Carl Sagan’s 20-Minute TAKEDOWN of Christians

every other proposal and their number is Legion to displace us from cosmic Center Stage has also been resisted in part for similar reasons we seem to Crave privilege merited not by our works but by our Birth by the mere fact that say we're humans and born on Earth we might call it the anthropocentric the human centered conceit this conceit is brought close to culmination in the notion that we are created in God's image the Creator and ruler of the entire universe looks just like me my what a coincidence how convenient and satisfying the 6th Century

BC Greek philosopher xenophanes understood the arrogance of this perspective here's what he said the Ethiopians make their gods black and snubnosed the thians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair yes and if oxen and horses or lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do horses would paint the forms of the Gods like horses and oxen like oxen and again if we're not important not Central not the apple of God's eye what is implied for our theologically B B moral codes the discovery of our true bearings

in the cosmos was resisted for so long and to such a degree that many traces of the debate remain sometimes with the motives of the geocent interests laid bare so what do we really want from philosophy and religion ptiv therapy Comfort do we want reassuring fables or an understanding of our actual circumstances this may that the Universe does not conform to our preferences seems childish you might think that grown-ups would be ashamed to put such disappointments into print the fashionable way of doing this is not to blame the universe which seems truly pointless but rather

to blame the means by which we know the universe namely science science has taught us that because we have a talent for deceiving ourselves subjectivity may not freely reign its conclusions derive from the interrogation of Nature and are not in all cases predesigned to satisfy our wants we recognize that even revered religious leaders the products of their time as we are of ours may have made mistakes religions contradict one another on small matters such as whether we should put on a hat or take one off on entering a house of worship or whether we should

eat beef and estu pork or the other way around all the way to the most Central issues such as whether there are no Gods one God or many gods the word god covers an enormous range of different ideas and you recognize that in the way you phrase the question running from an outsized lightskinned male with a long white beard sitting in a throne in the sky and tallying the fall of every Sparrow for which there is no evidence in my mind if anybody has some I sure would like to see it um to the kind

of God that Einstein or Spinoza talked about which is very close to the sum total of the laws of the universe now it would be crazy to deny that there are laws in the universe and if that's what you want to call God then of course God exists and there are all sorts of other nuances there is for example the deest god that many of the founding fathers of this country believed in although it is a secret whose name may not be spoken in some circles a a a do nothing King the God who creates

the universe and then retires and to whom praying to is sort of pointless he's not here he went somewhere else he had other things to do now that's also a God so when you say Do you believe in God if I say yes or if I say no you have learned absolutely nothing I guess I'm asking you to Define yours if you have one but why would we use a word so ambiguous that means so many different things gives you freedom to Define it as it gives you freedom to seem to agree with someone else

with whom you do not agree it covers over differences it makes for social lubrication but it is not an aid to truth in my view and therefore I think we need much sharper language when we ask these questions sorry to take so long in answering this but this is a important issue what is your personal religion or do you is there any type of God to you like is there a purpose given that we're just sitting on this Speck in the middle of this sea of stars humans have created a mythological framework that has always

involved some kind of often involves some kind of higher spiritual powers and as every human culture has done that as that goes away as we know more and more that and it seems harder and harder to prove that anything might exist like that where does that leave us on our own which to my mind is much more responsible than hoping that someone will save us from ourselves so we don't have to make our best efforts to do it oursel and if we're wrong and there is someone who steps in and saves us okay that's all

right I'm for that but we you know hedged our bets it's Pascal's bargain run backwards uh listen to this I hate to read too much but this is It's almost like they've been reading your book this is from The New York Times for Friday uh May 24 America flunk science a study finds less than half of All American adults understand that the Earth orbits the sun yearly according to a basic science survey nevertheless there's enthusiasm for research except in some Fields like genetic engineering and nuclear power that are viewed with suspicion only about 25% of

American adults get passing grades in a National Science Foundation survey of what people know about basic science and economics I mean this is singing your song isn't it well it's certainly what I'm talking about in in the demon Haunted World my my feeling Charlie is that um it's it's not that um pseudo science and Superstition and New Age so-called beliefs and uh fundamentalist zry are something new they've been with us for as long as we've been we've been human but we live in an Age based on Science and Technology with formidable technological Powers Science and

Technology ology are propelling us forward at accelerating rates that's right and if we don't understand it by we I mean the general public if it's something that oh I'm not good at that I don't know anything about it then who is making all the decisions about science and technology that uh are going to determine what kind of future our children live in just uh some members of Congress but there's no more than a handful of members of congress with any background in science at all and the Republican Congress has just abolished its own office of

technology assessment the organization that gave them bipartisan competent advice on Science and Technology they say we don't want to know don't tell us about science surpris I mean you you blast them all creationist uh Christian Scientists who you say would rather allow their children uh to suffer uh than give them insulin or antibiotics uh astrologers come in for particular scorn on your part well I would say scorn just derision derision a more generous version of scorn and but what's the danger of all this I mean you know this is not the thing that there's two

kinds of dangers one is what I just talked about that we've arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology I mean who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it and the second reason that I'm I'm worried about this is that science is more than a body of knowledge it's a way of thinking a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility if if we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate

those who tell us that something is true to be skeptical of those in Authority then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along it it's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on it wasn't enough he said to enshrine some rights in a in a constitution or a Bill of Rights the people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education otherwise we don't run the government the government runs us this a lot of this has to do with science in the United States

are we different than other nations absolutely not you can see this worldwide uh in India there's a a Madness about astrology in Britain it's ghosts in Germany it's Rays coming up from the earth that can only be detected by Dowsers um every country uh has its its own Specialties we we seem to be fascinated by UFOs right now but one thing what is that before you leave UFOs tell me about you and Professor Mack you were making a point before I jump to John Mack oh yeah what I wanted to say is U uh going

back to the question of uh of adequate evidence on something that's emotionally really uh really pulling you um I uh I lost both my parents about uh 12 or 15 years ago and U I had a great relationship with them I really miss them I would love to believe that their Spirits were around somewhere and I'd give almost anything to uh spend 5 minutes a year with them do you hear their voices ever uh sometimes about uh six or eight times since their death I've heard Carl just just in the voice of my father or

my mother now I don't think that means that they're in the Next Room I think it means that they're in your I've had an auditory hallucination I I was with them so long I heard their voices so often why shouldn't I be able to make a vivid recollection of it here's what's interesting about this for me I you won't see this but I'll throw it at you anyway you convinced me a long time ago that it was arrogant for me or for anyone else to believe that there wasn't some life outside of our to exclude

the possibility to exclude the possibility was was was to was an arrogance of intellect that we should not assume you couldn't prove it you didn't know it was there but the arrogance for you right we don't know if it's there we don't know if it's not there let's look and if you take that why can't you say there's a lot we don't know there's a lot of power that we don't there's a lot we don't know you know that's what I believe but that doesn't mean that every every fraudulent claim has to be accepted we

we demand the most rigorous standards of evidence especially on what's important to us so if some guy comes up to me and a channel or medium and said I can put you in touch with your parents well because I want so terribly to to believe that yeah I know I have to reach in for added reserves of skepticism because I'm likely to be fooled and and uh much more minor to have my money taken some reviewers differ with your conclusions on this point that you seem to say it's growing this kind of pseudo science sorry

to interrupt I I I don't we've this is part of Being Human humans have had this way of magical thinking through all of our history the problem is that today the technology has reached formidable maybe even awesome proportions and so the dangers of thinking this way are larger not that this is a new kind of thing you are living with Milo dysplasia or I have been you have been it's in remission or you have what well and just share with us because of your your sense of of language and and and your sense of understanding

and and being reflective and introspective what does what do you think about and what does it do for you to I didn't have any say to you I didn't have any near-death experiences I didn't have a religious conversion but you thought about what it would be like to die certainly and what it would be like for my my family and and uh I didn't much think about what it would be like for me because I don't think it's likely there's anything that you think about after you're dead that's it yeah long dreamless sleep I'd love

to believe the opposite but I don't know of any evidence but one thing Faith Carl one thing that it has done is to enhance my uh sense of appreciation for the the beauty of Life uh and of the universe and the the sheer Joy Of Being Alive one point I'd like to make about this is that every human culture has a set of creation myths uh but they're in the realm of Mythology or religion or folklore uh and they are of course all mutually in consistent the great thing that is happening in our time is

that we are able through a method which can actually make some progress towards the real Universe out there to find out something about Origins and this is the scientific method applied to the science of cosmology much and Carl Sean in in your introduction to the book you commented on this you said this is also a book about God or perhaps about the absence of God because Hawking left nothing for a Creator to do now God of course means many things to many people what sort of God basically are we talking about when when we talk

about reading the mind of God well I think that's uh that's an excellent question and uh and I'd be most interested to uh to hear Steph Hawking answer but just just to try to illuminate the range of possibilities consider uh two Alternatives uh one is the uh the notion popular in the west uh of God as a sort of outsized elderly white male with a long white beard sitting in a throne in the sky and telling the fall of every Sparrow uh contrast that with uh the idea of God in the mind of let's say

Spinosa or Einstein which was at least very closely the sum total of the laws of the universe uh now it would be Madness to deny that there are well-defined physical laws in the universe and if that's what you mean by God then there's no question that uh that God exists but it's a very uh remote God a what the French call a do nothing King on the other hand the former model the one who intervenes daily uh for that there seems to be as Dr Hawkings said uh no evidence I think it is wise my

my own personal feeling uh to be uh a little humble on uh on such matters uh we must recognize that we are dealing with uh by Def definition the most difficult things uh to know the furthest from Human Experience and uh perhaps we will be able to penetrate a little way uh into these Mysteries do you think that the church is in fact beginning to recognize that it it may have to lose its priority its evidence as the sole Arbiter of of these matters and that science will be allowed to come in as an equal

partner well the church is certainly when I to the church the Roman Catholic Church you become very much more liberal I had the pleasure of giving a talk in the Vatican myself in the pontifical Academy of Science quite recently and met the pope and of course they're reinstating Galileo and so things are moving in fact are they moving backwards as well as forward Carl San because I understand it in the earliest days of civilization then the priests were in fact what we call the scientists the ones who could study astronomy and who could predict eclipse

and things do you see the scientist coming back into an almost sacerdotal position like this or am I overstating it well I I I hope you're overstating it uh I think the essence of the scientific method is the willingness to uh to admit you're wrong the willingness to abandon ideas that don't work uh and the essence of religion is not to change uh anything the supposed truths are handed down by some revered figure and then no one is supposed to make any uh any progress beyond that because all the truth is thought to be in

hand I'm really talking about setting an agenda for the future uh my sense is that the scientific way of of thinking questioning uh some delicate mix of uh creative encouragement of new ideas and the most rigorous and skeptical scrutiny of new and old ideas uh I think that is the path to the Future not just for science but uh for all human institutions we have to be willing to challenge because we are in desperate need of change well you say that science should be skeptical of politics don't you think we ought to be a little

skeptical about science too I mean can we trust you guys I uh I think you should certainly be skeptical but uh my view is that there's no community of people on the planet more skeptical than science it's our stock in trade it's the lifeblood of our subject science is a self-correcting subject not like politics there is in this universe much of what seems to be design every time we come upon it we breathe a sigh of relief we're forever hoping to find or at least to safely deduce a designer but instead we repeatedly discover that

natural processes collisional selection of Worlds say or natural selection of Gene pools or even the convection pattern in a pot of boiling water can extract order out of chaos and deceive us into deducing purpose where there is none ladies and gentlemen that was kga is one of if not the most remarkable astronomer astrophysicist cosmologist auor and science Communicator who dedicated his life to promoting scientific inquiry critical thinking and the wonders of the universe and as you've seen Sagan's Legacy extends far beyond his scientific achievements and his role as a communicator he was also a fierce

advocate for reason skepticism and the Scientific Method Man in a world often clouded by superstitions dogma and P science agood as a beacon of clarity and critical thinking and he believed that science was not just a body of knowledge but a way of thinking a tool for Discerning truth from falsehood it's disbelief that was a that they had to Fe critique of religious dogma and other forms of unquestioned belief just to make it clear though Sagan was not opposed to spirituality or wonder in fact you spoke of the profound o he felt when contemplating the

universe but he drew a clear line between wonder and credulity he argued that faith when and Ted from evidence could lead to dangerous consequences in the world and even in his book The Demon Haunted World science as a candle in the dark s w Against The Lure of P science and the abandonment of critical thinking in the developed world he would actually write one of the saddest lessons of history is this if we've been bamboozled long enough we tend to reject any evidence of the bambul we're no longer interested in finding out the truth the

bambole has captured us it's simply too painful to acknowledge even to ourselves that we've been taken simply awesome man right and Sean's critique of Dogma was not limited to religion he was equally critical of political ideologies pseudo scientific claims and any systems of thought that discouraged questioning he believed that skepticism was essential to a healthy Society writing skeptical scrutiny is the means in both science and religion by which deep thought can be wied from Deep nonsense I've always loved that quot man now while this commitment to reason made him a controversial figure at times it

also ear him the respect of countless scientists thinkers and orinary people who shared his vision of our world Guided by evidence and inquiry instead of dogma and Blind Faith he believed that a scientifically literate public was essential to the survival of democracy and the advancement of humanity and I personally couldn't agree more and by the way in his book that we looked at ear demon Haunted World he also introduced the concept of the Balon detection kit which was a set of tools for critical thinking that included principles like skepticism Oram Resa and the importance of

falsifiability Sagan's goal was not just to debunk Meats but to empower people to be able to think for themselves but unfortunately Sagan's life was not without its challenges he first criticism from suing the scientific Community who felt that his popularizing efforts retracted from his credibility as a researcher others still even in the scientific Community accused him of being to outspoken in his critiques of religion and Pudo science but Sagan remained steadfast in his commitment to science and reason he believed that the pursuit of knowledge was one of Humanity's noblest Endeavors and he dedicated his life

to sharing that Pursuit with others like you and Di K Sean passed away on December 20th 1996 I am after he was born after a long battle with Milo dysplasia a rare born marrow disease but still his legacy lives on man as you can see we are still talking about him even though some of us just had the pleasure of learning about the man less than a decade ago