Sagan's COSMOS Updated by Neil deGrasse Tyson at 9 PM tonight

[Locutus]

If you didn't see tonight's COSMOS, you missed a stunner.    I plan to watch it again on Monday night on the National Geographic Channel. It was all the more  because of Neil deGrasse Tyson's matter-of-fact presentation.

I actually haven't been watching them at all on TV, but streaming the episodes later in the week from the website listed above.  I actually look forward to the new episodes each week.  Too bad there are only 13 of them in total. 

[libby]

I actually haven't been watching them at all on TV, but streaming the episodes later in the week from the website listed above.  I actually look forward to the new episodes each week.  Too bad there are only 13 of them in total. 

Thanks, Locutus. Last night's program made me fully appreciate Neil de Grasse Tyson's brilliance from another point of view.  Sure, we know him as a renowned scientist, but who knew that he could take a complicated subject like cosmology and, in layman's language, explain how/when our Earth came into existence, and manage to offend and scare so many people from all walks of life?

[Palehorse]

  Thanks, Locutus. Last night's program made me fully appreciate Neil de Grasse Tyson's brilliance from another point of view.  Sure, we know him as a renowned scientist, but who knew that he could take a complicated subject like cosmology and, in layman's language, explain how/when our Earth came into existence, and manage to offend and scare so many people from all walks of life?

I think you hit on it, whether you realized it or not. It is exactly because he can express these things in layman's language, as to what makes him different and able to understand things. Even the zealots, which is why they fear him! 

However, this is only part of the root cause; the other being the prevalence of technology and information flow across the globe helps things along.

[The Troll]

  After watching Cosmos and seeing the Universe there are people who believe there's a little invisible man up and out there watching us 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  And if we sin and break his stupid laws he will send us to the fiery pits of hell, because he loves us.   Let us           

[Palehorse]

Well, you all know my position on humankind's great "Sky-Daddy"; a.k.a. religion. . .

But what baffles me is how a human being can look upon the great vastness of the infinite universe, and have the gall to assume that we on this planet equate to the totality of life contained within it. . .

Pretty arrogant don't you think? 

[Henry Hawk]

Even as a believer in God as our Creator..........I think HE could do whatever HE pleases.....and there very well could be life elsewhere.  If we think there is a Creator who can create a universe, I think He could do as He wants.

This universe could have come into existence by whatever way He chose.  Perhaps Neil has it right to an extent.

All I know is, that "I" don't KNOW.
At least that is the way I clearly see it.

[Locutus]

Reasonable response HH. 

[libby]

Reasonable response HH. 

Well said, HH.     There are people, and I am one, who when faced with the idea of a seemingly endless incomprehensible universe, revert back to childhood belief in God the Creator, and get on with life by hanging out with people who feel and believe the same way.

[libby]

Well, you all know my position on humankind's great "Sky-Daddy"; a.k.a. religion. . .

But what baffles me is how a human being can look upon the great vastness of the infinite universe, and have the gall to assume that we on this planet equate to the totality of life contained within it. . .

Pretty arrogant don't you think? 

[Locutus]

  Thanks, Locutus. Last night's program made me fully appreciate Neil de Grasse Tyson's brilliance from another point of view.  Sure, we know him as a renowned scientist, but who knew that he could take a complicated subject like cosmology and, in layman's language, explain how/when our Earth came into existence, and manage to offend and scare so many people from all walks of life?

I just streamed the episode and he's punching all the right buttons. 

Anyone who was around for the leaded/unleaded gasoline debate, with a catalytic convertor thrown in for good measure, should stream the episode.

Those same forces of greed, and the almighty dollar, are in play today.  People will make money selling shit that's bad for everyone.  They don't give a fuck if they poison a million people to make a million dollars.  To hell with science, logic, and any evidence to the contrary.

[The Troll]

  For some unknown reason people who couldn't understand something believe that it had to be a god of some kind causing it.  Pagan gods, Roman gods, Egyptian gods, Greek gods.  Christian god and Muslim god and they won't agree which one is the real god.  But science almost has proved that there is no god and Carl Sagan was a atheist and it seems that he couldn't find a god out in the Universe.     I'll take his stand.   

  But Henry won't even open up his mind to think that there is a possibility that there is no god, he has just blind faith.  Blind faith in god and blind faith in the Republican Party.     

[Henry Hawk]

  For some unknown reason people who couldn't understand something believe that it had to be a god of some kind causing it.  Pagan gods, Roman gods, Egyptian gods, Greek gods.  Christian god and Muslim god and they won't agree which one is the real god.  But science almost has proved that there is no god and Carl Sagan was a atheist and it seems that he couldn't find a god out in the Universe.     I'll take his stand.   

  But Henry won't even open up his mind to think that there is a possibility that there is no god, he has just blind faith.  Blind faith in god and blind faith in the Republican Party. 

Lord forgive me for even TRYING to respond to this.........BUT.....

Troll, lets talk about "blind faith".  As a child, I most certainly did have this trait.   I was eager to believe anyting and everything my parents told me and taught me.  I'm sure you did too.  As I grew older, I began to understand exactly what they were teaching me.  It was that "blind" faith I had in them that allowed me to accept the truth.
The same is true with my God.  I have read what He has taught me.  But, it was the implication of those teachings that has built my FAITH.  Over the coarse of years, I have found that my FAITH has kept me on the straight and narrow.  It was personal moments I had experienced throughout my life that has built confirmation to accept there IS a greater being that exists.  GOD.  I don't expect YOU or anyone else to accept it.  I'm cool with that. YOU live YOUR life and I live mine.  THIS works for me and has brought me a great deal of pleasure, peace and confidence.

As far as the "republican" party.....I don't HAVE nearly as much to brag about as I do my God.  But, I do have more confidence in the general platform of the way they govern than I do over the democrat partys platform of governing.  NO BLIND FAITH at all, but faith.

[Y]

I've been watching the program from the start, but I missed the last episode and haven't had time to stream it as yet.

Two small critiques.

1. I do understand this but you'll understand my point when I get to my second critique.  The show has many segments aimed directly at children to which as an adult I want to say "c'mon, move it along!".

2. As the show is aimed in part towards children, why is it starting at 9 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., a time that should be far more beneficial for children to watch, and for parents to be able to sit and watch and discuss with their children?

Other than those, I like the program - though I do have to admit to preferring Sagan's original.

[libby]

Tonight's episode of COSMOS was another good one. From Mars to what is now Iraq, with
a bit about Gilgamesh thrown in, and much more.    Neil deGrasse Tyson .

 

[Locutus]

Well the last episode has aired and I hope at least some took some messages from the series to heart and actually help change things.  In part of the closing of the last episode, it went back to this:



Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994