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In reply to the discussion: Carl Sagan the prophet. [View all]JoeyT
(6,785 posts)59. There's another quote from that book that's even more chilling
and accurate when you read it with the benefit of hindsight:
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic and national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around usthen, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.
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Sagan is a prime example of the kind of mind and guiding philosophy we should have long ago
TheKentuckian
Sep 2012
#13
You are absolutely correct, and it just as absolutely not going to happen for many
Egalitarian Thug
Sep 2012
#71
One of my favorite books. The reason, though, that he was able to predict it so well is
NYC Liberal
Sep 2012
#19
There are a suprising number of people who believe swearing can cause a lightning strike.
Spitfire of ATJ
Sep 2012
#27
I read that book on exiting the fundamentalist cult that I had been raised in
Schema Thing
Sep 2012
#44