Neil DeGrasse Tyson: 'Enlightened Religious People Don't Use The Bible As A Textbook'

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, is the host of "Cosmos," the rebooted version of Carl Sagan's classic science show. "Cosmos" debuted Sunday on Fox, and Tyson joined the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to discuss its return, as well why the Bible shouldn't be used as a textbook.

Rather than painting science and religion as diametrically opposed to each other, Tyson said that there are plenty of scientists who believe in God. “The issue there is not religion versus non-religion or religion versus science, the issue there is ideas that are different versus dogma," he observed.

He continued, “If you start using your scripture, your religious text as a source of your science, that’s where you run into problems, and there is no example of someone reading their scripture and saying ‘I have a prediction about the world that no one knows yet because this gave me insight.’”

“Enlightened religious people know this, and don’t try to use the Bible as a textbook,” he concluded.

Listen to the whole interview here -- his comments about religion start at the 10:59 mark: