We have been discussing the differences between faith and facts, and the reason why religion exists, but I have rarely seen the discussion so eloquently explained as it was in this stunning video.
It is well worth the nine plus minutes it requires to watch it.
It is worth mentioning that yesterday was the 15th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death.
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge fan and have been since I was a young man watching the Cosmos series. When I saw my first episode I was completely hooked, I go through it occasionally about once a year.
I have always loved that picture. Actually it's a woodblock print. I have a copy of it hanging in my living room.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Carl Sagan would have thought of the following.
ReplyDeletefrom Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Cat's Cradle
The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith
Performed in the Boko-Maru posture [supine, with legs bent and feet in plantar apposition - in other words, "sole to sole"], both parties repeat one after the other:
God made mud,
God got lonesome,
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God!
Nobody but You could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way that I can feel the least bit important is to think
of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait ...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was ...
And who was in my karass ...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.
I knew Carl and enjoyed quite a few wonderful conversations with him during my student days at Cornell (he had a great house on a cliff).
ReplyDeleteHe wouldn't describe himself as an atheist. To wit: By most definitions he would be called an atheist, but he hated the term. "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid."
He didn't think science drained any of the majesty from the universe, but quite the opposite.
"The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos." (link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/18/AR2006041801870_2.html).
He disagreed with pedestrian conceptions of the divine BUT as a teacher was always trying to conjure up that sense of wonder and awe belief thereof often inspires- in my case he succeeded.
In a sense, Carl helped me find God by teaching me to look at the world with wonder and for that I will always be thankful.
Sometimes there is more behind words like stars, cosmos, and God than seems at first glance.
Like Bertrand Russell, David Hume and many towering intellects, Carl, in my view, believed but called it another name- perhaps this was necessary for them.
As the late great theologian George Carlin said: "Man created God in the image and likeness of himself."
ReplyDeleteIf anyone doubts this, look at the stereotypical image of Jesus common in the U.S. - a pale white guy with red hair and blue eyes. Not a trace of Semitism in that image. That many Christians register no cognitive dissonance upon seeing such imagery makes it VERY difficult to take us seriously.
My place in the church is solely because it is one of the few institutions that has a decent record in promoting social justice. Certainly not perfect, but better than other institutions.
If my presence in the Presbyterian church were dependent upon mindless fealty to Bronze Age superstitious bullshit, then I'd be out the door.
My only problem with Jesus - whomever he was, whatever color his hair and eyes - is that he just wasn't quite liberal enough for me.
Wow! Beautiful video. Carl Sagan was so eloquent and super-smart. I miss him. Wonder what he'd think of the right-wing evangelicals trying to take us back to the Dark Ages?
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment, Dude. Thanks for sharing your personal experience with Carl Sagan, and for taking the discussion beyond the deck-stacking phrase "differences between faith and fact."
ReplyDeleteReligious faith is often caricatured as a monolithic set of beliefs which include a literal belief in clearly mythic scripture, a rejection of science, and punitive zealotry toward anyone who thinks differently.
It's refreshing to read here a reference to the faith held by many great minds. That depth of spirituality is hard to define and can't be folded, stapled, or mutilated, so many people prefer to keep it simple and point to religious extremists as proof that anyone who believes in any God is necessarily simple-minded, and often evil as well.
Oh my God that completely blew me away. Thank you for sharing that (running off to the library to find everything I can on Carl Sagan). Fascinating, fantastic, I love it and will repost.
ReplyDeleteExcellent!! And I really enjoyed your post, "Dude - 644AM." LOVE the axiom, "there is no religion higher than Truth." Sagan proves that to Infinity and Beyond ... and H/T to Buzz Lightyear.
ReplyDeleteHappy Solstice, All! Things are looking a lot brighter already with the continuing demise of the Teabaggers and their ilk, who, in the past, have vilified the likes of Copernicus and Galileo for daring to say the Earth revolved around the Sun. Today they deny climate change and evolution. Same ol' - same ol.' People rode on dinosaurs. Right. I'm with Goethe who said "Licht! Mehr Licht!," or "Light! More Light!"
Happy Solstice!
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest "Broca's Brain" by Carl Sagan? I read that a long, long time ago (in high school) and it opened my eyes to the wonder of the universe; the macro and the micro.
Sagan was truly a treasure and an intellect for the ages.
Jude,
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of Sagan thinking out loud.
Fact: I see a light in the sky
Faith 1: It is part of the "heavens" a perfect sphere on which hang all of the stars, created by God (the Aristotelian view)
Faith2: It is a star, like our sun, but billions and billions of miles away created by the Big Bang
Faith 3: Assuming our theories of gravity, light, space and matter (inter alia) are correct and our observations are made with a sufficient degree of certitude, that light is likely a star, like our sun, which may have been created by the Big Bang, may have always been there (steady state universe theory) or some other variant I haven't thought of.
While he tended in his lectures and TV shows to advocate for faith 2 (a pedestrian and thus easily explainable perspective) when free to ruminate he usually shifted to faith 3, which to this student philosopher of science was wonderfully eye opening.
The "extrapolations" to which he refers early in the video point to many and various cosmologies.
It was a beautiful presentation, I'm still waiting for the explanation for the Big Bang. Talk to me then.
ReplyDeleteI do agree, however, with the idea that the universe was not made for us, and we are not the center of all things.
ReplyDeleteIt comes down to - do you want the red pill or the blue pill? Most choose to shun reality for the comfort of illusion.
ReplyDeleteKnowledge is power. For millenia, the powerful have tried to keep everyone else ignorant. Look at what's happening to the schools today in this country. An uneducated population is one that is easy to control.
Better for those in power to indoctrinate the young into religions and let them be ignorant.
I miss Saga. "Cosmos" was a watershed moment in television programming.
ReplyDelete"Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable."
ReplyDeleteI've not come across a quote more correct over the span of my own life.
It's very well done but nonetheless oversteps the bounds of the known in a few places without seeming to realize it. Also, it is a tiresome old canard to say that those who don't accept Darwinian theory are anti science. People who try to shut down other opinions in science are the ones who are anti science.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this mold of thinking is that it denies soul and consciousness. It tends to argue from a scientific and religious point of view that is way out of date. There's a lot of good scientific minds and research that supports consciousness as a precursor to matter, which is really good news for everybody, atheist and believer alike.
I relished "The Cosmos" series. Carl's theory that the universe was not made for us always fascinated me, after all this times, we know little of it's breadth, depth, and mysteries. Thanks for sharing this, it's eloquent and polished and eternally relevant.
ReplyDeleteDude, thanks for sharing your personal expereince as his student.
Me... I am an atheist (albeit a God-fearing one!), in that whatever image of a god anyone holds in their head I know that doesn't exist. The Bible told my so.
ReplyDeleteRelated videos from the supreme philhellenes:
Science Saved My Soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk
This Remarkable Thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdRCPjXn1DY
I would suggest all that exists is Information, and long-term observation tells me of a substrate Intent... however I've never devised an experiment to demonstrate it to you.
ReplyDeleteThere is magic tho': 3 TRULY Magic Words (Try 'Em).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EvXH-1N_VE&feature=related
that was good, gryphen!
ReplyDelete