While he often played the role of scientific high priest, the late Carl Sagan didn\u2019t own a set of liturgical vestments.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, he wore his academic regalia as he ascended into the pulpit of New York\u2019s Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Oct. 3, 1993, the Feast of St. Francis. The rite for the day \u2014 the \u201cMissa Gaia (Earth Mass)\u201d \u2014 included taped cries of wolves and whales and a procession featuring an elephant, a camel, a vulture, a swarm of bees and a bowl of blue-green algae. Musicians sang praises to Ra, Ausar and other gods, as well as to Jehovah.<\/p>\n\n
The astronomer was right at home, weaving threads of science into a mystical litany \u2014 while remaining light years from theism.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cLife fills every nook and cranny of our planet\u2019s surface,\u201d said Sagan. \u201cThere are bacteria in the upper air, jumping spiders at the tops of the highest mountains, sulfur-metabolizing worms in the deep ocean trenches and heat-loving microbes kilometers below the surface of the land. Almost all of these beings are in intimate contact. They eat and drink one another, breath each other\u2019s waste gases, inhabit one another\u2019s bodies. \u2026 They have generated a web of mutual dependence and interaction that embraces the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
After his death on Dec. 20, Sagan was praised for his work as director of Cornell University\u2019s Laboratory for Planetary Studies, as a Pulitzer Prize- winning author and as an apologist for science on public television. He was the rare intellectual who could trade gags with Johnny Carson.<\/p>\n\n
Truth is, Sagan was a talented \u201cTV evangelist,\u201d said Robert C. Newman, who, while he has a Cornell doctorate in astrophysics, teaches at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pa. Sagan even opened his most famous programs with an unbeliever\u2019s creed: \u201cThe Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cNow, by Sagan\u2019s own definition of the methodology of science, this is not a scientific statement. This is a religious statement,\u201d said Newman, in a 1981 lecture at Cornell. Sagan could not have researched everything in the past and it\u2019s impossible to do lab work in the future. Thus, \u201cthe Cosmos is all that is,\u201d must be considered a \u201cfaith statement,\u201d said Newman.<\/p>\n\n
After the Mass at St. John the Divine, I asked Sagan whether his religious views had evolved in recent years. Was he, perhaps, trying to create a kind of modern deism or some fusion of science and Eastern spirituality?<\/p>\n\n
Sagan said that while some of his images may have changed, he continued to reject the notion of a transcendent God that existed outside the world, universe or cosmos.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI remain inexorably opposed to any kind of revealed religion and reject any talk of a personal god,\u201d said Sagan, while posing for news crews with clergy on the cathedral steps. \u201cBut millions of people believe in a god that is not that kind of god.\u201d Using the classic image of a divine watchmaker, he added: \u201cSome might say, for example, that there is some kind of force or power in the watch \u2014 a set of laws, perhaps. Then the watch creates itself. I\u2019m more comfortable with that kind of language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In his novel, \u201cContact,\u201d Sagan was very specific about which religions can embrace this concept, and which cannot. In a debate with a Christian, his protagonist explains why she rejects belief in the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhen I say I\u2019m an agnostic, I only mean that the evidence isn\u2019t in,\u201d says astronomer Eleanor Arroway, who will be played by actress Jodie Foster in an upcoming Hollywood movie. \u201cThere isn\u2019t compelling evidence that God exists \u2014 at least your kind of god \u2014 and there isn\u2019t compelling evidence that he doesn\u2019t.\u201d By the end of the book, Sagan\u2019s heroine accepts that the universe was \u201cmade on purpose\u201d and contains evidence of an \u201cartist\u2019s signature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
At that point, said Newman, Sagan may have been \u201cdabbling with the concept of a god. \u2026 He may even have been moving toward some form of pantheism. It\u2019s hard to tell. What we do know is that he remained totally opposed to the God of the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While he often played the role of scientific high priest, the late Carl Sagan didn\u2019t own a set of liturgical vestments. Thus, he wore his academic regalia as he ascended into the pulpit of New York\u2019s Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Oct. 3, 1993, the Feast of St. Francis. The rite for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n