Neil deGrasse Tyson Delivers the Greatest Science Sermon Ever

in Astronomy, Physics, Religion | May 29th, 2012 9 Comments

Just when you think you’ve had enough Neil deGrasse Tyson, anoth­er not-to-miss video comes along. This one comes from the 2006 Beyond Belief Con­fer­ence, and it fea­tures the astro­physi­cist giv­ing what’s been called the “great­est sci­ence ser­mon ever.” As a young­ster, Tyson stepped into the Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um (the insti­tu­tion he now runs) and he felt an unshak­able call­ing to study the uni­verse. It was­n’t unlike the feel­ing some­one under­goes when they’re reli­gious­ly born again. And ever since, Tyson has expe­ri­enced rev­e­la­tion after rev­e­la­tion, epiphany after epiphany, when study­ing the uni­verse, and espe­cial­ly when­ev­er he’s remind­ed that, chem­i­cal­ly speak­ing, we are in the uni­verse, and the uni­verse is in us. We’re all made of the same star­dust. How can that not leave us with an incred­i­bly spir­i­tu­al feel­ing?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson & Richard Dawkins Pon­der the Big Enchi­la­da Ques­tions of Sci­ence


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Comments (9)
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  • Cameron Powell says:
    May 29, 2012 at 8:34 pm

    Tyson is a nation­al trea­sure, just like his hero, Carl Sagan, was.

    Reply
  • John Piggott says:
    May 30, 2012 at 5:45 am

    No-one would ever dis­pute that Tyson is a trea­sure. But you seem to be push­ing him end­less­ly of late. It almost seems like a fix­a­tion. Go easy, folks. Some­times less is more.

    Reply
  • Joel Allyn says:
    May 30, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    Thank you so much for post­ing this. I stum­bled upon Neil a cou­ple years ago and still revis­it this talk and learn some­thing new every time.
    In regards to the above com­ment, I have had sim­i­lar thoughts but then could­n’t remem­ber how I first found Tyson and real­ized that any thing that gets him more cov­er­age is a great thing. His mes­sage is noth­ing but pro­mot­ing hon­est intel­lec­tu­al inquiry among all. The more peo­ple who know about this man, the bet­ter.

    Reply
  • Joel Allyn says:
    May 30, 2012 at 7:29 pm

    …and for any­body who likes this, the full talk is avail­able, either on youtube or on the Beyond Belief site itself.

    Reply
  • Ron says:
    September 12, 2012 at 10:06 am

    John, I agree with you. Tyson is good, but watch­ing him some­times makes me won­der if he is real­ly more inter­est­ed in inspir­ing awe and won­der in the cos­mos, or gen­er­at­ing awe and fan­fare for him­self. Pret­ty sub­tle, but it is unmis­tak­ably there.

    Reply
  • NJH says:
    October 14, 2012 at 6:59 am

    “Called by the uni­verse?” Dr NdGT here is get­ting all religious/ new agey about the cos­mos. And “We all are chil­dren of the heav­en­ly father” and “we are all from the cen­tre of a star” begin to sound sim­i­lar. Sci­en­tists need to be skep­ti­cal about these spritu­al feel­ings that he is talk­ing about: it may inspire sci­en­tif­ic descov­ery, it also is the most beguil­ing and seduc­tive mush. Lets stay ground­ed folks — the ground is where the prob­lems are.

    Reply
  • Mark Plattner says:
    January 8, 2013 at 2:56 pm

    “Just when you think you’ve had enough Neil deGrasse Tyson…”

    I haven’t.

    Reply

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