Texas Tech DB Tyler Owens says he doesn't believe in space

"I'm like real religious..." Why does religion always end up being a synonym for ignorance and stupidity.

Everyone always calls me edgy when I bring this up but it's because believing in an obvious fairy tale shows a massive issue with critical thinking and cognitive capability.
These people essentially still believe in Santa Claus and will die for that belief.
- More commonly, will murder for that belief. Which is why this isn’t some edgelord topic, it’s something we need to deal with seriously as a society.
- I'm not religious but I dunno. Could you say that about, say the archbishop of Canterbury? The guy's got ten times the brains and university degrees than you and I put together tbh
Because of absolutely moronic literal scripture interpretations. These imbeciles take the Bible as some kind of all-purpose knowledge encyclopedia, instead of a moral guide.
- The Bible is not a moral guide. It has some moral rules in it but the vast majority of it is just stories, things like the descriptions of the temple, and hundreds of ways of saying that God is great.
  The people who wrote it took the earlier parts of it to be literal truth.
Just the way religion wants them. How else will they get money from them?
Because religion is used to control and keep people stupid.
“I don’t have to think since god is taking care of things. Just make sure to donate more than I can afford to church so that god knows I’m an extra special little worshipper.”
God is everywhere and he needs your money!
If you start explaining some fact with god or religion, all I hear is "I'm done thinking!"
If you believe in the literal words of the Bible the sky above us is solid hence no space.

Concussion and head injury are a serious problem in Football today, so this tracks.

I'm pretty sure he was stupid and ignorant well before he ever suited up.

It's almost like "college football" doesn't involve any education

This is what happens when you push someone through the higher education complex on a sports scholarship...

Nah, he might just be dumb. Pretty sure I knew space was real before I was 10 lol
- Exactly. An idiot like this should never be enrolled in a technical university.
tbh believing if space is real is less about education and more about ideology
- It's really not. He read about flat earthers crackpot theories and thought there was merit

What an idiot, especially when he blames his ignorance on his religious and political stances.

Also dumb, saying this to a newspaper formerly conceived of, headquartered, and printed in the same county that launches the most stuff to space, Brevard county Florida, aka the Space Coast, where you can see stuff being launched to space almost daily, ans almost from any part of the county, including from my backyard pool.

We need way more pushback against people spouting this level of ignorance.

We need to just not give them a platform to spout it on.
Why the fuck is a college football player's beliefs about space newsworthy?
- Well partially because once he gets to the pro level his platform grows larger, so it's best to nip it in the bud now, but also the article mentions Kyrie Irving, whom has similar beliefs, so the author is probably just trying to highlight how pervasive this ignorance has become, also let's not forget Aaron Rodgers as well and the influence his ignorance has.

Why are we considering the view points of 19-20 year olds who happen to play a sport?

When I was 19-20 and smart enough not to play a sport that scrambles your brain, I did not get a news article in the national press reporting that I did believe in space.

America worships the wrong people.

Worships? Dude... This article is basically making fun of him for being a dumbass. That's the entire story. Dumb fuck said dumb thing.
- The mere fact that he is being talked about in this regard is annoying. Who the fuck cares about this person. What he believes is not a matter of national interest.
- Not really the point of a news outlet is it?
- Then they go voting for Trump.
- If I had to register a guess, OP was probably (or hopefully) basing their comment on how sports like Football and Baseball have traditionally been viewed in the U.S., and possibly Futbol (Soccer) pretty much everywhere else. Whatever he based it off of, I can say there is just a bit too much funding and weight that goes into sports in Highschool and many Colleges. While dumb comment be dumb, it is certainly true that many people do place obscene amounts of importance on sports in general. For schools it's often to the fundamental detriment of educational curriculums.
  I'm not really trying to defend OP. Just pointing out that from what little I have grasped, one is almost seen as a cultural outcast in some professions if they don't "talk sports", for example, and the stories I've heard of people found wearing the wrong team colors, wild. It's all a bit silly, tbh.

“Im real religious” , is not an excuse to ignore scientific fact.

I see you haven't met any governors from Florida lately.
it's evidently enough excuse to ignore whatever facts you wish.
Oh, yes it is.
- That rustles my jimmies.

"The sky is the limit"

"No, but seriously, you literally can't go past the sky."
- He's done the math. When the altitude reaches what we perceived as space energy usage reaches infinite, the theory of relativity thought the speed of light was the limiting factor, have you ever seen a picture of space being light? It doesn't happen. Space doesn't exist, it can't be reached. It is but an image created by our minds in an attempt to understand what we cannot visualize. Stars are just the creation of our minds to understand unfathomable non-existance. Why else do you think when you buddy looks at the stars and says "do you see that constellation that looks like Centaurus?" you can't see it, you see a few dots and play along that they see a mythical creature.
  /Sarcasm... Just incase
@LifeInMultipleChoice @inclementimmigrant

Shows what a degree from Texas Tech is worth.

I mean, they do get a cultish gold ring that they fish out of a pitcher of beer with which they get to play wonder twins for the rest of their lives, so there's that.

Then how does Tyler explain Space Jam? Check mate atheists!

Can someone buy him a telescope or something? Damn, you can actually see space and planets with your own eyes if you don't believe it....

You can see something, but that doesn't mean it's "space" and "planets".
Look, he's wrong, and the flat earth conspiracies are stupid. But, it's not like the flat earth conspiracies can be debunked that easily. They have explanations of what you can see in a telescope.
The real problem is that life requires that life requires a chain of trust. You trust your parents growing up, then your teachers, the media, political leaders, religious leaders, friends, co-workers, whatever. Their knowledge is mostly based on their trusting various people in their lives, and so-on. Sure, I've seen images of the earth from space, but I have to trust that that's what they really are, not elaborate fakes. I've never been to South America, but I have to trust that it exists. I have been to Europe, but I wasn't personally flying the plane, so I have to trust that it wasn't some elaborate plan to convince me that that continent exists.
A lot of trust in institutions has broken down lately. Sometimes that's a good thing. If you look at WWI propaganda posters, they seem ridiculous. It's good that governments can't so easily convince their people to jump into a war. On the other hand, this is the result. People stop trusting experts, and start trusting random dudes on the Internet who make a good video.
- I mean if you can't believe that looking through a mirror and lens, and seeing the rings of Saturn can't convince you it's there... well we have words for that: delusional and psychotic. And people used to get hospitalized for it.

Gotta love the marriage between tramatic brain injuries and an under funded education system.

Gotta love the demands of an athletic program overriding academic integrity.
It's almost like student athletes shouldn't be monetized or training camps for professional teams or something.
Like they should have their own secondary league players can participate in and be paid to do so without simultaneously being a financial burden on 95% of schools.

the fact that this is a story is a better criticism of our media than anything anyone could make up

Just because you are highly skilled at something doesn’t make you intelligent or smart.

Well good thing they gave him a college scholarship then. I’m sure he will put it to good use.

This is what happens to people who get their brains bashed in for a living.

Doesn't this just tell us something about his university? They are obviously not doing that much in the way of teaching their football players.

I think it says something about the elementary school he went to. University education is advanced past the point of teaching basic concepts. Most kindergarteners are aware of the concept of space. We have all heard little kids say that they want to be an astronaut when they grow up.
- Then you’ve raised the question of why there university would admit him just cuz sports. He’s tarnishing the reputation of every person who graduated from there, which is principally why plagiarism is handled so strictly.
I think it says that our higher education system holds sports above education but that's been the case since I was in high school and college. 20+ years ago.
- Yes, agreed. I work for an R1 university and feel some shame about the resources devoted to sports.

I wonder if it hurts to be that dumb.

I typically feel like people like this aren't dumb, they're just so incredibly distrustful of authority figures like teachers or scientists or the government that on some level they reject reality and when videos "kinda make sense" or "have some points" about shit we all know is fake, it gives them the ability to choose what they think is correct and because they're already rejecting what they're being told is real by people they don't trust it's really easy to let conspiracies fill in the gap of how it works

Biggest arms I’ve ever seen on a database, that’s for sure.

That's OK Tyler, Space believes in you

Instead of making fun of him, NASA should fund a trip for him to go to the ISS and he should livestream the whole thing to instagram.

Oh hey NASA, I also don't believe in space!
- If you’re also someone with the same kind of influence and reach potential as this guy, then it’s also worth changing your mind about this

This will reflect poorly on his application to NASA.

Leland Melvin should set him straight. He is a football player who almost played in the NFL, then he became an astronaut.
Bro, I hate to break it to you, but NASA doesn't exist.

I don't believe there is anything in the space between his ears.

Does anyone else find it weird that he knows the word heliocentric?

Not at all. He learned all that, including terminology, from loony conspiracy theories. They like to use sciency words because it makes them sound more legitimate.
I wonder if he knows the word idiocentric?

Does he believe all matter exists at a single point?

We exist in a diarama.

So did he buy a house that was like, 20 square feet?

“Yeah… I don’t believe in space. This is good.”

Just don't ask him who he thinks is behind the conspiracy😬

How did he pass any of his science courses?

"This is some big shot of the football team. He's not a C student. Grade again."
Source: TA'd at a prestigious west coast Uni with a good football team.
- I understand that angle. I just don't agree with it being helpful to their future.
He got a sub to take the tests.
Maybe he lied and pretended to believe that space exists in order to pass?

I guess it’s a good thing his chosen profession doesn’t require intelligence.

Texas Tech? Checks out.

Me thinks this is the effect of too much head trauma.

People say he broke his brain using his head to tackle with. Course, couldn't have been too smart to do that in the first place.

Man got pokemon and concussions mixed up and tried to catch them all

Texas. It's what we said it was.

The Lone Brain Cell State

Remember, he's a college student.

ain't gotta have the smarts to play the foosball

This guy's ignorance probably extends to not knowing anything about Buzz Aldrin's religious communion on the Moon.

There is no such thing as space all the planets are just bunched up together you can walk to Mars. It's all the conspiracy by big NASA.

Remember to reach for the stars because the stars don't have arms to reach for you!

I volunteer him for the Mars colony.

Don't look up!

Well he obviously wasn't picked for his intellect.

Oh no, he figured out the sky is just a crusty jpeg!

Deploy the Illuminati agents.

Some people just shouldn't be part of society.

He surely won't mind if we shoot him into the outer part of "that in which he doesn't believe" then.

I don't know anything about American football, or baseball and I guess DB doesn't mean database.

Dont hold it against him, this rambling wreck might make a heck of an engineer someday.

Seems to have a lot of head space

This is not even the craziest thing someone said on my front page.

Hope he becomes pro and makes a bunch of money. Otherwise, this dude is in trouble.