Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

“The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by ‘God,’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.”

- Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas

- Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

[video] Carl Sagan-Cosmos edited for rednecks

[video] Carl Sagan-Cosmos edited for rednecks

Carl Sagan

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

- Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

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

Carl Sagan

“The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.”

― Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

[video] Carl Sagan speaks about the meaning of life... God: A Reassuring Fable

 

“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable… If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”

~ Carl Sagan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd4jTUF3CLo

[video] Carl Sagan speaks about the meaning of life... God: A Reassuring Fable

Things Carl Sagan Taught Me

Things Carl Sagan Taught Me

 

Things Carl Sagan Taught Me

Carl Sagan - A Glorious Dawn - Isn"t this the best song ever ?

Lyrics:[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it’s own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan}
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

Carl Sagan - A Glorious Dawn - Isn"t this the best song ever ?

[video] Carl Sagan on god and Roswell

 

 

 

Carl Sagan takes a caller question during a radio show from may 3rd 1996 about his personal belief in god and the ‘mystery’ surrounding the 1947 Roswell incident.

Carl Sagan on god and Roswell

Carl Sagan

 

 

 

You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.

- Carl Sagan

 

 

 

Carl Sagan

“Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.” ― Carl Sagan Carl Sagan

“Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.”

― Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan