Peter (host):
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a scientist and science communicator. He shared his thoughts about science, religion, and truth while on the Joe Rogan Experience.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
Then you have personal truths. These are truths that you hold dearly. Jesus is your Savior. Mohammed is the final prophet on Earth. .. I'm simply saying that because it's your personal truth, you cannot require that someone else shares it.
Review (0:38)
Peter (host):
According to Michael Shermer, Christianity is just something that people believe because their friends and family believe it. But the lives of people like Jordan Monge, Antony Flew, and Nabeel Qureshi tell a different story.
Peter (host):
God used apologetics to change these people's lives. But there's another reason why apologetics matters. It also helps overcome the insidious lie made by people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, which says that Christian truth claims are merely subjective, personal truths.
Neil deGrasse Tyson:
I'm giving them the word truth, but modifying it to say personal truth.
Peter (host):
But even though this sounds gracious and generous, it's really disrespectful because it distorts what Christianity is all about. The core Christian claims are simply not of the same type as someone who says that, for example, "Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream."
Video clip:
I love vanilla ice cream, ok?
Peter (host):
Ok, fine vanilla. But when it comes to subjective truths, people don't suffer and die for them. However, Jesus was willing to suffer and die a cruel death because of certain objective truths. His disciples were also willing to suffer and die for that. And that's why Tyson's view is such a perversion of what Christianity is all about.
Peter (host):
But Tyson's view is not just a perversion of Christianity. It's also a perversion of virtually all religions. Virtually all of them make objective claims about reality, not subjective claims,
Video Clips:
Religion is a very personal thing. A deeply personal thing. Yes, but... It's not subjective.
Peter (host):
As with Christianity, the founders and leaders of the world's religions often experienced some degree of suffering for what they believe. They recognize that what they were claiming to be true, contradicted what other religions claimed, and since both religions could not be right, they were willing to suffer for what they were proclaiming.
Video Clips:
He's a prophet. And he thinks. They are wrong.
Peter (host):
One example of these is the religion of Islam. According to Islamic history, the founder of Islam, Muhammad, along with his early followers faced persecution in the city of Mecca, where Muhammad first proclaimed his message. The early Muslims were persecuted by the Quraysh tribe because they rejected the plurality of gods that were worshipped in that city. They simply refuse to conform to the polytheistic religion that surrounded them. But the resulting persecution didn't cause the early Muslims to just give up on their beliefs. No, they were injured through that hardship. Listen to this cartoon made by a Muslim group as it teaches children what happened in the early days of their prophet.
Muslim Children's Cartoon:
Slowly and steadily, people realized that the Prophet was speaking the truth. He started joining Islam one by one, but not everyone liked what they were hearing, especially in the Quraysh men. The Quraysh tribe were mainly the leaders of Mecca. Most of the rich men in Mecca belong to the Quraysh tribe. They were scared that if people started following Islam, then they would no longer be feared and respected. They started treating the Prophet and his followers very coolly. They threw garbage at the Prophet whenever he passed by. Started beating those who were following the Prophet and even chase some of them out of Mecca.
Peter (host):
Notice the suffering they injured. That's not the type of thing people do for personal subjective truth. They don't suffer through persecution. Muhammad and the early Muslims certainly didn't think that their religion was just a personal truth, akin to their favorite flavor of ice cream. No, they thought it was objectively true.
Muslim Children Cartoon:
And the Prophet continued his preaching against strict opposition. Some of the mob attempted and they asked for a sign.
Peter (host):
Now we also should keep in mind that even though Muhammad thought he was declaring the objective truth, and he was willing to suffer for it, that doesn't necessarily mean he was right. He could make objective claims and still be objectively wrong.
Video Clips:
Really wrong? Definitely. I think he was right. He was wrong.
Peter (host):
Okay, remember, that's not the point right now. At this point in time. We're not trying to establish what the objective truth is. All I'm saying here is that the early Muslims regarded their religion as consisting of objective claims and that's very different from the way Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks. The founders and leaders of many religions regarded their core beliefs to be objective and not subjective or personal.
Neil deGrasse Tyson:
Then you have personal truths.
Peter (host):
Tyson is just wrong. What's true of Islam and Christianity is also true of other religions. They make objective claims about reality. When Tyson doesn't acknowledge that he's really perverting the world's religions and disrespecting them, since they are making objective claims, they're either objectively true or objectively false, and we need to respect them enough to take them on their own terms.
Video Clips:
True or false. One or the other? It's just the way it is.
Peter (host):
Notice that even those religions which claim that all the world's religions are true; they're still making objective claims. For example, many Hindus and Bahais will say that all the religions in some sense are correct, but when they say this, they're not treating this claim as a personal truth that's just true for them. No, they think they're accurately describing all of reality. That means they're making objective claims. They could be right about this or they could be wrong, but they are still making an objective claim about reality.
Video Clips:
That's reality. That's the way it is. For everyone.
Peter (host):
Here's something else to note about the religions of the world, devout adherents of each religion are not happy when someone leaves their religion and converts. In some religions, such as Islam, they get so upset that sometimes they will kill or at least threaten to kill people who leave. For example, here's one popular Muslim YouTuber named Ali Dawah, addressing those who leave Islam.
Ali Dawah:
This is a POV of religion. There's a reason to it. Yeah, there's a reason why there's capital punishment because people like you little weaklings leave their religion and cause corruption in the land by spreading it, the capital punishment in Islamic law will be applied to you. We have no doubt and we're proud of that. Yeah. Capital punish will be applied in an Islamic state.
Peter (host):
So why such hostility? Why kill or threatened to kill people who leave? Well, part of this is that Muslims recognize all religions are not the same and that their core beliefs contradict each other. And since these core beliefs are objective in nature, they can't all be correct. They're not simply a matter of your favorite flavor of ice cream. If one religion is right, that others must be wrong, if Islam is true then other religions, in as much as a contradicted Islam must be false.
Video Clips:
Bubble flavor?
Ali Dawah:
That capital punishment in Islamic law will be applied to you. We have no doubt and we're proud of that.
Peter (host):
So given all these objective claims about the most important things in life, and given the contradictions between these claims, we should ask ourselves, which of the world's religions is actually true? Do any of them correctly answer life's most important questions? I'm thinking of questions like "What is ultimate reality? Where did we all come from? What is the problem with the world and what is the solution? What is the purpose of our existence and what happens after we die? "
Video Clips:
I don't know what the purpose of life is. The purpose of life is not worldly happiness. That is my purpose.
Peter (host):
How do we go about answering these questions? Which religion is actually correct at this point? Many people will throw up their hands and say,
Video Clips:
How am I supposed to know? I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm completely neutral. I'm undecided. Undecided.
Peter (host):
I understand that many people will want to be neutral or undecided, and many other people just don't care. But we all have to decide. We all have to answer these questions. Because we all live our lives a particular way. And based on how we live our lives, we show what we have decided.
Peter (host):
If you live as a Muslim you show by your life that you think Islam is true. Same thing with Hinduism, or Buddhism. But if you live a nonreligious life, then you show by your life that you don't think any religion is true. If you're not even interested in investigating any particular religion, then that shows a particular level of confidence that they're all false.
Video Clips:
I didn’t think of it that way.
Peter (host):
Good. I'm glad you're open to what I'm saying. But you should also ask yourself an important question and that is, "Have you made the right choice? Are all the religions really wrong? Or is one of them right?"
Video Clips:
That's a tough choice. How am I supposed to choose?
Peter (host):
Deciding which religion is right can be a tough choice. But this is where apologetics can be helpful. It allows us to get some arguments and evidence in a thoughtful manner that allows us to discuss the issues without getting angry or physically attacking each other. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it can be helpful.
Peter (host):
Tyson claims that if a Christian and a Muslim disagree with each other, and each thinks the other is objectively wrong, that will violence and holy wars.
Neil deGrasse Tyson:
The problem here is you can't convince someone else of your personal truth without some act of persuasion, and in the limit, an act of violence. Okay, in the limit. In the limit, this is how you get holy wars.
Peter (host):
But Tyson is wrong. Disagreement does not have to lead to violence and holy wars. Tyson seems to think that all religious claims are just a matter of blind faith. But that's just not true. The whole field of apologetics is about providing rational reasons to believe the adherence of different world religions, along with atheists and agnostics can express their disagreements using evidence and reason. They can also do this in a manner that is polite and respectful. It simply does not have to descend into violence and war.
Peter (host):
Tyson claims of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, are all just personal subjective truths. But when he makes that claim, he's actually perverting the religions of the world into something they are not. The founders, leaders, and adherence of these religions do not regard their own religions as subjective truths. So who is Tyson to say they're wrong? Who does Tyson think he is to know these religions better than the founders and leaders? Furthermore, acknowledging this fact does not necessarily have to produce violence and holy wars,
Video Clips:
No violence. Let's keep it clean. Just want to keep it classy.
Peter (host):
Apologetics offers the chance to disagree in a call respectful manner. In our next episode, we'll learn about this whole discipline. We'll learn about where this word came from, and the different types of apologetics that are there.
Female Narrator:
You're listening to LIT by Worldview Summit with Peter Kupisz.