It has been three long decades since Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking series, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” premiered. Brought to you by executive producers Brannon Braga, Mitchell Cannold, Ann Druyan and Seth MacFarlane, and hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, we set off on the Ship of the Imagination to discover our Cosmic Address and our coordinates in space and time. First, we meet Giordano Bruno in the Italy of the Renaissance, a wandering priest who had a spiritual epiphany of this much grander universe. Later, Tyson takes us on a walk across the Cosmic Calendar, where all of time is compressed into a football field-sized year at a glance calendar, with each month representing a little more than a billion years, in the all-new “Standing Up in the Milky Way” series premiere episode of COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY airing Sunday, March 9 from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET/PT across multiple U.S. Fox networks, including Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX), National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, FX, FXX, FXM, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2 and FOX Life.
I had goosebumps when the show started and they did not stop until the end. The graphics are stunning. The most important thing about this show is the science. This is a show that can be watched by families together on a Sunday night and open up dialogues of discussion and perhaps inspire the next generation of astronomers, astrophysicists, astronauts, and teachers.
Fortunately for me my world is big enough for God and science to co-exist without contradicting one another. You may be surprised that many religions, including Christianity, embrace the theory of evolution: Bahá’í, contemporary Christian religions (including Anglicanism, United Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Roman Catholic Church), Deism, Hinduism, Daśāvatāras, Islam, Ahmadiyya, Judaism, and Pantheism. Of course I am certain that there are members of these religions that would beg to differ. I was born Catholic. On October 22, 1996, Pope John Paul II, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences plenary session at the Vatican, said, “This theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.” Pope John Paul II believed it is the human soul that is created by God.
The end of this particular episode had a touching tribute to Carl Sagan that made tears fall from my eyes. It is the power of passing things on from teacher/mentor to student. I think Carl Sagan, if he were here among us on this Earth, would be proud.
(COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY is produced by Cosmos Studios, the Ithaca, N.Y.-based company Ann Druyan co-founded in 2000, and Fuzzy Door Productions, MacFarlane’s company. Druyan and Steven Soter are the series’ writers. Druyan, MacFarlane, Cosmos Studios President Mitchell Cannold and Brannon Braga (the “Star Trek” franchise, “24”) executive-produce the series. Jason Clark (“Ted,” “42”) co-executive produces. “Like” COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY on Facebook at facebook.com/COSMOSonTV. Follow the series on Twitter @COSMOSonTV and join the discussion at #cosmos.)
(I wish to thank FOX VIP and Fox Broadcasting for the privilege of viewing the episode).
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I’m sorry to hear that you were born Catholic. So was I, although my parents took my sister and I out of that system in lieu of putting us through First Communion because the local churches of that sect were run by guys who were much too out of touch and creepy for their taste. We got to see instead just how utterly hypocritical the people of various Protestant faiths were, and as a kid on the autism spectrum in a time before anything was understood of that condition, the most important thing which I learned was that religion has nothing to do with the human soul, which cannot realistically be presumed from the behavior of any religious people on this earth to exist anywhere than the inside of the human skull, where the waters are in most cases pathetically shallow, with relatively few exceptions. Pope John Paul said what he did because he could not have said otherwise and been believed by any group large enough to guarantee the continued influence of his organization. He was of course correct, other than the idea that there was any need in the future for the employment of him, his successors, and any of those privileged freaks with the pointy hats.
There is no god, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is no god’s prophet!
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That means that Tyson is a good and honest human, which is unfortunately uncommon!
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I don’t understand your point. Are you saying the Neil deGrasse Tyson is not an unhonest man?
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I never said Neil deGrasse Tyson was God’s prophet. He is an amazing scientist who has a lot of charisma who is so excited about sharing science with others. What the heck is wrong with that? Whatever reason Pope John Paul had for saying that is his business. Many Catholics did not need a proclamation to believe science was true on the case of evolution. Religion is for sure man made and comes with all the issues man has. You know I have a son with severe autism, so I thank you for sharing your comments about your perceptions and your life. As you know from your own life, people misunderstand you, group you into categories to try to understand you (and mostly incorrectly). Have you heard about a group called Sunday Assembly? It is a group of people who get together just for community and spread words that are uplifting. The word “God” never enters their service. Here is a link to it. I heard there is a group in Austin and someday I might check that out. http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2014/02/08/atheist-congregationsunday-assemblygrows-in-nashville/5309523/
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Here is a better link to Sunday Assembly: http://nashville.sundayassembly.com/about/
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