Is Neil DeGrasse Tyson Hiding God in Galaxies?

“Just as I can’t believe there was a Creator, I can’t believe that this all happened by chance, which implies there was a Creator. So, you see, I am in a completely hopeless bind, and I’ve stayed there.”—The late Dr. Robert Jastrow, astrophysicist extraordinaire, Chief of the Theoretical Division at NASA, founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

As brilliant as Jastrow was, from a psychological perspective he was, by his own humble admission, “in a completely hopeless bind,” and he stayed there because he refused to acknowledge the Creator of the universe despite overwhelming evidence of His existence.

Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, ambivalent atheist and avid Jastrow fan, has placed himself in the same “completely hopeless bind” (an uncomfortable modern psychological condition called atheistastroagnosis or “ATG”) as he attempts to hide God among the galaxies in his delightfully engaging book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017).

The endeavor has called for the introduction of a new branch of study: Astrophysical Psychology. With this in mind, the full title of the present book is, Is Neil DeGrasse Tyson Hiding God in Galaxies?: Astrophysical Psychology Arises, authored by Dr. Firpo Carr.

The hope is to assuage the Belief Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, and Denial—the sum of atheistastroagnosis—of atheistic and agnostic astrophysicists. The astrophysical psychologist recognizes that scientists who are atheist or agnostic in the interdisciplinary fields of astronomy, astrophysics, atmospheric sciences, biology, chemistry, earth science, microbiology, oceanography, organic chemistry, physics, and other disciplines also experience atheistastroagnosis.

Dr. Carr (who is, ironically, a fan of Dr. Tyson), is a member psychologist of the American Psychological Association (APA) who specializes in Health Psychology, which includes the field of mental health.  While maintaining the dignity and professionalism that a book like his calls for, Carr adopts a light-hearted approach to the challenging subjects of astrophysics, atheism, agnosticism, spirituality, biblical scholarship, and religion, which in combination makes for an inviting read. Both books by Carr and Tyson are framed as edutainment, hence, are designed to be educational and fun reads.