who teaches trhe crucial importance of critical thinking. Bizarrely enough, in the video he states he is not happy about being labeled as an atheist because he knows many atheists who are “activists” whereas he had no time and energy to delve in endless discussions. A greater truth is that there are many more atheists around the world who are not activists at all. Indeed these activists are not vocal at all as it would be very imprudent to publicly and even privately question the very existence of gods like Jesus and Allah . Further, there are millions of activists on Scandinavian countries and in China who are atheists as a matter of course and can hardly be described as crusaders against god. The presence of active atheists in USA does not justify labeling atheists as activities. USA is not the world.

Thanks. You have saved me some effort.

P.S. I find it informative that he uses the word "prove" in his 1947 pamphlet in the light of today's understanding of the Scientific Method in which the idea of proof does not exist, and all we have is the weight of evidence.

Thanks for the tip. As it happens, I have an issue with agnosticism, which issue grew out of a comment made by somebody (I forget who) on this site. I will be interested to read Russell's words on the subject when I get to them. TY.

@anglophone I would not see agnostic as a "problematic position " except for 1 part. The part of most accepted agnostic statements says along the lines "it could never be known if God thingies exist". This would be the only illogical problem with most agnosticism.

Otherwise, I would not have to go far to explain atheism by definition and premise to be totally problematic and illogical.

I like this video by self proclaimed agnostic Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist. I love his comment about non-golfers "... what do they do, sit around and strategize about not golfing".

@Word Thanks for the link. Yes, he puts it well. Agreed, "it could never be known if God thingies exist" lies at the crux of the problem. My own position, fwiw, is that it is trivial to show that the God of the Bible (and the God of the Torah) cannot exist, and that nobody has produced any falsifiable evidence to support the existence claim of any other god or gods in the last 5,000 years. That makes me an atheist about two gods, and technically agnostic about all the other gods, though a lot of people seem unaware of that distinction.

@anglophone God of biblical text is based on "ruach". ruach is a force. things in motion have kinetic energy. Spirit used in english does not very well explain or transfer the original biblical god thingie. if you study an english bible and replace "spirit" with kinetic energy or force with communication then you might could better understand the biblical God thingie.

Such from John 1:1 In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and was God. John 1:14 ... the word (logos) become flesh. To translate the greek "logos" into english as simply "word" is problematic. John 10:34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are "gods"'?

The argument as written according to what Jesus character said is that "the people are the Gods that because of them speaking, they spoke (speaking is force of air molecules leaving lungs with an intellagable pattern) ... those people of the old testiment spoke Jesus Character into existance. John 1:14 ... logos (thought word capabilities/ cognition) become flesh. People by kinetic energy chemical reaction "thought" their way into existence?

DNA can be explained as being a form of intelligence.

Son of man is an expression in the sayings of Jesus in Christian writings,including the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. The meaning of the expression is controversial. Interpretation of the use of "the Son of man" in the New Testament has remained challenging and after 150 years of debate no consensus on the issue has emerged among scholars.[1][2]

The expression "the Son of man" occurs 81 times in the Greek text of the four Canonical gospels, and is used only in the sayings of Jesus.[3] The Hebrew expression "son of man" (בן–אדם i.e. ben-'adam) also appears in the Torah over a hundred times.[4] wikipedia

KEEP IT SIMPLE "son of man" Jesus character is saying he is a product or an offspring of MANKIND, PEOPLE of the old testiment times.

Jesus style god a creation, a product of the "people" that are Gods.

@anglophone As I purpose after giving people a better understanding of Jesus character, the true debate of a Jesus style God would be: Can the thoughts and words spoken by people create such as Jesus Character in person?

@anglophone I am not trying to proselytize this book, but just using it to show that scholars find over 400 old testiment writings and sayings that then made Jesus Character. Then I compare the old testament to the movie "Stranger than Fiction" (2006) with actor Will Ferrell.

In the movie, the author has control over the actor. This is something simular to how the Old testiment "controlled" Jesus character that was not of "free Will". John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

414 passages from the Old Testament are given and discussed in the light of fulfillment in Jesus, the Messiah. The purpose of this book is to honor God Triune, to encourage His people, and to encourage unbelievers to become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the words of the Apostle John, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). The Foreword was written by Dr. John D. Morris, President, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, Texas USA. He says: "Christians rightly consider fulfilled prophecy to be one of the most important evidences that Scripture is inspired by an all-knowing God. How else could such detailed information be written centuries before it came to pass? Statistically, the odds for one such fulfilled prophecy would be hard to overcome, but there are hundreds of specific, detailed prophecies recorded in Scripture. Combining the probability from each prophecy shows that it could not happen by mere chance. Yet they did all come true, just as predicted. Together they erect a strong testimony to the Christian of an omnipotent Author and an impassable barrier to the skeptic who would discount the Bible’s teaching. To claim that mere humans could write such a book is to espouse incredulity." [amazon.com]

Stranger than fiction (2006)

@Word Honestly, I don't think N DeG T is a good role model. He specialises in not commiting himself to anything, never taking a clear position on anything, except motherhood science statements, usually because he doesn't like to offend anyone, lest his popularity might take a dive. Can't be an atheist! Might offend someone. He's alright, but he's a classic fence sitter, on everything.

@David1955 To say, "I don't know " is sitting or standing on a fence per say, nonetheless it is a stance and more logical and has more integrity that try to make a claim that I do not exist.