SubscribeIf you look carefully at the NASA photo below, you will see a little white dot. This minute speck is Earth seen from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it exits the solar system, nearly 4 billion miles away. The photo was taken back in 1990.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
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Indeed, many things said in this article reflect my own feeling’s on our insignificance in comparison to the cosmos. It is also my belief that with time, just as the universe itself is changing, human inventions, such as war, hate, crime will become a thing of the past, as people realize the destruction it causes to our one known home.
Wow! Gives you a bigger perspective! But I wonder what is the point of the complex lives….in the fraction of a dot! What is the purpose of human existence in the context of the Cosmos?
Vignesh
There is no point. There is no purpose…..we just are. We simply evolved by chance. We do people always look for deeper meaning? Why must there be a reason?…….it is what it is.
“I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies”
[...] clipped from http://www.smart-kit.com [...]
[...] Made me think of these wise words from Carl Sagan. [...]
There is always a reason! Just because you don’t know it doesn’t mean there isn’t! Ignorance doesn’t mean anything more than lack of understanding…If there is no quest or thirst for knowledge or understanding WHY-then there is no point to all this. The mere effort of trying to understand how we figure into the existence of the universe makes creation, life worthwhile….random chance explains nothing–it is a way of saying “I don’t care because I don’t know”
I first heard this at an AA meeting. Then I heard it several years later in a college ethics class. I’m not sure, which (if any) philosopher said it [but it does sound philosophical] and I believe is an appropriate rebuttal to Astropin. “I would rather believe in God, die, and find out there isn’t one; than to NOT believe in God, die, and find out there is one”. I find a certain amount of comfort in believing that there is purpose in life. And while life has been an evolvement and continues to evolve, one of the most important times in our lives is to discover what our purpose in life is.
“one of the most important times in our lives is to discover what our purpose in life is”
What does that mean? Our purpose….is to live long enough to successfully pass on our genes…..at least from nature’s perspective. If you’re waxing philosophical then that is another thing…..and I would argue are purpose in life is…… To Live.
I’m here (as is everyone else) due to pure chance and natural selection…..nothing more. Someday I’ll be gone…..as will everyone else……such is the nature of the universe. I find no comfort in holding onto deluded fantasies of how “we would like the universe to be”. I face reality as we know it to be……not as I wish it to be. There is much I do not know but I don’t make leaps to supernatural explanations when I’ve reached the limits of my understanding.
Premise 1) There is no evidence to support the existence of ________
Premise 2) There is sound argument to support the existence of ________
Premise 3) _______ is unnecessary to explain any known phenomenon
Conclusion: __________ does not exist
That should read Premise 2) There is no sound argument to support the existence of ________
Astropin,
Premise 1 is flawed, in that while you may not know of any evidence, this does not rule out the possibility of evidence outside of your knowledge or experience. For premise 1 to be valid you would have had to examine all the evidence available, in every place, throughout time (including the future - what if sufficient evidence to convince you appears in 8 months or 54 years from now?), from every tribe and clan who hold knowledge. You would also have had to examine all this evidence without prejudice.
To disprove something you need to refute every argument for it. Whereas to prove something you just need a worthy example. For instance, if you were to tell me there is no gold in China, you would need to have accurate and detailed knowledge of every rock and hill and piece of ground in China. For me to say there is gold in China, all I need is to have found one nugget of gold in some river bed in China.
Premise 2 falls into the same trap as premise 1. There might be some argument, but you may not have encountered it (yet). My argument would be this -> if you see a building (lets say, the Eiffel tower in Paris) - how do you know there was a builder? You do not see the builder? You’ve never met him. You can’t hear him, touch him, smell him, etc… Well, it’s easy - the presence of the building, proves there was a builder. You do not look at the building and go “I wonder if there was a builder?” - no, your common sense says ‘building… builder’. So, taking this same simple logic, we look at creation. How do we know there was a Creator? Well, the very fact that there is a creation shouts there is a creator.
Now swiftly we go onto premise 3. If you stand by this, then I’m assuming you subscribe to the explanation of the origin of everything through macro evolution and adaptation (or pure chance and natural selection as you put it). I am yet to be convinced by hard facts regarding the validity of chance and natural selection as the explanation of everything. What about the examples of irreducible complexity we see in nature. How was information added over time into genes? Can you site one example of this happening where we can see mutation and a gain in genetic information? The other side of premise 3 is just because we can explain a phenomenon doesn’t mean we should assume how it came about.
I’m not as eloquent as some fellow defenders of my faith, I have some interesting articles you should check out if you’re keen… pop me a mail.
Oh, one last thing - by using the laws of logic to present your argument, you are leaning on conceptual laws which are not founded on the purely natural physical phenomena of your worldview. (In other words: How can an atheist with a naturalistic presupposition account for the existence of logical absolutes when logical absolutes are conceptual by nature and not physical, energy, or motion?)
Also, how do you account for the existence of information? It is clearly observable in nature and living entities. Information, by it’s definition is not random and is not the product of chance.
Wow, I sure have climbed into this one. Please see this in the nature it was intended, as a hearty discussion, not a heated argument.
Oh Billy, Billy, Billy,
Next you will tell me that the Earth is only 6 thousand years old….and that Jesus was born from a virgin……..please…….move along. Is it Billy or William Dembski? I’m not “disproving” the existence of god/gods……I simply have no use for that hypothesis…..(to paraphrase a great scientist).
Hey, have you been reading my notes!? That was next!
As you’re obviously not interested in continuing, I’ll move along…
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. (to quote a great English Writer)
you children and your “purpose in life”. what a laugh! to think that that we we’re created with reason is just infintile and ignorant. Blinded by your will to be not thought as useless. Religion and “purpose” are just ways of keeping you in line and ruling your morals. Stop letting superstition and blind faith make your life decisions for you.
LIVE YOUR LIVES PEOPLE. WAKE UP
I do think that Billy, Phil, and Vingesh missed the whole point of what Carl Sagan was saying, which is this is it, there is nothing after. We occupy a very small, insignificant (obviously not to us) bit of the cosmos. To try and find the deeper spiritual meaning of why we are here is folly. You can pursue it if you wish, but all of it is ultimately conjecture. We DO know that the Earth is unique in our solar system for having life on it. There may be life on Mars in microbial form, as well as possible “higher” forms of life on a moon or two of Jupiter, but other than those two possibilities there is no other place we can call home. Our lives only have the meaning we give to them, either through intellectual or spiritual pursuit. There are some underlying truths and axioms that hold true for all of us, but there is no all encompassing meaning. We are as important as any other race or species in the universe, and there are others out there no matter what the Bible, Quaran, Torah, or any other book says. They don’t have the same religious and philosophical beliefs we do but we do share one thing in common with all of the different forms of life in the entirety of existence, we are equally insignificant when taking in the totality of the Universe. Just knowing that somewhere somebody else on a totally different planet feels this way makes me okay with having no purpose in life.
Billy: I’m not sure that I’ve ever witnessed such a breathtaking display of ignorance or such a fundamental misunderstanding of science in so few paragraphs. You lift pseudo-scientific soundbites from Creationist websites and fling them around like a chimp flings his own faeces at visitors in a zoo: you hope that they will stick and that the recipients will be impressed.
You clearly have no grasp of logic and reason. I suggest that you look up Occam’s Razor to start with, work your way through logical fallacies such as “argument to ignorance” and “begging the question”, and finish with studying the scientific method. Please feel free to reply when you have grasped these concepts. It might take some time.
You might also like to take a quick gander at Darwin’s theories. You know - actually read them for *yourself* instead of blindly believing what your Creationist cronies tell you. Here’s a clue: Darwin never said that evolution by natural selection is random (quite the opposite in fact, but I suppose that that doesn’t sit well with you worldview).
P.S. Phil H.: that’s a variation of Pascal’s Wager. It’s fallacious (it’s a false dichotomy for starters). Tell your AA bretheren to stick to Bible parables and not getting drunk, cos philosphy sure ain’t their strong point.
Regardless of skeptics , atheists , or believers NO ONE, and I mean No One can say if there is or isn’t an ultimate reason for life. Look at this , a lot of people genuinely believe in evolution and believe in a purpose for life. Why is it ok for atheists to say they are the only ones correct , and they try hush those with a belief in an afterlife or reincarnation? Why ? Please don’t respond to this , trying to refute anything I said, these are questions to think on and ponder, because regardless if your a genius or just a regular person who doesn’t care, you have no right to claim that you know for sure there is nothing else.
You make a great point. My problem with these message boards is that they all too often develop into attacks on the people behind the ideas they post, rather than legitimate discussions about the ideas. Everyone seems so confident in their convictions that they won’t even seem to entertain the thoughts of others.
I would just like to pose a question to Astropin, not to belittle any of your ideas but for the sake of conversation: When you speak of “blank” not existing, what exactly is your definition of “blank?”
I’ve always believed that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God simply because everyone has a completly different idea of what God is. I, for example, don’t believe in an anthropomorphic “God” who physically “created” the world. I do, however, believe in God in the sense that He is merely existence itself, and incorporates all of what not only is, but could have been and can be.
Until a few months ago, I wasn’t even sure of this. But after reading a great deal about the implications of quantum mechanics, especially those of the Many Worlds theory…If my God is merely all of these possibilities, then He does exist, albeit only in my subjective mind.
awww this article brought a lone tear to my lonesome pale blue dot eye.
Anyone who really thinks that the earth is 6000 yrs. old is obviously seriously disturbed.
In my previous post I refer to the ‘argument to ignorance’ fallacy, the law of parsimony aka Occam’s Razor and the scientific method. And then people immediately pop up and start spouting tired, fallacious clichés like “you can prove it’s not true” and “science isn’t always right”. It really is painful.
Please try and get your head around these three basic ideas before posting stuff like that again. Try and understand, for example, that you are not allowed to make up supernatural explanations for things just because you can’t explain them (Occam’s Razor).
Unlike religion, science NEVER claims to be 100% correct (this is one of its strong points). Science just says that the explanation for a phenomenon is the most reasonable based on what we currently know and the evidence to hand.
Unlike religion, personal ‘conviction’ (such as faith) is irrelevant. In fact subjective bias is the anathema of science, and good experiments and studies make all attempts to remove it.
Unlike religion, science doesn’t stick its fingers in its ears and shout “nyah nyah not listening!” when it is criticised or found wanting.
Cas,
My “blank” argument merely implies that there is no logical reason to suspect that god/gods exist. The conclusion that “blank” does not exist is simply that….a logical conclusion. I can not prove (nor can anyone else) that an invisible and undetectible purple dragon does not live in my garage……but I have no EVIDENCE supporting the hypothesis……therefore the logical conclusion is that it does not exist. If evidence were to appear then I would have to re-evaluate my conclusion. Just remember that the bigger the claim the more evidence you need to back it up………..that one comes from Sagan himself. Please remember that hearsay is never considered evidence.
Au contraire, Astropin. A long time ago I heard of a person that calculated the percent of chance that life could exist on Earth. I have no idea how he did it but he came up with 10 to the 298th power or something like that, which is in scientific terms impossible. We are the only species to reason. Why would we need to reason to survive? We don’t. We reason to find the meaning of life, in my opinion, which is to live your life for God. If you are implying that evolution is how humans came about, answer me this: why did the fish sprout legs, grow lungs, and drop its fins and gills? It had absolutely no reason to whatsoever. Also science itself points towards creationism rather than evolution. It’s been in Newsweek a few times. Oh, and another thing, the Bible stands up to science in all aspects. The Bible was written and put together thousands of years ago, when some people thought the sun was about the size of a basketball, as it appears to be. And I’m pretty sure, but have not heard that, the books that contain accounts of Jesus Christ that weren’t included in the Bible also stand up to science. One last thing, what’s hearsay?
Ahh, I see what you’re saying now…
I love the “undetectable purple dragon” example that you give. It reminds me of the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” that has been used oh-so-effectively to demonstrate that very point.
Again, though, “existence” is a very loaded concept. Just because something is not readily discernible through our senses is not reason enough to say that it doesn’t “exist.”
I suppose that my “evidence,” as well as “hypothesis,” is as follows:
According to science, every possible “question” that arises in nature should have a logical “answer.”
Human beings do not know every possible answer to every possible question.
There exists a state where every possible “question” has a logical “answer.”
Therefore, there exists a gap between the knowledge of human beings as they exist today and the ideal state of perfect knowledge.
So my question is, how can this state exist if it were not for some other, supreme “force” that has already laid out the laws of the universe? We know that these rules exist, whether we consciously follow them or not. How did these laws and rules come to be? I am not implying that some “God” sat at his heavenly desk and wrote them one-by-one, just that the gap in our current way of thinking is evidence enough of some “master plan” or all-encompassing set of laws that we are not currently aware of HAS TO exist.
For me, this all-encompasing set of laws is “God.” And again, keeping Sceptic’s comments in mind, I do not wish to explain this as a personal conviction. But to deny God’s existence merely on the basis that He is some perfect “person” would be unfairly limiting the very concept of what “God” is. Remember, the ancients believed in “God” as many gods; many of us today believe in monotheism. It is undeniable that there have been many, many different definitions of what “God” is. So, is it so unreasonable to believe in “God” as the perfect set of rules and laws that dictate how our universe works?
Again, I am not trying to be argumentative. I have never really posted on a message board such as this, and I am just trying to gain perspective on some thoughts that I have had recently. I encourage as many thoughts about this post as possible.
Just the obvious here, maybe?
1) If God is greater than logic/illogic, words/silence, existence/nonexistence, and all the other paired opposites of this/not-this, then neither words nor logic can contain Him/Her/It. If God is NOT bigger than this, then this is not Absolute.
1a) God, if any, is not provable. Same goes for the non-existence of God.
2) there’s therefore nothing you can say ABOUT Him/Her/It, and anything you think you ARE saying about Him/Her/It, you are actually referring to something you yourself constructed, in some way. God, if any, is indescribable.
3) Religion has nothing to do with God, but rather deals with humanity and human society and culture. Not making it invalid, but certainly contextualizing it all.
3a) there’s no automatics- for example, both theists and anti-theists can argue about the sanctity OR the irrelevance of an individual’s life, on the basis of their beliefs -but, at the end of the day, a person is judged (by their fellow humans) by their actions (and their words), not their thoughts.
4) Anybody saying anything about the Absolute, even “God exists” or “there is no God” is expressing a personal belief that stands with no facts. The anti-theist has as much room to stand on as does a theist.
4a) This standing is just fine; unfounded belief built pyramids and Hoover dams, sent humans to Mars, sliced bread and cured the common cold.
4b) Anybody who expresses their personal opinions, with the idea that “I am right, therefore anyone disagreeing with me is automatically wrong” is some kind of missionary.
Now, I realize that the internet does seem to be the leading medium of all kinds of religious and non-religious missionary activity, but why is everybody, God-afearin’ and adolescent-cynical both, always looking for a fight?
…and why are we Americans so happy to make relative those things that can be fixed and known, so that black becomes white and white becomes black, but the truly UNKNOWABLE, we demand that our neighbors agree with us??
We haven’t found a cure for the cold yet.
But we did slice bread, God bless us.
Belief itself creates *nothing*. Science, mathematics and engineering are necessary to make pyramids, dams and sliced bread. And like Kyle says, the common cold is incurable - maybe god’s got a snot fetish. (And sure hope you’re kidding about Mars…)
Cas,
I would agree that there is a logical explanation for everything that is “observed” in nature….but for every question? Questions are asked by people…..some are logical, many are not.
“Human beings do not know every possible answer to every possible question.” Certainly this is true.
“There exists a state where every possible “question” has a logical “answer.”
Again…….No. Many “questions” that are asked are not the right questions and are not logical or reasonable questions. There is an answer for every observable phenomenon……though we may not know that answer……yet.
“Therefore, there exists a gap between the knowledge of human beings as they exist today and the ideal state of perfect knowledge.” I’d agree with that.
However…..all that statement implies is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Why would we ever jump to a supernatural explanation just because we don’t know the answer? What caused the Big Bang? Answer……we don’t know…..period. Does not mean god/gods must have done it…….there is no evidence to support that conclusion.
“how can this state exist if it were not for some other, supreme “force” that has already laid out the laws of the universe?” ??? How could this state exist? A state where what?…..we have not evolved enough to be able to figure out how everything works? I see no need for the existence of a supreme force here……in fact I think it points away from one. Why would a supreme being set things up the way we observe them to be? It would appear to be a highly illogical way of going about things. Again….could the Universe have been set in motion by a supreme being…..I suppose anything is possible…..however we still have no evidence to support that hypothesis (back the Flying Spaghetti Monster).
[...] “The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.” - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994 [...]
I wish that I had thought of the following, however, it is the riddle of Epicurius (the food buff). Personally I think the best answer yet for the existence of the universe is 42.
If God is willing to prevent evil, but unable, then he is not omnipotent?
If God is able but unwilling to prevent evil, then he is malevolent?
If God is both able and willing, then whence cometh evil?
If God is both unable and unwilling, then why call him God at all???
Alan
All that good/evil stuff, well, you sure can’t obsess on one side of a dualistic coin and still insist on omni-anything, that’s for sure. But we Americans seem content to disprove Christianity and, having done so, think we’ve disproved God. But to say that God IS anything is to strip God of Absoluteness. You don’t think and talk about God, but about your idea of what God ought to be, at best. Mostly these words are bandied about to make your opponent wrong, and liable to be eaten et cetera.
Where does evil come from? From our judgmental nature, our preconceptions of fairness. Tiger killing zebra = fair. Drift-net tuna killing dolphins= unfair. God killing sinless babies = unfair.
Belief creates a lot. What you believe about science is a belief, and if you didn’t believe as you did about science (and by ’science’ you can extend it to anything that science COULD study, i.e. anything ‘knowable’), you would not use it as you do, and that would not change the science that you have.
Also, belief influences the next step in scientific research. We believe that our comfort is more important than an invisible life form- so we talk about “curing the common cold” instead of “genetically modifying a species-wide genocide on a life form that, while parasitic to our species, has as much right to exist as any majestic zebra”.
Science gave humans the tools to build the pyramids, but belief made them want to do it, made them not toss away their trowels when they’d been at it for twenty years and had hardly finished ten feet of height, not to mention determined the size and array of the structure. Science build the first bread slicer, but everyone’s belief in the utility is what kept it around - and their disbelief in the previous precedent, home-baked bread. Its sure saves time! And we believe this is a justification for eating last month’s bread.
I might believe that humans have gone to Mars, but that does not make it so. But our belief that we CAN will determine if we do.
At their best, science and belief are both able to reverse their course, if astray, and neither are threatened by what they themselves are not (as this falls outside their purview). At their mediocre level, they both are blind to the beauty of diversity, including the diversity that they participate in. They deny anything outside their realm of control- the logical positivist just like the religious fundamentalist.
Science would note that everything we observe occurs within a field with rules that transcend the field; what is the meta-field of science? Whatever it is, it comprehends science, and goes beyond it.
And the meta-fields of Awareness? Objectivity? The perfect objective state cannot comprehend the ‘I’, which sure participates in the totality. The reduction of the ‘I’ to a chemical reaction turns it into an object of study- and as an object of study, it is the opposite of the subject. But there must be an underlying structure, because we navigate from the subject to the object every instant, so easily that we cannot draw the separating line between the observer and the observed and the act of observation.
One can support one’s belief in the non-existence of God as much as one likes with as much empirical data, statistics and examples of the sillinesses of others, but this sure is not proof, and the belief in a godless universe is surely that- a belief, with its own army of missionaries.
Plenty of stupid intellectualism here. The reason for evil is simple. Right and wrong is a choice, freedom of will. You choose to do good, right or not. Unfortunately the world is so good at deceiving people most don’t know the difference. Wrong generally being acceptable as simply a choice. I feel sorry for those fooled by the ramblings of an idiot like the God rejector Carl. His being lauded to the skies by the world is proof of who the world wants you t listen to. Thats is truly a pathetic place to allow your mind to be.
miguelito: You deliberately or otherwise confuse the everyday meaning of “belief” with the meaning in a religious context. It’s an very old and very tired creationist/fundamentalist/theist semantic trick. It subtracts from any good arguments that you might later make.
Here’s two statements that contain the word “belief”. See if you can spot the semantic difference:
1. I believe that when I let go of this apple, it will fall to the ground.
2. I believe that an invisible being created us and that if I worship him and do as he says then he will reward me when I die.
Not that hard now is it? You then (deliberately or otherwise) play the very old and very tired “atheism is a belief” card. Puhlease. I do not believe in the “non-existence of God” any more than you believe in the non-existence of an invisible elephant called Egbert whose fart created the Big Bang and whose clagnuts coalesced to form the Solar system.
There’s no good reason to invoke a creator, so I don’t.
Sceptic: I do not believe that I confused these two kinds of belief, in that I don’t see the distinction, as religious belief is ‘everyday’ for someone who has it. You are the one putting a divine belief as something other and distinct - because you don’t see you have it. Under which of these apparently clear-cut headings would belief in a heliocentric universe fall? Would it be “1″ this week, but eight hundred years ago it would be “2″?
Someone whose belief in the universe is not the Douglas Adamsian transcendentalist Christianity you wittily offer as an example would not be swayed: if I believe that the world itself is divine and that i participate in it, that the constant creation of each moment is the ongoing act of divine creation, that divine will is the substratum of all that exists and that even the act of witnessing this is a play of divine energies, then this gravity is a lovely manifestation of God’s will, isn’t it?
Egbert the elephant (Long may he rut) is “invisible” when I believe that the world is not itself divine and that I’m not looking into the eyes of the Creator when I wake. And will agree with you, only the self-deluded could TALK themselves into believing this, or anything else.
But both you and the Egbertian are only working with the same empirical data- the end result of “there is a God” and “there is no God” are equally unsupported in a full and logically convincing way; there is always a leap from the empirical to the conclusion. You do not believe there is cause to invoke a creator, so you do not. No problem! but your disbelief is not a non-belief, it is a belief. You are not defending an absence, you are defending a positive characteristic in your belief-structure.
By the way- the example you chose in #2 is extreme - and this reductio ad absurdum (ironically enough) weakens your argument and is, indeed, an anti-theist trick, often used to win a crowd, if not an argument. Do not make me defend immature Judeo-Christian religions in the name of supporting the possibility of the existence of God: I think the two of us will agree that ‘religions’ were largely created by semi-illiterate people millennia ago to control and repress their fully-illiterate congregations -but this doesn’t have much to do with God as the absolute without form or attribute.
The person who is expressing no faith is the agnostic.
Well said Ron! Nothing like a good ad hominem rant to put those intellectuals in their place.
Ron,
…….”stupid intellectualism” ? Now that’s funny.
“The reason for evil is Simple. Right and wrong is a choice, freedom of will”.
??? Gee, thanks for clearing that up for us…..lmao.
You said “Right and wrong is a choice” and then go on to say “Wrong generally being acceptable as simply a choice”
Carl Sagan = idiot because he rejected a figment of peoples imaginations??
The more I read your comments the more obscure it becomes. You certainly had a thought in your head……just not sure what it was.
miguelito: Yes. example #2 was an extreme. It might even be reductio ad absurdum. But it ain’t a straw man :D.
Not sure whether we will ever agree or not, but I like your the way you argue a point and I have to respect that rabid verbosity, so you’re alright by me. Cheers!
FREE WILL!!!
Right back atcha, Mr. Sceptic! You put the right non-amount of emotion into this.
That may be true, but our human egos will remain as large as they are if we never find life in space. Or so it seems to me.
I stumbled upon this thread because I am a fan of Carl Sagan. His forte’ wasn’t so much scientific observer as it was teacher. Sagan had the rare gift to be able to put into words what astronomers feel in those moments of seeing for the first time.
Pale blue dot; spaceship Earth; the list goes on. His was the gift of apperception–the ability to explain what something is, by what it is similar to. Some have supposed that he was atheist, but he mostly just disagreed with the conventional notion of Who and What God is, because of the apparent contradictions in contemporary religion.
“…in some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘this is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said–grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead, they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.” (Pale Blue Dot, p. 50)
Some of us are quick to reject the scientist whose thesis describing the conception of life is limited to cold, clinical observations; others are quick to reject the notion that a spirit comes from some other place and joins to a biological vehicle. In close proximity both would argue their position until they tire of the fight, or end it like fanatics. Sagan’s point in the Pale Blue Dot speech is that our race tends to waste vast intellectual, economic and human resources trying to enforce our particular position. Some of the posts I’ve read here are evidence of that conflict.
Instead, we ought to look up and realize there is so much to learn about our existence. There really might be some pearls of great price in science, and there really might be some great and profound facts in religion. The person who is open to both the rigor of the scientific method and childlike faith, will obtain the capacity to appreciate and use discovery in a joyful and awe filled existence.
What if what the bible means is that the earth was created in six stages, each a very long time and the terms used in our translations of a translation of a translation of the original text used in the Bible originally meant a million years or more? Just because today we can write a million on a piece of paper as a one with six zeros separated by commas, does that mean that 21st century man can comprehend what a million means? So why would the writer of the original text of the Bible deliberately confuse the reader of the Bible? If the message really is that there were six creative periods of a very long time each…then we have something to consider.
And what if the process of natural selection is a marvelous way of engineering life to adapt and develop for changing times. Detroit automakers certainly have thought of it–they call it engineered obsolescence. So why couldn’t an omniscient and omnipotent Creator engineer both obsolescence and time-delayed evolution?
My point is that Sagan was right–we squander vast resources fighting over little things when we could be learning wonderful and helpful things, both in the earth and in the heavens. There must be more to the observable universe than meets the eye, and the Bible doesn’t contain all that God ever said or did.
mtn
Mtnman- Thanks for providing another great Sagan quote (Pale blue dot, pg. 50). I very much enjoyed reading your commentary.
“Religon is just a way of keeping you in line and ruling your morals” - Howard may 9th.
So Howard I am to assume that you beat your children and cheat on your wife daily? Maybe you’ve killed people for the fun of it? Or would you deny this by saying it is WRONG! Of course you most likely haven’t done anything like this because you think it is wrong. Why though? Who is ‘ruling your morals’ Howard? If tomorrow it became legal to kill people, would you? Where did laws come from? If we are animals, why not mate with every woman you see? Why not do all this? What made us the way we are? Why do we have a moral to what is right and wrong? I don’t claim to know everything but I do know the difference between me and an animal. You run over a dog, would you lament the rest of your life about it? No, because it’s a dog. If it were a person then certainly anyone would. We do have a purpose I feel and that’s all that matters.
Let me apologize for the former ranting. I just get a little frustrated sometimes with people who completely discount God as being real. I do feel we have a purpose. I have seen things you cannot discount, regardless of what you say. I have seen people healed before my very eyes. Not many times but, I have seen it. I know that God exists because not only of this but, how my life is different because of Him. I am not trying to convert anyone right now. I just want all of you to know that He is real. Someone mentioned blind faith earlier (not sure who). To me, it takes more “faith” to believe the world somehow, someway evolved from nothing and that millions of mutations later “we” appeared, than it does to believe that God created it. It just makes more sense to be honest.
KG,
Our moral values have absolutely NOTHING to do with Religion…….nothing. In fact many, many parts of the Bible are simply ignored because we find the content completely abhorrible…….ever read Leviticus? The god we find in Leviticus is beyond immoral and should I ever meet such a being I would spit in his face. Also, many animals have moral values. Elephants mourn their dead…..as do the great apes and many other animals. Gorillas are known to even contemplate the very notion of death and dying. Working together provided us great survival benefits. Working together means that certain standards of behavior become necessary in order for the cooperation to succeed.
Let me apologize for the former ranting. I just get a little frustrated sometimes with people who completely discount evolution as being real. I do feel we have a purpose. I have seen things you cannot discount, regardless of what you say. I have seen peer-reviewed, evidence-based studies before my very eyes. Many times, I have seen them. I know that evolution occurs because not only of this but, how my life is different because of it. I am not trying to convert anyone right now. I just want all of you to know that it is real. Someone mentioned blind faith earlier (not sure who). To me, it takes more “faith” to believe the world somehow, someway was created by God from nothing than it does to believe that it evolved and that millions of mutations later “we” appeared . It just makes more sense to be honest.
…well, the whole ‘human purpose feeling’ is pretty easy to logically undermine, as it is either an self-inflicted emotional sop, or that part of the wordless god that includes man but (being infinite) is beyond words.
But yes, if we have a purpose in thje universe, then there is a god. If we feel there is a purpose, this tells us we have a feeling.
The evidence of healing is not evidence of god. Reiki, for example, does not need a god to explain itself.
The evidence of a peer-reviewed, evidence-based study is not evidence of the absence of god.
The nice thing about science, we all gotta admit, is that by being under constant review, it implicitly says that what it says is ‘wrong-ish’, at least compared to our future (or potential) knowledge.
Another nice thing about science is that it does not imply that there is no god. Just no evidence -which makes sense, for god is non-empirical.
Let all future discussion please differentiate between religion and the Christian and Islamist fundamentalist literalisms that, while plaguing the United States, are not the standard of ‘religion’ for all religious people, nor should be any guideline for understanding faith per se. I admit, it is more fun to poke fun at missionary-types whilst we sit under the fan and scratch our itches, but it is rather highschool.
Notice how most people who manage to believe in both evolution and science are kinda quiet. Do you think that maybe they’re too mainstream to waste their days on the internet? Or that, with nothing to prove, they got nothing to say, besides the obvious, which is that there is no conflict, except where we make it?
All this arguing and insulting, you’re missing the point of his writing. I think Sagan would be very sad to read your posts.
During our Fundamentalist Dinosaur-denial studies, a bee flew into our classroom. A girl was admiring its beautiful, natural, colourful and sonorous meanderings; she sighed lovingly, “Isn’t the lords world a truly beautiful place”, at which point the bee stung her on the lip.
In the emergeny room, as her mother was tearfully digesting the fact that her newly-blinded offspring had been granted a lucky escape from death, she remarked that “Someone up there, (looking to the heavens, or maybe the ceiling) must have been watching over her”.
Im not sure wether this makes honey good or evil, but I believe I will resign this class and learn to play the euphonium.
Gabriel: On the contrary, I think that Sagan would positively enjoy these arguments (maybe even the name calling :)). He just wanted people to think - *that* was the point of his writing. And there’s nowt like a good argument to get a rational person thinking. Of course, he was also aware that he was flogging a dead horse:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion. “
I don’t ‘believe’ in science anymore than I ‘believe’ in maths. Science is just a system, a set of tools for understanding how the world works. It’s not perfect but it is the best thing we’ve got at the moment (think Sagan said that). And I think that those of us who accept this system as such, and understand it (and consequently accept evolution as the best explanation for how life developed on Earth) don’t really feel the need to crow about it. Hence our quietness :).
I for one have never had the urge to hand out flyers in the street proclaiming that “Evolution is great” or to cold call at someone’s house and ask the occupants “Have you heard the good news? Chimps are our brethren!”
Conversely, many religious people, particularly Christians, seem to feel threatened by the theory of evolution and go on the offensive. They do not reject, for example, the atomic theory for similar reasons but selectively attack the bits of science that are contrary to their worldview. But when asked for an alternative (preferably evidence based and testable) they just say that “God did it, it says so in the bible”. That’s it! The best they can do is to slag off science and say “god did it”. Maybe that’s why they are so vocal – if they shout loud enough perhaps no one will notice that they have nothing to say.
Religion, for the masses, is desperation, fear, insecurity and the inability to reason all rolled up into a cunning ball of ‘faith’ driven after-death promises of better times.
Conversely, Religion, for the higher echelons, (with colourful vests and vested interests) is a financial waterfall, based on funding from high numbers of ‘followers’ or masses, who feel desperate, fearful, insecure and with reason-avoiding thought processes.
They fuel each other, in a beautiful symbiotic/parasitic relationship, but, in lower society, generally annoy their fellow planet-sharing evolutionarys. Sadly, and more dangerously, at higher social levels, they wage war, divide people, and generally threaten the future of the only ball of chemicals we have at our disposal, and call home.
Religious view;
God creates Man.
Man destroys God.
Alternatively,
Man creates God.
(god)Man destroys Man.
Religion is dangerous, and must be discouraged at all costs, for the sake of our planet, and collective sanity.
I find the strong opinions expressed disconcerting and I must refer back to the author of the original quote (regarding the Pale Blue Dot) that has spurred such comments:
“Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists. An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. A wide range of intermediate positions seems admissible, and considering the enormous emotional energies with which the subject is invested, a questioning, courageous and open mind seems to be the essential tool for narrowing the range of our collective ignorance on the subject of the existence of God.”
-”The Amniotic Universe,” Broca’s Brain, p. 311.
Because of this quote, I characterize people who have very STRONG opionions, both for the existence of god and the propagation of their religion, and for the non-existence of god and the elimination of anything to do with religion, as perhaps well-intentioned, yet perhaps as well, dangerous people.
Additionally:
“Because the word ‘God’ means many things to many people, I frequently reply [to people who ask 'Do you believe in God?'] by asking what the questioner means by ‘God.’ To my surprise, this response is often considered puzzling or unexpected: ‘Oh, you know, God. Everyone knows who God is.’ Or ‘Well, kind of a force that is stronger than we are and that exists everywhere in the universe.’ There are a number of such forces. One of them is called gravity, but it is not often identified with God. And not everyone does know what is meant by ‘God.’…Whether we believe in God depends very much on what we mean by God.
My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.”
-”A Sunday Sermon,” Broca’s Brain, p. 291.
The pale blue dot in the picture above is compelling and humbling. We truly know so little about the universe we live in. Indeed, “a questioning, courageous and open mind seems to be the essential tool” for finding the answers we choose to look for.
“An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God.”
Nonsense Sagan! (a phrase I have not had cause to use until now :)) The “a-” prefix simply means “without” or “lacking”. As in “abiogenesis”. Nothing more.
Consequently, atheism is the deafult position for Homo sapiens. My one year old son is an atheist - he is “without religion”. I am also an atheist, though I had to shed years of brainwashing and misinformation to get back to where I started. There is no evidence that gods exist therefore I don’t believe in any. Now, there are people who might call themselves “strong atheists” or something similar who fit Sagan’s description above. But I don’t agreee with them either…
I think Jude is right. Lets all follow Jude!
….could we smite some heathens a bit, now, please?
Um, Mr. Sceptic…
You said “There is no evidence that gods exist therefore I don’t believe in any. ”
Where there is evidence, there is no need of belief- there is knowledge. Positing God as the unknowable, if there were evidence, it would not be God.
And if atheism, as you define it, was the ‘default position’ of humans, then there would be some more evidence of ‘godless’ societies through history and anthropology… can you name one, one society that said there was nothing superempirical?
Sure, an individual is born without knowledge of any ‘god’. Born without language, too! And one is not a ‘complete’ human without language, communication… so what do you say, from the empircal evidence, exactly?
My point is that until you are told to believe in a particular god, you don’t. Hence you are an atheist. My son will still be an atheist in a few years when he is speaking. That might change as he is exposed to dogma from various religious groups (for example, it is law in the UK that schools have a daily act of Christian worship.)
It may well be that humans have a ‘built-in’ need to create the superempirical. But I doubt that a baby, were it the last person alive on earth and brought up by chimps, would ever spontaneously develop a creation story featuring e.g. a quantumesque god trinity, immaculate conceptions, and gods dying and coming back to life and dying again. Or a four-armed warrior bitch or a hammer-wielding giant come to that.
P.S. The “god is ineffable” argument deosn’t work for me. I don’t *disbelieve* in gods becasue there is no evidence for them. I just see no reason to believe in *any* posited supernatural thing, including Egbert the pink elephant and the FSM, for no good reason. And the threat of being sent to a bad place for eternity really doesn’t cut it for me
If there can be a Carl Sagan, then there certainly can be a God.
He is as different from us as we are from our dogs, only more so.
I’m currently having this argument with somebody at work, though I won’t say what side I’m on (see if you can guess). Though I’m hardly well-versed in philosophy, and I do think this is a philosophical conversation versus a scientific one, let me approach this from a few different angles. True science does its best to remove the subjective and report only the objective, by using only what it can observe as the basis of fact. Truthfully, there is a great deal that I believe that I will not personally observe in my lifetime, such as the size and composition of the sun. The human mind, arguably the most complex computing device on our planet, chooses what to pay attention to and what to ignore, with little input from our conscious minds. A great deal of our behavior is determined by our biological drives and instincts, in order to give ourselves the best possible chance to survive and reproduce. If there is a widespread belief in a higher power on our planet, whether true or not, it must serve or be a byproduct of a deep-seated biological need, or that trait would have been weeded out of existence quite a long time ago. You could argue that mankind has reached a point in evolution that it no longer needs what religion offers, but there are many examples of our bodies being several thousand generations at least behind what our societies and technologies indicate, i.e. despite the illogical and often destructive power of “love”, it demonstrates a power to supersede our logical minds and make our actions often quite out of our control. If religion has long met this need, and much like the dispute over which religion is correct, “scientific” belief is looking to stamp out “religious” belief, then I “believe” it is only the next in line for a belief system that fills some biological desire. The belief that scientific enlightenment will one day wipe out religion seems remarkably similar to the hopes of the early Christians or Muslims that their faith would sweep across the entire world, and seems to generate as much fervor and emotion as a heated debate between two religious parties. We have biological needs for emotion, and anger and the indignant need to be correct are responses of a core need being threatened. Both science and religion are most likely to say that they fear the other party obfuscating the meaning (or lack thereof) of life, but they are still indicating a “need” to believe something. My personal interpretation is this need makes it impossible to be objective, and by putting subjectivity into the mix, removes very science from the scientific argument. A true scientist seeks only knowledge for its own sake, and doesn’t try to make it fit into whatever worldview is most pleasant for his psyche and biological need. There is no scientific argument against God, because a scientist is not concerned with the question. By the way, if you are outraged, your mind racing to think of counterarguments, then consider your emotional attachment to your own argument, and spend some time delving into that.
i may be tiny
but i ain’t insignificant
i may be an idiot
but i ain’t beyond redemption
i may be religious
but thats only ’cause religion is better at mind-control than science is at liberation
so save me from da monotheism
so that I never need to choose between science and god
aw…who am i bullshittin?
you can’t save nobody’s ass - i gotta do it mahself.
I was deep into a very controlling church for about 10 years. It saved me from drug addiction. Eventually I started to question why I would fall for such a story( Jesus rising from the dead) without any question. Gradually I am learning to be responsible for myself and my decisions (thank you Jesus) Oops that just happens sometimes. It’s a long road to recovery and independence. It’s tempting to look for another crutch. I have decided to follow Jesus…sorry old habits die hard. I have decided to look within and trust myself. I am not afraid to be a little speck living on a little speck. I like this prospective.
I left the first comment to this beautifully written article, and it apears to me that the main point is still overlooked. Which was merely love your fellow man, and work towards a better life for all, This is what mankind is doing, not only passing on our genes and having children (as astropin said is our only purpose), but passing on our inteligence, and what we have learned. There arre to paths for mankind, power and destruction, or peace and growth.
“I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies” Quoted astropin
Comforting Fantisies huh vs. Cold reality, neither is true, reality is neither cold nor comforting, it is challenging. when posed the question how can I keep food cold, or how can I heat my home, or even heat food, or any plight of mankind, was the answer a fantasy that was never to be met? No the human strugle overcame it, and it was people gettin together in a positive manner that overcame the problem.
Weither or not there is some huge signifigance, and power that eludes us is not my problem, I am more worried about my fellow man, the ailments that plague them, and the dictators that hurt them. Live, grow strong, and pass it on.
Man, in his very brief stint on this spinning rock, has been hugely preoccupied by war, largely, and sadly under the banners of various religions. He fought before, during and after the formation of major belief systems.
Sagan would like most people to stop, take time out and just think about how we behave, how important we think we are, and the (in)significance of our singular and collective existence. Sadly, this stopping to think will eat into valuable time that others need to spend on making more money, raping the planet & plotting more wars. We are an ugly species in so many aspects, the human psyche based around ‘power’ and ’success’, and mans greedy nature must change drastically in order for life to be better for a larger proportion of people. (Though on a Universal scale, this matters little. )
I still have very little time for religion, as I see it as a pointless exercise which obfuscates many issues, muddying the waters and making it more difficult for man to get to a state of global harmony.
[...] pale, blue dot. (link) my favorite people in the world are teachers. and although i never became a science geek, one of my biggest influences as a kid was reading and watching carl sagan. without exaggeration i have watched the miniseries “cosmos” 20-30 times. check this site to get a little taste of what carl was all about. [...]
All good comments. But getting back to the basic question posed;
..”What is the purpose of human existence in the context of the Cosmos?
Vignesh”.
Simple;
1. To survive.
2. To have lunch.
Thats it.
No biggie, guys.
I like Carl’s words, but come to a different conclusion.
We, our lives and actions, are such an infinitesimal part of the universe that it really doesn’t matter what we do. So what if we kill each other, burn down the rainforests, turn our planet into a greenhouse that will never again support life? Viewed on such a scale, it’s meaningless.
And this man smoked pot, and had to lie about it until the day he died. Thanks, Uncle Sam!
[...] Carl Sagan had this to say about the Earth: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, e… [...]
“And this man smoked pot, and had to lie about it until the day he died. Thanks, Uncle Sam!”
??? Is that a statement for or against pot smoking? And what pray tell does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
From Andrew Wolf:
“I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies” Quoted astropin
“Comforting Fantisies huh vs. Cold reality, neither is true, reality is neither cold nor comforting, it is challenging. when posed the question how can I keep food cold, or how can I heat my home, or even heat food, or any plight of mankind, was the answer a fantasy that was never to be met? No the human strugle overcame it, and it was people gettin together in a positive manner that overcame the problem.”
Are you being obtuse? The point of my statement is that “fantasy” AKA “religion” is never the answer; It’s a delusion that leads to conflict and suffering…..it solves nothing…….yet people find their fantasies to be very comforting (It gives them a possible “out” for death). Reality is “cold” in the sense that their is no “out” for death. I freely admit and face my mortality along with everything else good & bad that reality has to show me.
[...] This is also somewhat related, and the most heavily commented post on the smart-kit site [not a puzzle though] [...]
OK, so that three pixels in the middle of the picture, that seemingly insignificant white dot is where all life that we know to exist is played out, babies born, heroes and villains die, star-crossed lovers, great works of art, etc etc, you get the idea. I don’t understand why this picture would make any of you feel insignificant.
Look again at the picture. There we are, the tiny dot, all humble and that..but what’s going on in the rest of the picture? Bloody nothing. Millions and millions of miles of space for rent. Nothing to see here, under development, not happening. We are the main event. We’re bloody massive.
Let’s take the extreme Christian view of things for a minute here. I’m not encouraging one view or another here, I’m just asking for a momentary suspension/continuation of disbelief/belief (delete as appropriate). As the story goes, God made the world in a few days about 5000 years ago. Good effort, love what he’s done with the place. He has subsequently had about 5000 years (give or take a few miracles and appearing in foodstuffs) just to sit back and do as he pleases. And he’s done absolutely nothing with anything else in this picture. We must be an unbelievable, monumentally stupendous achievement for a supreme being to say, “yep, my work here is done, no point putting up anything else, I’m not going to top that”.
This picture just shows me how significant we are in the universe. After all, if that tiny dot on the picture wasn’t there, there’d be no-one around to appreciate the rest of it.
[...] is a good thing to have.read more | digg [...]
[...] http://www.smart-kit.com/s225/powerful-words-by-carl-sagan/ [...]