Dateline: LOS ANGELES—Dozens of churches in the United States are collectively suing the producers of Cosmos, the reboot of the television show previously hosted by Carl Sagan, for “stealing the Christian shtick.”
The filed complaint was obtained by the press and it alleges that the first episode of the show portrays Giordano Bruno as a Christ-like figure, while the second episode sanctifies the DNA molecule.
According to the complaint, “Bruno, who contended that the universe is infinite and that it includes a plurality of worlds, is shown as being ostracized by church officials in Italy and elsewhere, just as Jesus was hounded by the Pharisees. Bruno’s poem in which he speaks of spreading wings into space is used as a pretext to pose an animated representation of Bruno like Christ on the cross. Bruno is burned at the stake instead of crucified, but the effect is to make him a martyr for science.
“But martyrdom is our shtick,” the complaint continues. “We may not have that whole dying-for-the-greater-good thing trademarked, but everyone knows that Jesus is our brand.”
The second episode of Cosmos speaks of the nucleus in each cell as life’s “sanctuary” and describes the genetic code as “ancient scripture.” According to the lawsuit, “That’s a half-assed comparison of DNA to the Bible. If you want the whole ass, you read the King James version, not a bunch of squiggly nucleotides.”
In what many are calling a brazen move, the producers of Cosmos are countersuing the churches for failing to live up to their part of the social contract.
“These Christians are thinking too much,” reads the countersuit. “They should leave the thinking to scientists. The job of American Christians is to breed, not to think. Otherwise, we’ll end up like France or Germany with a declining fertility rate due to the elite secular lifestyle.
“Religious folks in developed societies, who are otherwise woefully out of place, can even teach their children whatever supernatural nonsense they like. To get a good job, those children will have to attend college and that’s when their opinions will be corrected by secular experts. That’s the modern deal.
“The only reason Christians are tolerated in the manifestly secular US is because they breed like rabbits, just as Muslims do. But the time they spend speculating about the meaning of a television show like Cosmos is time they should be using to keep our economy growing, by raising families.”
Asked about the legal wrangling, the new host of Cosmos, Neil deGrasse Tyson, said that atheistic writers have made impish allusions to God for decades. “Stephen Hawking wrote a book called God Created the Integers. The Higgs boson was called the God particle. Einstein said he wanted to know the mind of God. It’s often just pandering to the American population, which is unusually religious.
“But those who’ve read Carl Sagan know that the universe is a wonderful place. We naturalists want to introduce Christians to a new religion, one that’s based on science and on the sublimity of nature. That’s what the show Cosmos is about.
“Of course, Christians will say that nature worship is Satanic. So there they go again, thinking—as if that’s what they’re good at. We settled that centuries ago, didn’t we? The Age of Reason is the Age of Science. Leave the thinking to scientists, Christians, and just get on with keeping our birthrate above that of other nihilistic modern societies. Don’t think so much. Just breed.”
Mock as you will. Tyson is still the Pope of Science but The Church is on top with two Popes. And that ain’t the Missionary position.
1/3rd of a dozen munchkins under my belt, and believe you me, no fertile woman will even talk to me at this point. Should I meet one, I’ll definitely give you a glowing referral.
Um, does anyone want to help me with my share of the breeding responsibility?
Female preferred.
Thanks.
Not sure what the point was but I have to say if you think science is not dogmatic you proably aren’ t a scientist. Or ever has a drink with one. Those cats aren’t anything like Cosmos
Wow, Cain, you brought out the looney tunes. Science is dogmatic, apparently. Science has popes. Science is top down. And this drive by nut job was gracious enough to give you the last word. What a hero!
Unfortunately, those of you looking at science from the outside in see it incorrectly. Science is the unltimate top down, dogma driven organization. If you think the concept of climate change is new, you’re incorrect. It was virtually proven back in the late 60’s but the concept was squelched. From the top down. Additional information and verification that came later only supported what proponents of that contraversal theory alrteady knew.
When the political clout and leverage the concept of climate change brought with it became something the possibly beneficial to that facet of the socnece community in the form of funding became apparent, they Popes changed their caps and jumped on board.
Anyone who says science is not dogmatic is only familiar with the PR that comes from whatever populist “face” is presented to them to make them feel smarter for knowing stuff. If you’ve observed the “suppressed” research driven by scientific politics (and scientific dogma of which there is much) then you would find light-hearted humor in my statement above. However if you chose to take issue with the entire notion, then here you have it. The nature of science is sometimes indistinguishable form religion. It was scientists who disputed the existence of bacteria, you know. The “dogma’ was bad air. When it comes to belief systems like religion and science, frequently the two are indistinguihable. I could go on…and on….and on. But I won’t.
You may have written a lot in your blog regarding science and technology Mr. Cain, but with due respect, you “ain’t no scientist”. You’re not even old enough to have a wealth of experience or else you would have observed “science” behaving badly for years. You’re a young philosopher, a discipline which requires no hard proof of anything.
Now you can retort anyway you wish. I will not respond and give you the last word.
Yeah, it’s just inaccurate to say that science is a religion. Scientism, which is a philosophy, and materialistic consumerism, which depends on science and technology, are better candidates for being late modern religions for secularists who mistakenly equate religion with theism. I’ve written a lot about this stuff on my blog.
No, Don Key. Science has no Pope. Science isn’t top down like dogma. It’s science.
Science is the new religion with Tyson as its Pope. Film at One Million AD.
They think supernatural stuff is stupid, but have you heard of the Jesus Seminar? Those are the New Testament scholars who like Jesus’s ethics, but who dump all of the supernaturalism in Christianity as unscientific. That’s a secular humanistic interpretation of that religion. There are secular philosophical arguments supporting liberal values, too, but they’re not widely regarded as successful.
Anyway, we often gravitate towards what we hate. (I think Jung called this the work of the shadow side of our personality.) Hence the irony in this criticism of the Cosmos show.
Then again, maybe secular humanists think Jesus is stupid.
Yeah, it’s not just the Cosmos show. Secular humanists frequently use Bruno in that way. Of course, the story about him is more or less accurate. But the funny thing is that secular humanists borrow their liberal values from the Judeo-Christian tradition, despite Nietzsche’s warning that atheism threatens us with nihilism. So what’s ironic is when secular humanists turn to substitute religions and myths in this way, to support their liberal values. That’s the point of the Cosmos show, to spread the word about a naturalistic, secular humanistic religion that’s actually compatible with science.
Let me qualify that. It was obvious they were setting up Bruno as a martyr, I hadn’t considered the quite obviouse irony juxtaposing that against Christian martyrs.
I find your premise that Cosmos was setting Bruno up as a science martyr quite interesting. I didn’t see that while watching the show but on further contemplation I think you are correct.