“I was telling Oliver all about the Big Bang and the evolution of life and he asked me how God plays into all of this,” recounted Dr. Tyson. “I laughed at first because that is one of the dumbest questions a kid has ever asked me... I said ‘Oliver, if God exists why are you in pain all the time? This must be a punishment, and you must have done something really bad.’ It was around that time his father looked like he was about to punch me, but cooler heads prevailed.”
The site claims to be satire, but I am 100% sure that Neil has this exact interaction with terminally ill children like twice a week.
As an pedantic note regarding existential philosophy, while popular religions feature a god or a pantheon that is aligned with and interested in human civilization, these presumptions are not necessary in theistic models.
As counter examples, the Meso-American gods were largely malevolent to humankind, as are Lovecraft's elder gods.
It might be a troubling possibility that even if the universe is a simulation that life on Earth, and all of human history are merely emergent from natural laws doing their thing.
I'm less worried about Dr. Tyson as I am the countess Christian and Muslim apologists who serm to believe evidence in a generic deity or prime mover is significant evidence in favor of their own narrative of preference, especially when they assert their understanding of the divine carries authority in human society.
