WORKS OF CARL SAGAN....

freespirit2001 said:

...That first line in my quote...the metaphor or riddle about eyes, is what foolsparade left in his last message...I left a question for him with it....

I was referring to the works and wisdom of Carl Sagan in this quote from proverbs:

"As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the mind of kings is unsearchable..."

...the qoute about the greeks has to do with scientific inquiry...so does the quote about "perception"....but perception is best when it is kept discreet....

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Umm...great. Let me know if you post anything relevant, will you?

How could an atheist put such empathy and pathos into a plot of a movie, without having some understanding and appreciation for God in hisown personal life?

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This shows that you are a typically bigotted theist who doesn't have a clue about how atheists think. So far you have shown admiration for Thomas Paine, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Sagan in this thread all of whom are atheists (Paine may be classified as a Deist but he was certainly not a Christian) - maybe you should rethink your opinion of atheists in general?

Physics_guy said:

This shows that you are a typically bigotted theist who doesn't have a clue about how atheists think. So far you have shown admiration for Thomas Paine, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Sagan in this thread all of whom are atheists (Paine may be classified as a Deist but he was certainly not a Christian) - maybe you should rethink your opinion of atheists in general?

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Physics_guy makes an excellent point here. Your ONLY reason for asserting that Sagan was a theist is because he possessed some attributes (eg., pathos, empathy) that you admire...so he must have been a theist. The implication is, of course, that atheists cannot be empathic, demonstrate pathos, etc...which is complete rubbish, and highly bigotted.

BTW - you should read the book Contact - much better treatment of the battle between science and religion than the movie. In the book, Ellie does not go alone into space - she goes with 7 others luminaries from all over the world. They all have similar experience, so the "faith" aspect of the journey is less apparent. Also, Ellie in the book (and the movie, BTW) is a "weak" atheist - she basically says she has no evidence of God.

Also, the book is inherently theistic, but it is deistic. In the book, the aliens tell Ellie that there is a hidden structure in Pie (I forgot the ascii code for this) which hints at a created Universe. This book was in stark contrast to much of Sagan's other work where he openly stated he was an atheist. Further, any one of Sagan's friends or family will tell you that he considered himself an atheist. I know you have trouble with this because you have a bigoted belief that atheist are incapable of profound thought, but it is the truth.

BTW - as I said earlier Freud was also an atheist.

Think that you are going to rethink your prejudices against atheists yet?

and here comes the RELIGIOUS Authorities to say this guy was an atheist....

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What a crock - Sagan himself identified himself as an atheist. I am sorry if your bigotted prejudices against atheists conflict with your love affair with Sagan's writings, but that is the truth. In all his works, Contact is the only ambiguous one - and that work is a piece of fiction. BTW - did you notice that the bad guy in Contact is a religious extremist and that Ellie is persecuted (not chosen for the mission despite her credentials) because of her lack of belief in God? From what you have posted here, you would be one of the bad guys in Sagan's book - choosing the obsequious man who says that he believes in God over Ellie who see know evidence of God.

I'm not one to believe in all the social hysteria about the UFO thing that seems to me to suggest a social craze that is totally the opposite of the belief about being Evolved from Apes

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I have no idea what you mean here, but the Theory of Evolution does not say that extraterristial intelligence is impossible. In fact, it is because we believe that life evolved here that we believe it could have evolved elsewhere in the Universe.

Chi_Cygni said:

I knew (somewhat) Carl Sagan personally. I always found him to be a decent guy BUT I often found his scientific work to be lacking in rigour.

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Sometimes. I think Sagan's main failing was extrapolating beyond science and using science illegitimately to back his personal beliefs -- his atheism in this case. Sagan had a problem presenting atheism as tho it were a direct conclusion of science. See the book Science Held Hostage for a full critique of this. But simply Sagan's catchphrase will do: "The Cosmos [defined as the material universe] is all there is, all there was, and all there will be."

For the original poster, the problem will be to separate Sagan's faith statements from his legitimate science statements. I have found that professionals like you and I do this unconsciously. It doesn't even register that we are doing it. It's only when we consciously go back and look at things that we see Sagan's bias. Lewontin was making fun of Sagan in his review of Demon Haunted Woodland in what has become one of the most famous of creationist misquotes:

"What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.” Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. "

freespirit2001 said:

The movie CONTACT has two leading characters in it: Ellie (represents SCIENCE, who speaks all though the movie about reasons why the world needs science...she represents the scientist part of Carl Sagan life ...Joss ( represents RELIGION the Divinity Student and later Reverend...suggesting to me Carl Sagan understood the conflict of religion and science...

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If this were so, then the scientist would have been more competent and pointed out the chair ripped from its frame and flattened against the wall in radial gravitational force which would not have happened if the capsule had simply fallen as everyone thought. Also they would have pointed out more that 18 hours of empty tape for a drop that supposedly took only a few minutes!

IOW, Sagan ignored data that falsified the skeptical view of Ellie's experience.

Also, if Ellie had been more competent, she would have presented her views as the agnosticism that science really is.

I think Sagan was indeed looking at the major difference between science and religion -- the types of data admitted or not admitted. And here he was being uncharactistically kind to religion. Cosmos, OTOH, is pure atheist proselytizing.

freespirit2001 said:

He chose a vision of communication with higher intelligence instead.

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But his "higher intelligence" was simply a mortal with advanced technology. Not supernatural. While the minister was more amenable to taking Ellie's personal experience as valid on trust (as religion does do), why did Sagan bury the intersubjective data that would support the story? We were not supposed to notice? Didn't he notice?

I feel, that support this belief about our divine nature ( in God ) (that's why Carl Sagan started at Eden)...with hope for the future of human kind....and mankinds reasoning...

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Sagan never had any belief in our "divine" nature. No divine to have a nature of. Instead, Sagan substitutes the mysticism of coming from "starstuff" in the place of standard religion. He is trying to turn science into a religion.

I'm not one to believe in all the social hysteria about the UFO thing that seems to me to suggest a social craze that is totally the opposite of the belief about being Evolved from Apes.

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Opposite? If life began here by chemistry and a sentient species evolved, then this could have happened on other planets. Sagan firmly believed this was so. Remember, SETI is Sagan's pet project.

Carl Sagan did much work to encourage vision outside the hierarchy and the authorities of the time....and here comes the RELIGIOUS Authorities to say this guy was an atheist....

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Carl Sagan did much to make science answer all the needs and questions that religion does now. As a person who could explain science to a lay audience, Sagan was superb. He had a real gift of being able to both explain science and make it interesting. It's just too bad that he so often presented science as backing his personal beliefs.

I don't think anyone doubts that Sagan was a rather spiritual person. He is hardly the first nontheist to read the Bible and relate to it. It was afterall one of the most influential books in history, philosophy, theology, and (for a while) science.

He also probably knew that it would make his primarily Christian audience more easily relate to his work. The concept of Eden is found throughout the world in all variety of cultures and religions. Eden is simply the name an English speaker is most likely to know Paradise by.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Contact is one of my favorite movies if not my favorite...ok, well actually Basic Instinct, but that is not scientific

I own the DVD of contact and have watched in 4 or 5 times. I cry everytime Ellie sees her "dad" on the beach. Corny, huh?

I got a much deeper meaning out of the movie also. I felt there was a religious undertone of belief vs. non belief. I felt that Ellie awaked to her own spirituality and that because she experienced something she could not prove it made her appreciated Palmer's beliefs a little bit more. (My 2 cents)

Why are you so hard on his credibility as a person and scientist, because he didn't appear to conform to the social standards of the religion of our time?

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You don't get it - he self-identified as an atheist - I am not being hard on him in any way (though I as many other physicists will tell you that he left physics for the more glamorous life of a science populized and philosopher before accomplishing much in his professional career as a physicist - I don't blame him for this, I'm just pointing it out).

You are a very strange person, or at least simply a misguided and bigotted one. You think that because I am calling Sagan an atheist that I am some how insulting him, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Check out the site below:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/sagan.htm

He certainly does not sound much like a Christian or any sort of deistic believer. He is closer to a believer in scientism and an ardent proponent of philosophical naturalism.

freespirit2001 said:

Why are you so hard on his credibility as a person and scientist, because he didn't appear to conform to the social standards of the religion of our time?

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Why are you intent on equating us calling him an atheist (because he claimed to be an atheist) as insulting? It's getting ridiculous.

He left Bible quotes in his work...and wonderful metaphors...why use Bible quotes if your a scientist who doesn't believe in God? Why read the Bible at all?

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Perhaps for similar reasons why he refers to other myths in his works and why other people do the same thing regardless of whether they believe the myths are true.

They have to dress up the atheist word with "Positive"---Atheist

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Ironically, it's probably because there exist people like you who think the word "atheist" has negative connotations and should be taken as an insult.

LorentzHA said:

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Contact is one of my favorite movies if not my favorite...ok, well actually Basic Instinct, but that is not scientific

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Although one can learn quite a bit about anatomy from Sharon Stone...

freespirit2001 said:

.....BINGO...!

Alot of great Carl Sagan and science quotes would have to be found on a POSITIVE ATHEIST website...They have to dress up the atheist word with "Positive"---Atheist...I still feel there are higher reasons for this, from an intelligent spiritual point of view that still favors faith through all my reasoning.....I'm not giving up that Carl Sagan had to have some kind of faith....and I'm hoping to keep objective reasoning and discerning insight about my views...

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Atheist is not a dirty word. Many theists have, throughout history, tried to portray Atheists as boogymen. Why fall for their trap?

I have alot of information about FAITH as well...but I will continue my arguments on the line of Sagan's references to the themes of "Religion" and "Science" somehow being mysteriously intertwined....

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And I will contine to make references to The Illiad, The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, and accepting Iggy the Magic Elf as a personal lord and savior. Must I believe in these things in order to use them to prove a point?

...or do the words "metaphor," and "allegory" hold no particular meaning?

freespirit2001 said:

.....BINGO...!

Alot of great Carl Sagan and science quotes would have to be found on a POSITIVE ATHEIST website...They have to dress up the atheist word with "Positive"---Atheist...I still feel there are higher reasons for this, from an intelligent spiritual point of view that still favors faith through all my reasoning.....I'm not giving up that Carl Sagan had to have some kind of faith....and I'm hoping to keep objective reasoning and discerning insight about my views...


I have alot of information about FAITH as well...but I will continue my arguments on the line of Sagan's references to the themes of "Religion" and "Science" somehow being mysteriously intertwined....



You have to keep in mind the socio-emotional aspect of the times, when it comes to being more aware of the times we justed passed through, and where we are now....(ie. socially and individually---where are the norms and the principles, the values of reasoning and faith---when it comes to hierarchy issues: religion...science...social/cultural-middle-class pretenses...big business...politics).....but I think there is alot of transcendental elements in his knowledge, especially about time AND FAITH....

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This is getting ridiculous. Sagan was an atheist. He did not believe in any god. If you want to delude yourself that he DID believe in a god, despite all that he wrote on the subject, great. But don't waste anyone else's time with your absurdities.

And please, stop flaunting your ignorance about atheism. Atheists aren't bad or negative people. They can have just as many positive qualities - yes, gasp, even qualities you admire - as theists. I know you admire Sagan and so want to convince yourself - and everyone else - that he wasn't an atheist, but in your anxiety to do so, you're looking very foolish. He was an atheist - if anything, he was a 'scientist'. Learn to accept people for what they are, not to try to redefine them to be what you wish they were.