I can't gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn't believe in God. I just don't - I don't have the energy for that, and so I... Agnostic separates me from the conduct of atheists whether or not there is strong overlap between the two categories, and at the end of the day I'd rather not be any category at all.
Interpretation
The speaker expresses a desire to avoid discussions that focus on disbelief in God and prefers not to be categorized.
In this quote, Neil DeGrasse Tyson shares his reluctance to engage in conversations that dwell on disbelief in God. He identifies as agnostic, indicating that he is more comfortable defining himself beyond labels like atheist, which he feels could impose limitations on his beliefs. Ultimately, Tyson suggests a preference for personal freedom over fitting into societal categories.
In practice
During a philosophical debate at a university seminar.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal
The only way to retrieve a secret,once known, is to replace it with a lie.
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.
Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.
When we say 'Black Lives Matter,' we're not saying that any other life doesn't matter. That has never, ever been our message. Our message has always been from a place of love.
The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.
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