Carl Sagan's foreboding

Looks like he pretty well nailed it.

eom

Where have all the great people gone these days? There doesn't seem to be many of them left.

"when, our critical facilities in decline, we are unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true."

You think he's talking about Republicans, don't you? He's talking about both sides.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

religion? I think many politicians, especially Republicans use Religion to make people dumb. Afterall who is going to question God? I do not believe for one moment they believe some of the things they say themselves. I doubt he can throw that criticism at Liberals though. They even have the audacity to question if the World was flat.

I don't know if he followed a religion. What I remember from A Demon-Haunted World is an expression of interest in an answer he got from the Dalai Lama to a science question.

The ones who justify our Drone slaughter of children? The ones who justify Obama's unconscionable proposals on SS & Medicare?

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/once_again_--_death_of_the_liberal_class_20121112/

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/liberals_are_useless_20091206/



Except, alas, there is no - or next to no - "public derision." The populace is too deep in the crazy already.

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]

The list of people that put me on ignore increases whenever I explain an oppositional argument.

but what does it say that so many support it? I think it's more than some sort of parity with the booze lobby. I think it's a wish to anesthetize, feel "good."

That's me, anyway.

to have several relaxed, informal dinners with Carl Sagan back in the 1970's when he was at Cornell. I just listened.

Carl Sagan's take on, at the time, Global Warming, warning in the early 90s.

The warning had been out for some time but my 'radar' had not picked up on it at the time.

Since then I have had college classes in Ecology and from there attended an IPCC lecture in 2008.

The IPCC lecture in particular was both eye opening and very, very scary.

was far ahead of his time in more ways that just about anyone else.......he correctly predicted the current political and economic of current times........what a pity we had to loose him at such a young age......the man was and remains......amazing

Except now I would change "Clutching crystals and nervously consulting out horoscopes" to "Clutching crosses and nervously consulting our bibles".

Maybe New Age mythology was rising when he wrote that, but America seems to have traded it right back to the same Old School mythology that has enslaved our minds for eons.

I have a different take on religion than do the scientists. While I agree it is not a substitute nor explanation for whence we came, why and where we are going on a tangible level, I do believe it serves its purpose on a spiritual level, and "can" be quite beneficial in setting behavioral norms - how we treat one another, animals, the planet (I was raised by humanists...you can tell.)

Obviously it can also be quite damaging. I heard a good quote: religion is good for good people, bad for bad people (very subjective, obviously..)

The golden rule, essentially - in fact, that may be it, all, the ultimate and only true religion: treat others as you would have them treat you. Have compassion, walk a mile in their shoes. Do no harm and pay it forward.

I want to explore Buddhism, because I think it speaks to this and is non-deist?

Welcome to Carl's world (sadly, without Carl).

Read or watch his fictional novel, "Contact."

Chilling!

I have just finished watching the Sagan TV series COSMOS, originally aired more than 30 years ago. He saw so much unfolding then. The tragedy is that we have still not done anything to improve the global conditions and dangers he identified. Our global warming deniers seem more like the Inquisitors who believed that their doctrine was more true than the evidence. At least they had "faith in the corporate church" as an excuse rather than profits(a/k/a known as free market freedoms) for for-profit corporations as a motivation. But the world turned out to be heliocentric, no matter how powerful the Inquisitors. As Galileo said, "Eppure si move" and he was vindicated. We cannot afford to let the modern day deniers prevail- the stakes are survival, not just misplaced political doctrinal purity.

Big welcome to DU!

Wow

This world as we know it is only just one brief moment that appears to us to be an endless horizon of time... this time grants comfort... and this comfort breeds complacency... and from complacency stems ultimate stupidity and eventual destruction.

~ Carl Sagan

More discussion at this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021884292