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In case it won't play on the site or the link won't work, the channel is called "The Unrepentant Atheist" -
Title is "Carl Sagan Responds To Christian Grad Student Question About God"
Carl Sagan Responds To Christian Grad Student Question About God
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In case it won't play on the site or the link won't work, the channel is called "The Unrepentant Atheist" -
Title is "Carl Sagan Responds To Christian Grad Student Question About God"
wil
UNeyeR1
Demotions?
Disappointed with Carl or the questioner?
Disappointed with Carl or the questioner?
Vasu Devan
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That Christian guy sounds like collapse of faith is imminent and he's looking anywhere for proof of god.....even an atheist! Seems turning to even a famous rationalist's perception of any higher power is his last hope.....and he didn't get the answer he was looking for. 
Ah well. The planets keep turnin'...
Ah well. The planets keep turnin'...
I wonder ... why assume he was Christian?
I saw it as a simple question: "Do you have a personal (idea) of God?"
I thought that was quite simple and direct. He qualified it with, effectively, a second question: "Do you see any divine purpose in existence?"
I hold Sagan to a different standard than a Grad Student, because of his higher academic status, and because he promoted himself as a populariser and a spokesperson for science generally.
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With Sagan, he took a question, trivialised it, then then went off on a tangent, irrelevant to the core question, and ended up saying ... nothing.
All I saw was chaff.
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To be fair, I know Sagan has a huge reputation and did a lot of work popularising science. A quick glance at his wiki entry lists a lot of plusses. On the whole I think we have to say on balance the general opinion is in his favour, but then all the more important, when asked such a question, that a man who made a profession of influencing people, should to the question, and the science which speaks for that field, such a disservice.
In the wiki entry it says he said he was agnostic. I wish he had just said that.
I'm a bit of a David taking a tilt at a Goliath here, so as an exercise I've got a transcript of video, and I'll comment on that.
Vasu Devan
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Yes, the student was looking anywhere for a framework definition of God that would work for him. Maybe he has seen enough mystical frameworks fail for him that he hoped a "science guy's" concept of higher purpose could be one he could use. Otherwise, I don't see any reason asking a non-believer his idea of God other than mere curiosity. And that must already have been done to death for the student as he searched the cosmos earlier.
To be fair, you don't need God to find purpose. And in certain forms of human life, the simple purpose "Just be." can be sufficient.
From the transcript:
Grad Student: "My question is ... what is your personal religion or ... 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?"
Carl Sagan: "Now I don't want to duck any questions and I'm not going to duck this one ... but let me ask you what do you mean when you use the word God?"
Me: That does somewhat duck the question – reflecting it back on the questioner. The Student's personal beliefs are irrelevant to what is being asked. What is being asked is what, if anything, does Sagan believe.
GS: "... is there a purpose for I mean given all these demotions, why don't we just blow ourselves up?"
CS: "hat what is what is our purpose? I mean, let me turn the question around. If we do blow ourselves up, does that disprove the existence of God?"
GS: "No, I guess not."
Sagan is amusing his audience at his questioner's expense here, but now the questioner has asked the same question twice, in effect 'Is there a purpose to the cosmos?' and Sagan makes little of that.
GS: "... what I'm asking is since ... we kind of make God almost go away ... And I don't mean he because who knows what God is."
CS: "But still saying 'it' makes it sort of icky, doesn't it?"
GS: "Yeah. Yeah. It's it's tough."
CS: "We like it to be a he, don't we?"
GS: "Yeah. We've been trained to think of it as a he."
Me: To my mind, part of the art of listening to the question is to get to the kernel of what is being asked. So far, Sagan has led the questioner off on a little tangent to make his own point about 'he', even though the GS has pointed out we do not know.
GS: "(I)t seems that through the ages we humans have created a mythological framework that often involves some kind of higher spiritual powers... 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?"
Me: If I was answering the question, I'd first point out that we know more and more about the material world, and the physical sciences can neither prove nor disprove that 'anything might exist like that' because by definition, anything that does exist like that lies outside the scope and remit of the physical sciences. So the GS has rather fallen into the trap of the 'science v religion' question, which is a false dichotomy.
Sagan, as a science spokesperson, should have pointed that out, but he didn't. Perhaps he himself is subject to the same logical fallacy.
By this stage of the debate, Sagan is scoring minus marks with me.
But here the debate takes a turn: I'll repeat the relevant question:
GS: "where does that leave us?"
CS: "On our own ... " (pause – leave the comment hanging, and wait for the applause, which dutifully arrives) "... 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 ourselves."
Me: Which, of course, is not what religion is about at all. It's a Straw Man with nregard to religion, and an Ad Hominem with regard to believers...
CS: "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."
Me: No, Carl, that's you.
Pascal's Wager is actually more sophisticated that Sagan assumes. Pascal understood that such a belief is not sufficient to deliver salvation, so anyone who believes according the wager is on a hiding to nothing ...
CS: "I'll say another word. The word God covers an enormous range of different ideas. And you recognize that in the way you phrase the question, running from ( – INSERT WORN-OUT STEREOTYPE HERE – ) for which there is no evidence to my mind if anybody has some I sure would like to see it ... "
Me: Actually, Christian theology has a sound, reasoned, rational and logical argument for the existence of 'God', but not the rather naive and childish idea you put forward, whilst perhaps does exist in the minds many, is not the grounds on which contemporary theology as a science and a study bases its arguments. Pitch that idea of God to a theologian and see what happens ...
CS: "... 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."
No, that's not at all correct, Carl, and surely you know that? Einstein expressed a belief in line with Spinoza, and Spinoza expressed a belief in God as the Infinite Divine Substance from which all manifestation arises.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spinoza's God is an "infinite intellect" (Ethics 2p11c): all-knowing (2p3), and capable of loving both himself and humanity, insofar as it is part of his perfection (5p35c). Spinoza postulates that a personal being is one that personal attitudes can be entertained toward. In that light, Spinoza also recommends amor intellectualis dei (the intellectual love of God) as the supreme good for man (5p33).
CS: "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."
Me: OK. But that does not address the point of the question, do you believe in a purpose to existence?
CS: "And there are all sorts of other nuances ... So when you say do you believe in god? If I say yes or if I say no, you have learned absolutely nothing."
Me: Wrong, I have learned whether or not there's any point to the question, which was rather the reason it was asked ...
GS: "I guess I'm asking you to define yours if you have one."
CS: "But why would we use a word so ambiguous that means so many different things?"
Me: Because your statement about what you believe would answer the question. Just answer the question, stop ducking and diving ... Sagan's scoring negative again through here.
Now the debate diverts off into a frankly nonsensical statement.
CS: "It (that ambiguity) 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."
Me: And this is utter tosh, in my view. A statement of no credibility whatsoever. Show me an example. Show me the evidence of such.
CS: "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."
Me: There is 'sharper language' – has he ever read a theological journal? He doesn't sound like he's got any concept of contemporary theological outlooks. His discourse is framed in out-dated tropes and stereotypes.
Sorry ... that's the way I see it.
Grad Student: "My question is ... what is your personal religion or ... 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?"
Carl Sagan: "Now I don't want to duck any questions and I'm not going to duck this one ... but let me ask you what do you mean when you use the word God?"
Me: That does somewhat duck the question – reflecting it back on the questioner. The Student's personal beliefs are irrelevant to what is being asked. What is being asked is what, if anything, does Sagan believe.
GS: "... is there a purpose for I mean given all these demotions, why don't we just blow ourselves up?"
CS: "hat what is what is our purpose? I mean, let me turn the question around. If we do blow ourselves up, does that disprove the existence of God?"
GS: "No, I guess not."
Sagan is amusing his audience at his questioner's expense here, but now the questioner has asked the same question twice, in effect 'Is there a purpose to the cosmos?' and Sagan makes little of that.
GS: "... what I'm asking is since ... we kind of make God almost go away ... And I don't mean he because who knows what God is."
CS: "But still saying 'it' makes it sort of icky, doesn't it?"
GS: "Yeah. Yeah. It's it's tough."
CS: "We like it to be a he, don't we?"
GS: "Yeah. We've been trained to think of it as a he."
Me: To my mind, part of the art of listening to the question is to get to the kernel of what is being asked. So far, Sagan has led the questioner off on a little tangent to make his own point about 'he', even though the GS has pointed out we do not know.
GS: "(I)t seems that through the ages we humans have created a mythological framework that often involves some kind of higher spiritual powers... 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?"
Me: If I was answering the question, I'd first point out that we know more and more about the material world, and the physical sciences can neither prove nor disprove that 'anything might exist like that' because by definition, anything that does exist like that lies outside the scope and remit of the physical sciences. So the GS has rather fallen into the trap of the 'science v religion' question, which is a false dichotomy.
Sagan, as a science spokesperson, should have pointed that out, but he didn't. Perhaps he himself is subject to the same logical fallacy.
By this stage of the debate, Sagan is scoring minus marks with me.
But here the debate takes a turn: I'll repeat the relevant question:
GS: "where does that leave us?"
CS: "On our own ... " (pause – leave the comment hanging, and wait for the applause, which dutifully arrives) "... 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 ourselves."
Me: Which, of course, is not what religion is about at all. It's a Straw Man with nregard to religion, and an Ad Hominem with regard to believers...
CS: "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."
Me: No, Carl, that's you.
Pascal's Wager is actually more sophisticated that Sagan assumes. Pascal understood that such a belief is not sufficient to deliver salvation, so anyone who believes according the wager is on a hiding to nothing ...
CS: "I'll say another word. The word God covers an enormous range of different ideas. And you recognize that in the way you phrase the question, running from ( – INSERT WORN-OUT STEREOTYPE HERE – ) for which there is no evidence to my mind if anybody has some I sure would like to see it ... "
Me: Actually, Christian theology has a sound, reasoned, rational and logical argument for the existence of 'God', but not the rather naive and childish idea you put forward, whilst perhaps does exist in the minds many, is not the grounds on which contemporary theology as a science and a study bases its arguments. Pitch that idea of God to a theologian and see what happens ...
CS: "... 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."
No, that's not at all correct, Carl, and surely you know that? Einstein expressed a belief in line with Spinoza, and Spinoza expressed a belief in God as the Infinite Divine Substance from which all manifestation arises.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spinoza's God is an "infinite intellect" (Ethics 2p11c): all-knowing (2p3), and capable of loving both himself and humanity, insofar as it is part of his perfection (5p35c). Spinoza postulates that a personal being is one that personal attitudes can be entertained toward. In that light, Spinoza also recommends amor intellectualis dei (the intellectual love of God) as the supreme good for man (5p33).
CS: "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."
Me: OK. But that does not address the point of the question, do you believe in a purpose to existence?
CS: "And there are all sorts of other nuances ... So when you say do you believe in god? If I say yes or if I say no, you have learned absolutely nothing."
Me: Wrong, I have learned whether or not there's any point to the question, which was rather the reason it was asked ...
GS: "I guess I'm asking you to define yours if you have one."
CS: "But why would we use a word so ambiguous that means so many different things?"
Me: Because your statement about what you believe would answer the question. Just answer the question, stop ducking and diving ... Sagan's scoring negative again through here.
Now the debate diverts off into a frankly nonsensical statement.
CS: "It (that ambiguity) 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."
Me: And this is utter tosh, in my view. A statement of no credibility whatsoever. Show me an example. Show me the evidence of such.
CS: "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."
Me: There is 'sharper language' – has he ever read a theological journal? He doesn't sound like he's got any concept of contemporary theological outlooks. His discourse is framed in out-dated tropes and stereotypes.
Sorry ... that's the way I see it.
I rather think he was asking if Sagan saw any definition or purpose to the cosmos.
Sagan responded with a childish view of the Abrahamic traditions, and an erroneous view of Spinoza.
Or maybe he's fed up with science guys being unable to answer the question?
I think you're reading more into the Grad Student's question. It might be a crisis of faith, or it might be a loss of respect for someone he admired, that's the effect it had on me.
We don't know what the student was up to earlier?
Indeed so.
My browser threw up this:
"Carl Sagan did not believe that human existence has an externally imposed or inherent cosmic purpose, arguing instead that meaning is something we create ourselves through knowledge, compassion, and responsibility."
OK – not my take, but I'm OK with that.
"He famously stated that "the significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage," positioning humanity as the custodians of life's meaning in a universe not designed for us."
Which I could read as something of a religious position. The 'significance' is determined by our 'wisdom and courage' in the face of something. It might be that our existence is utterly meaningless, in which case what we make of it is insignificant.
"Sagan rejected the idea that the universe was made for humans ... "
So do I. So do most religions, I think?
"... describing the belief in a pre-ordained purpose as a "reassuring fable" ... "
Well, as the prior premise is wrong ...
"... that science has displaced through the "great demotions" of astronomy and evolution."
But it hasn't, has it?
+++
Science hasn't displaced or disproved the Shema Israel, the propositions of the Christian Creed, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the fundamental tenets of Islam, and so on ...
Scientific inquiry relies on observation, hypothesis, and the replication of events under controlled conditions, making it inherently unable to test or disprove unique, unprecedented supernatural events like Divine Revelation, miracles, and so forth.
Because miracles are scientifically defined as unprecedented events that transcend natural laws, they fall outside the scope of empirical science, which deals only with repeatable natural phenomena.
Sagan argues that only natural causes exist – but this assumption is itself a belief rather than a fact.
While science can rule on natural causes, it cannot rule on the supernatural. To argue that the supernatural cannot exist because science cannot prove it is a circular argument and logically invalid.
"Carl Sagan did not believe that human existence has an externally imposed or inherent cosmic purpose, arguing instead that meaning is something we create ourselves through knowledge, compassion, and responsibility."
OK – not my take, but I'm OK with that.
"He famously stated that "the significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage," positioning humanity as the custodians of life's meaning in a universe not designed for us."
Which I could read as something of a religious position. The 'significance' is determined by our 'wisdom and courage' in the face of something. It might be that our existence is utterly meaningless, in which case what we make of it is insignificant.
"Sagan rejected the idea that the universe was made for humans ... "
So do I. So do most religions, I think?
"... describing the belief in a pre-ordained purpose as a "reassuring fable" ... "
Well, as the prior premise is wrong ...
"... that science has displaced through the "great demotions" of astronomy and evolution."
But it hasn't, has it?
+++
Science hasn't displaced or disproved the Shema Israel, the propositions of the Christian Creed, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the fundamental tenets of Islam, and so on ...
Scientific inquiry relies on observation, hypothesis, and the replication of events under controlled conditions, making it inherently unable to test or disprove unique, unprecedented supernatural events like Divine Revelation, miracles, and so forth.
Because miracles are scientifically defined as unprecedented events that transcend natural laws, they fall outside the scope of empirical science, which deals only with repeatable natural phenomena.
Sagan argues that only natural causes exist – but this assumption is itself a belief rather than a fact.
While science can rule on natural causes, it cannot rule on the supernatural. To argue that the supernatural cannot exist because science cannot prove it is a circular argument and logically invalid.
Vasu Devan
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Most vocal atheists use the same line of attack. The ones who believe in atheism as their own set of dogma. And I believe the Bible is setup to fail if taken in whole cos the god of the OT is prolly the polar opposite of god of the NT. And the church really needed its Holy Trinity to link the two as the word of God. I agree with a lot of Jesus's teachings. My beef is more with the church and how they corrupted what was prolly a simple message of love by a Jewish man who prolly had an awakening experience and tried to fit his faith around it and teach other Jews how to too. I don't think Jesus preached any message of the OT but the church needed to include that element of Torah in the Bible to keep those in power happy.
Hi @Vasu Devan –
As you probably can guess, I agree with your comment about atheism, although not the rest!
Still, this is a secular board, so Ill not wander off into those waters.
I'm sure there are atheists who can make better and more reasonable arguments.
In fact there are ... John Gray for one.
Himself an atheist, he is nevertheless a severe critic of the 'New Atheism', arguing that populist figures like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are practicing inverted religion rather than true atheism, substituting 'humanism' for 'theism', but retaining the same utopian beliefs in progress and scientific ethics found in Christian theology.
Gray classifies the most common forms of modern atheism: New Atheism, Secular Humanism, Science worship, Political religions (like Marxism and Nazism), and God-haters as all being disguised forms of perhaps disgruntled monotheism. It's 'bad faith' rather than no faith.
Gray identifies two types of atheism he considers authentic: Atheism without Progress (per Arthur Schopenhauer) and The Atheism of Silence (per George Eliot and Joseph Conrad). These forms renounce the idea of divine providence and the myth of human improvement, finding mystery in the material world and accepting that history has no inherent direction or final, let alone salvific, end.
As you probably can guess, I agree with your comment about atheism, although not the rest!
Still, this is a secular board, so Ill not wander off into those waters.
I'm sure there are atheists who can make better and more reasonable arguments.
In fact there are ... John Gray for one.
Himself an atheist, he is nevertheless a severe critic of the 'New Atheism', arguing that populist figures like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are practicing inverted religion rather than true atheism, substituting 'humanism' for 'theism', but retaining the same utopian beliefs in progress and scientific ethics found in Christian theology.
Gray classifies the most common forms of modern atheism: New Atheism, Secular Humanism, Science worship, Political religions (like Marxism and Nazism), and God-haters as all being disguised forms of perhaps disgruntled monotheism. It's 'bad faith' rather than no faith.
Gray identifies two types of atheism he considers authentic: Atheism without Progress (per Arthur Schopenhauer) and The Atheism of Silence (per George Eliot and Joseph Conrad). These forms renounce the idea of divine providence and the myth of human improvement, finding mystery in the material world and accepting that history has no inherent direction or final, let alone salvific, end.
wil
UNeyeR1
I consider it growth that I deleted all I just wrote!
Vasu Devan
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I can agree with that @ThomasHi @Vasu Devan –
As you probably can guess, I agree with your comment about atheism, although not the rest!
Still, this is a secular board, so Ill not wander off into those waters.
I'm sure there are atheists who can make better and more reasonable arguments.
That is why I used the term 'vocal atheists' in my post. I was referring specifically to the kind like Dawkins and other online ones for whom scientistic thinking has become a truth and the only truth. Much like organized religions pushed their religion as the only true path, I believe the followers of scientism see empirical science as the sole truth and everything else as delusion.
I moved to this belief after hearing my psychiatrist refer to my awakening experience as 'delusion' after I shared it with him. He had never had a similar expereience but chose to determine what to say about its veracity based on what his books told him what to say.
I found Gray's Straw Dogs a very interesting read and agreed strongly with it. Its now a keeper in my calibre library. It has strong points re scientism.
You may also find Midgely's Science As Salvation a deeper intro to the spread of scientism in the modern world. If you can recommend any of Gray's texts re atheism, I'd be happy to try them as I'm a rabid bookworm and try to keep an open mind. I'll give 7 Types of Atheism a go.
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I'll note it for mine.
I knew the name, and did a quick wiki look. She looks like someone worth investing some time in, thanks for that.
That's where I started with John Gray. I also have The Soul of the Marionette and The Silence of Animals, but good grief, he's a dour read!
I read in a review of one of his books that Arthur Koestler imagines some undescended apes swinging playfully through the trees while a brutish prehistoric man plods along the ground below, clubbing innocent creatures and gorging on their raw flesh. Rather than promoting evolutionary progress, our uncouth ancestor represents "a barbaric relapse of history".
"Barbarism," Gray believes, "is a disease of civilisation." All our institutions are incriminated by "human nastiness". It's absurd to place faith in the evolution of our species or in the progressive amelioration of society.
Gray admires Socrates who uncomplainingly swallowed his dose of hemlock.
As I think I found in looking at the second and third books, "Gray's polemic is bluntly repetitive." His mockery of our desperate belief in a better future is boundless, and society is heading in all the wrong ways – "the idea of self-realisation is one of the most destructive of modern fictions" – and looking at the tsunami of bilgewater and bile that overwhelms anything redeeming in "social media", if one is any way inclined, it's hard not to see anything but the approach of cultural catastrophe that he envisions.
But then one has to lighten up! As the same Guardian reviewer observed "... the book is an anthology of misanthropy, amplified with endless quotes from Orwell and Ballard, Herzen and Borges, Ford Madox Ford and Llewelyn Powys, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and he quotes the dying lament of its hero. "The horror, the horror," moans Kurtz, haunted by his reversion to cannibalism."
I recall reading William Burroughs' The Naked Lunch a long time ago, and specifically his idea behind it's title of "what is on the end of every fork" – that timeless moment when one sees the grim realities of society, stripped of its illusions.
Now Mary Midgley – she seems a lot less misanthropic.
Vasu Devan
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Ah. If you dislike the misanthropy, then Straw Dogs may not appeal much. I've already read Chapter 1 for 7 Types Of Atheism and he seems milder in that read. I found dealing with his hate for humanism more palatable when seen as an humorously extreme version of dislike. Midgley is a much less aggressive author. Critical specifically of scientism without reimagining humanity as a cosmic embarrassment.