“Hello Dr. Tyson. The question I want to ask you…is whether you believe in a supernatural being like God and whether there is any prospect of an afterlife.

This is the beginning of a letter signed by Mr. Webster Baker to astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. The latter collected in one volume letters and messages sent to him by readers of his books, including his responses. The volume entitled “Letters of an Astrophysicist” has just been released by Kaktos and is translated by Maria Konstanturou and includes a foreword by Pavlos Castanas, creator of the Astronio channel.

Tyson, among many others, is the host of the legendary documentary series Cosmos, which was first launched to huge success by the late Carl Sagan. Mr. Baker, like everyone else (including elementary school students), Tyson responds with directness, simplicity, love and humor.

“I don’t know if there is a God or not,” he writes to the author of the letter. “I only know that people who cite evidence for God lose sight of the preponderance of the evidence against him.”

“Life is never easy. Death is even harder.”

Astronomer Eli, the protagonist of “Contact”, the only novel written by Sagan, also does not believe in God. When the handsome pastor and her former lover talk to her about faith, he hears her say, “Prove to me that God exists.” He thinks for a moment, then asks her, “Did you love your father?” (whom she lost in her youth). “Of course!” answers. “Prove it,” he says.

Hard, hard – and always without evidence, like the afterlife. (This particular letter refers to the “Life and Death” section, which begins with the motto: “Life is never easy. Death is even harder”…)

“Please note,” Tyson writes to Mr. Baker, “that for most of your life on Earth, you did not exist. A condition that lasted until you were born. This is easy to think about. It’s also not heartbreaking. You just had absolutely no presence or awareness of anything. Therefore, it is not difficult to consider the possibility that the state of death is not different from the other.

However, he encourages Baker to pray for “good evil”, referring to the great physicist Niels Bohr, who had a horseshoe on his desk. When asked if he believed in “such superstitions,” he is said to have replied, “They tell me it works, even if you don’t believe in it.”…