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Most scientists are prepared to answer questions about their research from other members of their field; rather fewer have equipped themselves to answer questions from the general public about what Douglas Adams called life, the universe, and everything. Carl Sagan was one of that minority, an expert “science communicator” before science communication was recognized as a field unto itself. In popular books and television productions, most notably Cosmos and its accompanying series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, he put himself out there in the mass media as an enthusiastic guide to all that was known about the realms beyond our planet. More than a few members of his audience might well have asked themselves where does God fit into all this.
One such person actually put that question to Sagan, at a Q&A session after the latter’s 1994 “lost lecture” at Cornell, titled “The Age of Exploration.” The questioner, a graduate student, asks, “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?”
In response to this difficult line of inquiry, Sagan opens a more difficult one: “What do you mean when you use the word God?” The student takes another tack, asking, “Given all these demotions” — defined by Sagan himself as the continual humbling of humanity’s self-image in light of new scientific discoveries — “why don’t we just blow ourselves up?” Sagan comes back with yet another question: “If we do blow ourselves up, does that disprove the existence of God?” The student admits that he guesses it does not.
The question eventually gets Sagan considering how “the word ‘God’ covers an enormous range of different ideas.” That range “runs from an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting in a throne in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow,” for whose existence Sagan knows of no evidence, 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,” and as such, whose existence even Sagan would have to acknowledge. There’s also “the deist God that many of the founding fathers of this country believed in,” who’s held to have created the universe and then removed himself from the scene. With such a broad range of possible definitions, the concept of God itself becomes useless except as “social lubrication,” a means of seeming to “agree with someone else with whom you do not agree.” Terms of that malleable kind do have their advantages, if not to the scientific mind.
Related content:
Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking & Arthur C. Clarke Discuss God, the Universe, and Everything Else
150 Renowned Secular Academics & 20 Christian Thinkers Talking About the Existence of God
Bertrand Russell on the Existence of God & the Afterlife (1959)
Bertrand Russell and F.C. Copleston Debate the Existence of God, 1948
What Is Religion Actually For?: Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury Weigh In
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
I like Sagan a lot. He garners respect for good reason. However, I find myself with a grimace how Sagan would dismiss the concept of god as useless except for maybe social lubrication. I am familiar with Sagan’s view on religion and he is right to criticize many manifestations of spirituality; I see the total dismissal as uncharacteristically small minded of Sagan, trapped in semantical paradox while the true meaning of the experience is annihilated. If we apply an objective lens, god is a pervading experience, a relationship, the most basic idea of connection, the ultimate hyperobject. It’s a personal thing but it is a real thing, our experiences exist within it. A person can’t arrive at the meaning of holiness through philosophically whittling the idea into nothingness. Carl, what are the fundamental aspects of connection that motivate you? What are your basic fears about this human experience? What are the important forces that should be guiding our curiosity? This is the conversation he sidestepped because he chose not to engage with the material.
Unable to meet his interlocutor, Sagan expertly employs rhetoric to sidestep this student’s question, reinforcing the dichotomy of science vs soul. Ah, soul, another “malleable term”, as if these concepts have no relevance to a secular scientist’s life. These are things that affect everyone, despite your personal belief; Spirit is as real as gravity whether you believe it or not.
Honestly, I find Sagan disappointing in this clip. He doesn’t take the student’s question seriously at all, his answer is essentially “I have no opinion besides using a word like god is stupid and pointless.”
Es muy coherente la respuesta de Sagan, clara y concreta ante aquellos que sustentan una fantasía incomprobada e incomprobable, que tal como la historia lo atestigua fehacientemente: Es peligrosa. La dicotomía es realidad y verdad vs. alma y dioses. Obviamente, Sagan se ubica con los primeros al igual que la ciencia, cuyos avances en el tiempo hicieron retroceder el humo de los dogmas religiosos, y a su interlocutora para no desperdiciar tiempo con una posible discusión inconducente, aunque el estudiante ya conocía la respuesta o la posición de Sagan al respecto y entonces hubo posiblemente alguna premeditación.
I agree with Roberto.