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I do, however, take great exception to being told (not by philebus) that I base my beliefs on celebrities and/or governments.  They would be the very last people I would ever look to for enlightenment, instruction or truth.  In fact, I have a hard wired distrust of anyone in a position of "authority", simply because the people who gravitate to such posts are usually those least fit to hold them.

I read that and thought of "intellectual authorities", such as Sagan, Fermi or Hawking.  If Hawking goes looking for god, a number of people may give the ideal more credit.  If Hawking says there's no need of god, another number of people may get excited...

 

The excited parties in this case were mostly the Press and some religious heads who spoke out before the book was even in print. Others bother to read the book and consider it more carefully. I'm not done considering it but I'm not as impressed as I would have liked.

Of course, intellectual authorities usually have a track record that makes it reasonable to listen to them and consider seriously what they have to say and sometimes, to some extent at least, we must defer to their judgement where they have expertise in a field which we cannot hope to attain. When my doctor tells me what he thinks could be wrong with me, I would be stupid not to pay attention.