Extended Classic: A Conversation with God

Neil Tyson has a one-on-one conversation with… God. Join us for divine revelations about everything from the Big Bang, to evolution and creationism, to aliens. Now including “God’s Favorites,” plus “How Tweet It Is” with Neil and Bill Nye.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City, where I also serve as Director of the Hayden Planetarium. For this episode of StarTalk, we feature an exclusive, never-before-heard interview with God. Yep, I said it. We got God on StarTalk. I ran into God's handiwork, well, of course, it's all around us, but he has a Twitter feed called "The Tweet of God", and I said, "I gotta get this guy on StarTalk." This God

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is all that you might expect the Old Testament God to be. He smites people who don't obey or don't otherwise follow his word. And I just thought, "Why not explore the collision of science literacy with God the Almighty?" So, God and I begin by talking about life, evolution, and his plans for our future.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God, it's just great having you here on StarTalk. I've been asked you for a couple of years to do this. Finally made some time in your busy schedule. Thanks. It's my pleasure. I'm a big fan, Neil. May I call you Neil? Neil is fine. Yes. Would you be willing to actually kneel? Uh, there's no K in my name. The answer is no. Ah, stickler for spelling, are we? Very clever. So, I have a million things to ask you. Don't you all? So, I've wondered my whole life... You're God.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I read insurance forms and at the end it describes horrific acts of nature wreaking havoc on life, property and civilization.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're called acts of God.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how do you feel about that?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  That's correct. They are acts of God. They are usually one acts, but in the case of, for example, a earthquake followed by a tsunami, I give you two acts, making a whole night at the theater.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're okay with that?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm okay with that. You know, I created the earth primarily as a vast killing machine. And so it's a pleasure for me to get to see the mechanism used in the way it was intended.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it is true that if you look at the fossil record, ninety-seven percent or more of all species there ever was are now extinct.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  The fossil record is probably the single greatest thing I ever created. I put more time and energy into creating an empirically unassailable case for evolution than anything else I have ever done. And do you want to know why, Tyson?

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Because it's worth it at the end, when a scientist dies and goes to heaven and I talk to him for about half an hour about what a wonderful job he did promoting reason and rationality. And then I open the trap door and I say, so long sucker, and I send him to hell.

• 3:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're an evil man.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  It's not evil. That's a mischaracterization, Neil. I'm not evil. I'm just misunderstood and occasionally a little bored.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great work on the biodiversity on Earth.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, I get that a lot.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you can't argue the fact that some of them look just like humans. You know, we've got some apes out there.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They sit down, they cross their legs, they scratch when they itch, they smile.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, evolution explains that. We're good with that. But what were you thinking?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  I was thinking I wanted to create creatures just human enough so that when they did things like humans did, it was very funny. And so that's why I created monkeys. Monkey funny, monkey always funny, Neil. When you see monkey eat banana, monkey funny. This is what I was thinking. That's the basic principle behind the entire line of primates. Monkey funny, chimpanzee funny, gorilla funny.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a lot of extinct species in the fossil record. That any that you regret that you wish were still walking around now?

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I do miss the mastodon. I think that was a really good one. He was an amazing creature, kind of elephant like. So I think if I could do it again, I would keep the mastodon and I would probably lose humanity.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, there's some frozen mastodons coming out of glaciers and we might have the DNA and we could make a new mastodon.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  I think that's a wonderful thing for people to be doing. That's why I'm not going to get rid of the humans yet. They are helpful in creating the extinct species. A Jurassic Park would be, I would love to see a Jurassic Park for real. And it would be nice to see the dinosaurs get back together again. They were a fun group while they lasted.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I worry that we bring the mastodon back. An animal that thrived in an era of the Ice Age. We bring it back just in time for global warming.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  No, it wouldn't be fair. So maybe some of the hotter weather extinct creatures should return. Like the, well, the fire dragon, for example, we used to have fire dragons. They were, I love the fire dragons a lot. They used to inhabit the Amazonian jungles, but it didn't work out for them. It's a, it's a long story.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we ever going to solve this global warming thing?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  That's on you. That's nothing to do with me. You want your entire race to be able to tan more easily. That's your decision. I have nothing to do with that.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's up with flightless birds? What were you thinking?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  It's just funny, Neil. Isn't just being funny enough?

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got the emu, the ostrich, that's just cruel.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what's even worse. It's, it's, and none of them survive, so you don't know about them. But there's also fish that can't swim. I created them as well, but you don't hear about them because they all drown, so you never see them. But there's thousands of fish born in the oceans every day who can't swim. And they are hilarious, I have to say. That is, to see their pathetic struggles to survive that brief period before they drown is, for me, highly amusing.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, my least favorite kind of creature in creation is?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Tell me, Neil.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Parasites.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Oh, that's ironic.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh. Parasites of all kinds. The things that suck your blood, that that attach to you, or that bite you. Why are you annoying us with this?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I don't disagree. I think those are, you know, I have an agent. He gets 10% of everything I do. And what is he doing for me? I'm God. You talk about a parasite. So I am reconsidering the whole parasite category is.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't presume humans are gonna be here forever. If you look at the fossil record, mammals have a tenure on Earth that lasts maybe three million years, tops. So if we're just another mammal on Earth, I'm not gonna think we're gonna live much longer than that. Who's gonna rise up after us? I'm thinking it's like the roaches or the rats or what?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  That's correct. It's going to be the rats and the roaches. And what's wonderful about that, I chose them is because they're the two most disgusting animals to human beings. And I want humans to know that not only are they going to die, but they're going to be succeeded by disgusting, disgusting animals, rats and roaches.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think you've thought this all the way through, because rats thrive where humans thrive. Roaches thrive where humans toss their garbage. If you get rid of humans, what are they gonna have to live on?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Humans. The bodies of the humans. Human beings won't eat rats and roaches, but rats and roaches will happily eat human beings. And so that's, you know, game, set, and match, rats, roaches.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. For this episode of StarTalk, we're featuring my exclusive, private, one-on-one interview with God. In this segment, we talk about God's origin, the creation of the universe, and some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. So, when were you born and where were you born?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I was born an infinite number of years ago. It was October 8th, negative infinity.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Born to whom?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  I was my own father, and then I never knew my mom. She left me when I was about 87 trillion, so I was still very young. And has that scarred me? Some have argued it has, and perhaps it has. I don't really know. But I learned very early on that anything I was going to have in this existence, I would have to create for myself. And so, that's what gave me the idea to create the universe. Because I thought, if I create the universe, I'll have something that I can call my own. And I think that was important to me. That was a turning point in terms of my own self-esteem.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some say you're female, but you sound pretty male to me.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  No, I'm all mad, Neil. In fact, I'll show you later.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you say to the people who pray to you and assume you're female? Or perhaps you're not even an entity that we can identify as having any gender at all?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  I say, "Oh, go have fun with your vegan corp. Go to your commune and live on your kibbutzes and pray to your feminine goddesses. Oh, oh, let's worship the earth, mother. Oh, let's worship a star thing. Let's worship all the fertility goddesses." Please, go watch Lifetime Television for Women.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's been said you are the Alpha and the Omega.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  The Greeks said that primarily.

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's their alphabet. But it's kind of weird if we say you're the A and the Z.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you're the alpha, then you make it through the beginning and the end.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I just want to clarify that.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I'm the beginning and the end, but the good news for you is that I'm not the middle, and that's where you come in.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But do we really have free will? I think I do. I think I choose what happens in my life. But some people are saying lately that maybe that's not the case.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  You do have free will, but if I do have a regret, looking back, it shouldn't have been free. It should have been a paid service. Will should have been something that cost. Imagine how much money I could have made if will was a pay service instead of making it free. But you know, I give things to people and then what do I get? I get nothing. I used to get slaughtered oxen, Neil. I used to get the faded heels of black cows, four of them, spotless white, burned at the altar. Now, pumpkins. Sometimes it does make me sad.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It took us centuries inventing methods and tools of science, and we finally realized that our five senses are really inadequate to decode the deepest operations of nature. And so we invent telescopes and particle accelerators, and we end up discovering relativity in quantum physics. Those are awesome understandings of the universe, but you had it hidden there. We didn't even know that till the 20th century. What's up with that?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  I like living surprises. I like the little mystery. I like the process of science and people explore. There's so much out there still left to discover, including some things that to me should have been discovered centuries ago. For example, pi. How can you not see the pattern? How do you not see? It's right, I'm not going to say it, but it's right there. 3.14159265. How do you not see what the pattern is? It's.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've tried to find the pattern. We can't find a pattern. In fact, there's so much not a pattern, we have a word for the kind of number that has no pattern that we've ever found. It's called a transcendental number.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yes, no, I am a transcendental figure, not pi. But like me, it is irrational.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we look far back in time, we whip out our telescopes, we study galaxies, the universe is expanding, turn the clock back, we get to a beginning. We get to the big bang. Now, I assume you caused that, but why not just create the universe as is? Why with the drama and the explosion?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Neil, I created the heavens and the earth approximately 6,200 years ago in six days. What are you even talking about?

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, then you put evidence in the sky to tell us differently.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, how did I do that? Oh, yes, I'm God. I'm omnipotent. That answers everything. Anytime anyone says, "Oh, that doesn't make logical sense," it's because I'm God. Do you understand the kind of power I have? I can get a table at Balthazar right now. It's no effort for me.

• 13:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But wait a minute, there are things we used to think were unknowable. And had I invoke your, well, God did it, I would have just stopped there. But I said, "No, I think the universe is knowable, and we keep looking and we figure it out."

• 13:31Speaker 01

  That's like saying, "Oh, I have a little boo-boo on my elbow. I could let it heal by myself, but I'm going to scratch it and scratch it. Oh, no, it's infected. Oh, no, it's gangrenous. Oh, no, now my arm's fallen off. Oh, no, now I'm dead."

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we think philosophically that all of our understanding of the universe can be written down in one equation, but we're not there yet. We're looking for the theory of everything. So we got our top people working on it. We call them string theorists. Are you okay with that?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means they're ready to figure you out.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Without giving too much away, they're not going to discover a theory of everything, because there is no such theory. They may, by dint of hard work, discover the most they can, which is the theory of most things. There is a theory that covers 87% of things, and that is the best you're ever going to do. So when you reach that point, I hope at that point you say, "You know what? We have a theory of most things. Isn't that good enough?"

• 14:31Speaker 01

  A theory of most things ought to be sufficient for really any kind of practical purpose you might ever want to invoke.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So our best understanding of the future of the universe is that we will expand forever and the temperature will drop. Right now it's three degrees, which is already pretty cold, but it'll go asymptotically to zero. All the mechanical processes will cease. All stars will finish being born and they'll slowly die. And we'll have a universe that ends in the depths of cold.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  All true, but on the plus side, the boy gets the girl. In the very end, at the very last minute, the boy will get the girl. So you have that.

• 15:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our best thinking today about the universe tells us that maybe this is not the only universe, that there could be a multiverse, an infinitude of other universes out there. Yet I've got you sitting next to me in a StarTalk interview in this universe. Do the other universes have their own gods?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  No, I am the god of all the other universes.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, how do you even know that? Oh, sorry, you got, sorry.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  There are six different other universes, six universes total.

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was not infinite?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  No, just six. The only difference is which of the characters from Friends goes on to be the biggest star after the show. Everything else is exactly the same, but in one universe Lisa Kudrow is the big star. In one, David Schwimmer is the biggest star. In another one, Jennifer Aniston is the biggest. So those are the only six universes that there are.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about the laws of physics within those universes?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Oh, same, same.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Same? That's no fun.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  I settled on these constants for a good reason. Every mathematical constant in the universe is there for a good reason.

• 16:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we've got the speed of light, that's a good one. That one is same everywhere. We've got Planck's constant, the gravitational constant.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not experiment with some more?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  I'm very happy with those. By the way, it's not just mathematical constants, there's also other, well, Murphy's law. That's a constant. That's a constant as much as any of the ones you mentioned. Anything that can go wrong will, that is a universal law.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why is it that everyone, when they think of heaven, they look up to the universe and they think of hell, they look down? What that means to me is when I study the universe and I'm looking up and I talk about what's up there and other people look up and search for their gods, we're searching the same territory. That's interesting to me because to be inspired by looking up has common emotion in both communities.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yes, and you should be inspired by looking up. Creation of the universe and the universe around all human beings is a source of awe and majesty as it should be. I created 500 million, billion, trillion, billion stars, but I did it all for the purpose of just, you know, picking a nice view for people on earth. Now, did I go too far? Did I create too many? Perhaps. The argument could be made, I didn't have to create 500 million, billion, trillion, billion stars just to fill the sky on behalf of one little planet orbiting one of them. But you know what? I like to complete the things I start. But I put in an order for 500 million, billion, trillion, billion stars. I completed the order.

• 17:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is you made them so people looking up feeling your presence, they're perfectly legitimate in that. I'm studying them as astrophysical objects and I'm legitimate in doing that too.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, that's right. I also created the stars as a template for Hollywood stars because Hollywood stars are really what I was going for. And so the stars in the sky, people think that Hollywood stars are named in honor of them. It's the reverse. Hollywood stars are very important to me, celebrities are. They are my chosen people. And I know you're going to say, I thought that Jews were chosen people, but the truth is Neil, there's a lot of overlap.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. For this StarTalk, we've been featuring my exclusive interview with God. In this next segment, we talk about planets, space exploration, and the possibility of alien life.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was implicated a few years back for the demotion of Pluto. Didn't actually do it. I was an accessory back at the Hayden Planetarium and the Rose Center. We had a whole exhibit that said, "Look, guys, Pluto is not really hanging, it's not cutting it with the rest of the planets. It's small, it's made of mostly ice."

• 19:09Speaker 01

  It's a trans-Neptunian dwarf object, clearly, Neil, and we're, we're in agreements on this. There's no question about that. That's not funny. It's not, that's a simple fact. I don't know why you find that amusing. I created it as one of many, along with Eris and thousands of other things, between there and the Oort Cloud. This is all basic stuff. Any first grader in any country other than America would know. Pluto is fine. That's not the issue. The issue is this. I created eight planets, Earth and seven others. Now, there's five of them that have been around and visible for long thousands of years.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  So when those were named for pagan gods, I thought to myself, "Okay, they're not enlightened yet. They don't understand the great glory of me and my monotheistic reign." Then in 1781, William Herschel discovers a new planet. You know where this is going, Neil. Not only does he fail to name it for me, he gives it a name that has caused tittering among cosmologists and 5th graders alike ever since. To not name the planet "God," but to call it Uranus, I can never forgive William Herschel for that. He's an evil man, Roddick and Hill.

• 20:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we're here on Earth. We don't know if there's life anywhere else, but-

• 20:29Speaker 01

  But I do. Spoiler alert, I'm not going to tell you. No, that's, that's not-

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, you know about life somewhere else in the universe and you're not going to tell us?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it more advanced than us or less advanced? Can you at least leak that?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  What happened to mystery? What happened to wonder? You're, you're into wonder, you're into awe. If you had all the answers, don't you agree that you would be unsatisfied? You would have nothing else to live for. You want to know things that you don't yet know. So I'm not going to speak about whether there are aliens on other planets or galaxies, or where they may happen to be, or when they may happen to land, and what weaponry they might happen to have with them, and how they plan on attacking and conquering the Earth, and in what ways they would enslave you when they come. That is not for me to discuss at this particular juncture.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It took us a long time, but we finally figured out how to leave Earth. First went into orbit, then we went to the moon.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yes, and thank goodness because leaving Earth should be everyone's top priority. There's just so many wonderful other places in the neighborhood to go. We should all leave Earth. Oh, yes, let us haste away from this only possible place where we can live within a trillion mile radius. Let's hurry up, let's take a little voyage to the moon. Oh, wow, it's a rock, it's a rock and you jump on it and it's hard. Oh, that's amazing. Let's all go away from the Earth. Oh.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is that really how you feel?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Why explore space? You're not going anywhere.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, one day I will show you. We're gonna terraform Mars and turn Mars into a haven just the way Earth is. And then we'll be a two-planet species, not just one.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Yes, good luck with that, Neil. Good luck with terraforming Mars. Oh, why don't we just, oh, and let's terraform Venus too. We can just get rid of the carbon dioxide there. We're people, we can do anything. We discovered a fourth meal between lunch and dinner. Look at us, hmm. Please.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What fourth meal? You mean the afternoon snack?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  I mean the one popularized by Taco Bell. Fourth meal.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look, you made us warm-blooded and warm-blooded creatures have to consume mass quantities of caloric intake so that we can maintain our body temperature. That's not our fault, that's your fault. If you made us cold-blooded like crocodiles, we could eat once a month and then be fine the rest of the month. So don't be blaming us for that.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Okay, we'll put that in the suggestion box and I'll be sure to get right on that, Neil. You are, you are teaching me so much I didn't know, which is surprising as I am omniscient. Jesus. No, I'm serious, Jesus. Okay. Now, give me a half, I'm still talking, give me half an hour. Okay, sorry. Junior sometimes gets in a state.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you only have one kid, I guess?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  No, I have three children. And if you read the book that I'm here partly to plug, The Last Testament, a memoir by Guy, you'll learn that I have three children. Zach, Jesus, and Kathy. And they are my three children, and Jesus is my middle child. And this was a lot of what happened with Jesus was he had a middle child thing happening. This is all water under the divine bridge. We've been through this, me and Jesus, and we're tight now. But there was a time when we had some issues.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A lot of people say they're prophets and they've come through time. Do you have a favorite one? I know, except for, we know your son. Okay, include him in. Of all the prophets, you have a favorite one?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  I think Jesus did a good job. I think Muhammad was very good. David Koresh started out well. He obviously took a turn for the worse. Same with Jim Jones. I was thinking that would go better. You know, things happen. It's not easy, the prophet game. You know, things start well and then they just run amok. Be it because of power, or mental illness, or Kool-Aid, or weaponry. It just happens sometimes.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. If you have God in the studio, you gotta ask Him everything you possibly can think of. So I had to ask Him more than just about space or science. In this part of the interview, we spoke about biblical plagues and the possibilities of miracles.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  How come we don't get biblical disasters anymore? Frogs, locusts, bloody rivers. That's like asking, let's say you go on tour and you see Don McLean and you say, "Why can't we hear American Pie?" Because I've moved on, Neil. I am an artist. I do things and I, I welcome the creative journey and I welcome if my fans come along on that journey, but I don't dwell in the past. I create new plays. I'm working on a new plague now that will forever change the way you think about being buried alive. It is going to blow your mind. That's where I am right now. So you could live in the past all you like

• 25:53Speaker 01

  with the frogs and the locusts and the bloody rivers. They were great then. This is now. That was a good move, helping Moses park the Red Sea. That was awesome. Thank you. Backstage story about that, Neil. So I'm parting the Red Sea and I really wanted to say the right thing. I wanted the catchphrase to be "the right thing." So I, I came up with this line, okay? Just before the sea closed on the Egyptians, I was going to say, "Time to turn the Red Sea into the Dead Sea." That was the line. So the Israelites pass through, the Egyptians are in there, and I open my mouth and I say, "Time to turn the Red Sea into the Red Sea."

• 26:35Speaker 01

  I said the same thing. I said the same thi- I messed up, yes, obviously they were all killed. But the point is, I messed up the line. I don't do that very much and you don't get a second chance to do that. That's one of probably the biggest regrets of the last 50,000 years. I wish I had gotten the line right. So when Hollywood portrayed this, how good a job was that? Great. Charlton Heston is, I think I'm him. I think he's me. I love Charlton Heston. He's very, very godlike. They did a very, very good job with that. I don't know if it won any Oscars that year, but it certainly should have. The Ten Commandments is a fine, fine film. I believe that Cecil B. DeMille. What's with the commandments? But why are there only 10? I keep thinking we need more instructions than that.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  There should only be one commandment, really. And the only commandment that was necessary, and I realize this too late, is just quit being a dick. That's the one commandment that's really the only essential one for life. Just quit being a dick.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  And looking back, that's the one I would have just.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that covers all of them.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  That covers all of them in its way. I I believe when loosely interpreted, the quit being a dick rule will cover any moral situation.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's up with miracles? I don't think there are miracles, because anytime someone in modern times, miracles are kind of localized to medical miracles, because we're not really there yet. No one is stopping the earth's rotation. No one is suspending the force of gravity. If you want to give me a miracle, do it in something that we really understand, so that we can say, hey, something happened there. That's a miracle.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yes, there really haven't been any miracles since the Jesus era. The only one I can think of would be Smokey Robinson's backup group, who are very good. I wouldn't call their singing miraculous per se, but they're certainly ably accompanied Mr. Robinson on his many hits in Motown.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it hard to perform a miracle?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  No, the problem is it sets a standard expectation. Once you have somebody walking on water, then everyone says, then the next time it's like, oh, he's walking on water again. Oh, you see? And then you have to raise the stakes. Oh, let's have him walk five feet over the water. And then it creates this whole vicious cycle of ever growing more miracles. You can't, you you just can't live up to the expectation. I've decided long ago that rather than playing up the miracles, I would just grind people into despair. Or by a series of just relentless, crushing day-to-day events that rid them of any hope, of any possible improvement for their condition in the future.

• 29:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they die.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  And then they die.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then they meet you, and presumably that's a good thing.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Well, that's a spoiler, and I'm not going there.

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the Bible, it said, you made the sun stop in the sky. So back then, people thought the universe went around the earth. But if you stop the sun in the sky, it means you stop the rotation of the earth. And the rotation of the earth is carrying everyone at this latitude, eight hundred miles an hour due east. And if you stop the earth, we keep rolling over eight hundred miles an hour due east. So I don't believe you actually stopped the earth. I have laws of physics to say that.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Four words for you, Neil. Arm, ni, po, tent.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those are four syllables, but we won't go there.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  No, they should be words. They're all words in other contexts. And in this context, I've decided to make them words and not syllables. You tire me, Neil.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, wait, just a few more questions. Because I see you're getting antsy here, and I don't want to piss off God.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Good, because I'm due in five minutes to appear in a meth addict's hallucination.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who are all the homeless people talking to? Are you talking to them?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  In some cases, I'm talking to them. In most cases, it's the CIA, but in some cases, it isn't.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. In this final segment of my interview with God, we speak of superheroes, sports, and, of course, intelligent design.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Humans have been around a long time. Earth has been around a long time. I think a lot about, is there another time and place that I might have liked to have been alive rather than the present? And you've been around the whole time. Pick a time, what would you like to relive?

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Well, for me, they were all good. If I were one of you, I think it would be fun to live in the Roman era again, just because...

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ancient Rome.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Ancient Rome, because there was just so much sex. And from your standpoint, to me, that would be a fun thing. But here's something. Shouldn't I be the last entity in the universe whose name should be called during intercourse? Aren't I the last person you want in the room at that time? I don't understand. I never understand this, Neil. Why wouldn't you call Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn Monroe? Or Brad Pitt? Brad Pitt? They called me. Who wants me in the room at that moment? And another thing. I am the Lord thy God, King of the Universe. I created everything from nothing. I am not your sneeze bitch.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  I don't ca- no, oh, some mucus has left my nose. I best pray to the great god above that something untoward not happened to me, because mucus has been expelled from my nose. Please, if you must say anything, Gesundheit is sufficient. What's with all the athletes compelling you to have them defeat their opponents? Yes. Don't you have better things to do with your time? No, I don't have better things to do with my time. I love sports. This is a good chance for me to clarify something for the record. I have never influenced the outcome of a sporting event to affect the point now.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  I have only on rare occasions affected the outcome of a sporting event to affect the spread. That's one of the revelations in the book, by the way. That's one of many revelations you will learn if you buy the book. It's available now in hardcover and paperback. There's an audio version. You'd think you would just implant in everyone's head the will to buy the book. Well, that's cheating, Neil. I want to come about it honestly. The goal for this one is to get us close to around, just one billion copies would be fine. My previous books sold an average of four billion copies. So I don't need this to be a hotel room book like my last one was. I'm just asking for a little bit of play. Publishers Weekly, we have nice write-ups on the Amazon site, so I appreciate that.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  We're just trying to bump the sales up. Well, maybe StarTalk Radio will help that. That would be great. Every little bit helps, Neil. I am working on an old factory version that will tell the story of the book via aromas. And that's going to be a brand new technology that I'm very excited about. It's still in the lab. You're working on that? It's still in the lab. It's a co-collaboration with the Chanel company. You're telling me some corporate interests in the world have access to you? Yes, I work with corporations, obviously, and that's how you get power. I mean, I know a lot of people, Neil, partly because of the job and partly just from schmoozing. Cocktail parties. Cocktail parties, you know, and also being a member of the Illuminati certainly doesn't hurt. I'm not president of the Illuminati. I'm working on it. I'm just social secretary right now.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  But I am hoping that eventually I will work my way up past the Koch brothers and become the president of the Illuminati. Who's more powerful, you or the superheroes we've created in the comic books? Well, that depends. If you're talking about me versus just...

• 34:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like Superman.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm more powerful than Superman. Now, if it's me versus the League of Justice, the entire League of Justice, even Aquaman, that's going to be a hard fight. I'm going to win in the end, as I am the Lord thy God, King of the Universe, but it's going to be tight.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you say about this movement? They call it the intelligent design movement. You confront something in nature and you don't quite know how it works. You assume no one will ever know how it works. And people then said it must be the product of a higher intelligence.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Intelligent design, yes. I prefer to call it creation science because I like that phrase very much. It carries the same intellectual heft as the phrase dragon anatomy.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what that presumes is that no one who will ever be born will be smart enough to figure out what we don't know today. I have a lot of confidence in human intellect going forward.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I love this guy. He has a lot of confidence in human intellect going forward. Neil, the press, Tyson, you are priceless.

• 35:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What of the people who say they're somehow channeling you? And that they know what you feel and they know what you want. And they're bringing that to bear on their parishioners, their followers. We see them here walking among us, not your prophets. I'm talking about regular old folk.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and then they go out and they bully in my name and they have, as they have for thousands of years, they kill in my name and some say I want this and some say I want that. And they all claim to be on my side. And how do you think I feel about it, Neil? I'm very flattered. It's very nice. It's a nice thing to know all these people care so much. And that they're willing to do all these things just to make me happy. It really gives me tremendous pleasure and joy.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is there some secret of the universe that you can share with me and our listeners?

• 36:15Speaker 01

  You're twisting my metaphysical arm, but okay. Do you know why bad things happen to good people?

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's one of the great mysteries of life.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yes, here's the answer. To even out the good things that happen to bad people.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know you were a karma guy. You were yin yang, you got some of that in you?

• 36:36Speaker 01

  It's not fully karma. You know, what comes around usually is gone for a long time.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Radio. And now for the part of StarTalk I call "How Tweeted Is." This is the part of the show where I comb tweets that I've posted over the years and find some that maybe might want to know how I came up with it or what some of the behind the scenes calculations might have been to go in to any numbers that I've given within it. Bill Nye joining me here.

• 37:24Bill Nye?

  So good to be here.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good to have you, and you tweet @BillNye.

• 37:26Bill Nye?

  I do.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice. I follow you, Bill.

• 37:29Bill Nye?

  Thank you, I follow you, Neil.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of them that I posted, Bill, it is the most retweeted tweet I've ever posted.

• 37:35Bill Nye?

  The most retweeted tweet?

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People went bananas.

• 37:38Bill Nye?

  Went tweet crazy.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ape bananas, okay? Christmas Day, here is my tweet.

• 37:43Bill Nye?

  Christmas Day, oh, the 25th of December.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  25th of December. On this day long ago, a child was born who by age 30 would transform the world. Happy birthday, Isaac Newton.

• 37:55Bill Nye?

  Love that.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Born December 25th, 1642.

• 37:58Bill Nye?

  As reckoned in Britain.

• 37:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought people might want to know! I thought-

• 38:01Bill Nye?

  As reckoned in Britain, yeah.

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In England, he's born on December 25th. Have you told me over the years, you're born on the day that your mother thinks you were born on?

• 38:09Bill Nye?

  Well, that's one way of looking at it.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and-

• 38:11Bill Nye?

  The Catholic Church is crazy to tell everybody, they just love telling everybody, it was the 4th of January.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, because England had not yet con- England not a big fan of the church, the Catholic Church.

• 38:21Bill Nye?

  Well, the Catholic.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Catholic Church.

• 38:23Bill Nye?

  They had their own deal.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they stayed with the Julian calendar a little longer than others did.

• 38:27Bill Nye?

  A little longer, 150 years longer.

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 38:30Bill Nye?

  Imagine everybody what it's like if you're trying to do commerce and you don't agree on the calendars. Imagine everybody, a guy so powerful, the Pope Gregory the 13th was so powerful, he declared October 5th shall be followed by October 15th in, was it 1572?

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, 1582.

• 38:49Bill Nye?

  1582, excuse me, 1582. And so you're a landlord. This is great. Hey, you owe me another month's rent.

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I know how to advertise.

• 38:58Bill Nye?

  No, I don't.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I know how to do the math on that one.

• 39:01Bill Nye?

  But I gotta think.

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what happens?

• 39:03Bill Nye?

  Newton's mom thought it was Christmas Day.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we got that. And then hence I posted this tweet, but people reacted. There was some newspaper headline that Tyson trolls Christians on Christmas Day. And I'm thinking, don't people want to know that there's this guy who was actually born that day? We don't really know when Jesus was born.

• 39:18Bill Nye?

  Apparently he was born four years before. They even, they lied about his age even back then.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  4 B.C. is probably the better date.

• 39:25Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and it was, there were some comets. You had some comets in the summertime.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, there is some alignment of planets that people are trying to find what the wise men were looking at. My point is, I thought people would be enchanted by learning about Isaac Newton and his significance in shaping modern culture, being the, basically the founder of the knowable universe.

• 39:44Bill Nye?

  They had somebody else in mind. An historic figure.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd had other tweets that day too. Can I tell you my favorite one from that day?

• 39:51Bill Nye?

  Please.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's about Santa. I said, Santa knows physics. Red light penetrates fog better than any other color.

• 39:58Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And so Benny-

• 40:00Bill Nye?

  No matter whether the dress is black and blue or white and gold.

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so Benny, the blue-nosed reindeer, didn't get the gift.

• 40:07Bill Nye?

  Did not get, no.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I worked hard on that one.

• 40:09Bill Nye?

  It was good. And people say, well, how do you know Santa is, how can you see Santa at this store and at that shopping mall? Because he's magic.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the answer.

• 40:23Bill Nye?

  Okay, so then there's like, you can do that.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Many thanks to our comedian, our guests, our experts, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.