I recommend this book to anyone who enjoy Carl Sagan's writings. This book is a compilation of a series of talk Dr. Sagan gave a the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology in 1985 at the University of Glasgow, his wife Ann Druyan edited them.
Chapter 1: Nature and Wonder: A Reconnaissance of Heaven:
What I got out of this chapter is: The main point of this Chapter: is that the western theology view of God is too small or seems very small when you compare the vastness of the universe to what concepts these theology claim (i.e. the universe was created in six days, the sun came after light, a snake can talk, that human came on the scene full evolved, etc.). The information backing Dr. Sagan claim is there are a trillion of worlds some smaller than earth, some larger in the Oort Cloud that revolve around around single sun. Our sun is 1 in 400 billion in our milky way galaxy. Our galaxy is 1 in 10 to the 23rd power of known galaxies in the universe. All one has to do is go to Hubble website to see a glimpse of the vastness of the universe. He concludes "I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship. My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, then our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, then our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival in an extremely dangerous time. In either case the enterprise of knowledge is consistent surely with science; it should be with religion, and it is essential for the welfare of the human species.
Chapter 2: The Retreat from Copernicus: A Modern Loss of Nerve
What I got out of this chapter is: We have anthropomorphized the Cosmos in which human psychologically felt the universe/cosmos evolved solely for us and no one or nothing else. Copernicus and others have demonstrated that we are one among many and not the point of the cosmos. Dr. Sagan info backing his claim is we use such terms such as sunrise/sunset because we once thought the sun revolved around the earth. The idea was the earth was the center of the God's creation and therefore was the center of the universe. However, Copernicus, Laplace, Kant, Darwin, and others have shown that we are one among many, our Earth is just another planet, our species share biological and genetics with other plants and animal. It took our planet 4500 million years to get were it is, in which species came and went, stars came and went, and our retreat or fear is that we are insignificant and our need for purpose causes a psychological bias in which hate what Copernicus and others have shown us, and so instead of accepting the facts of science, we cling to the faith of religions.
Chapter 3: The Organic Universe:
What I got out of this chapter is: We are the product of a natural organic universe. It does not take much to jump start or to get life going and for Darwinian Natural Selection to pull out the experiments that works and ignore the ones that don't. In other words, we live in a universe/cosmos that have an abundance of the organic molecules that are necessary for life and we live on a planet that has had the time to experiment with Darwinian Natural Selection that created the life we now know. For instance, if look toward the center of the milky way galaxy in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. We can see a set of dark clouds some extensive, some smaller. In these clouds that are upward of 50 different kinds of molecules, most of which are organic.."And it is precisely in such dark clouds that the collapse of solar nebulae is expected to happen, and therefore the forming solar system should be composed, in part, of complex organic matter. The conclusion is that complex organic materials are everywhere."
Chapter 4: Extraterrestrial Intelligence:
Summary:What I got out of this chapter is: 1) We don't have an appropriate language or concept for extraterrestrial intelligence, not even theologically. 2) John Adams " Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." However, as Schiaparelli and Lowell show us even scientist can misinterpret facts. 3) The Drake Formula is given only as an idea of the possibilities of intelligent life.
Chapter 5: Extraterrestrial Folklore: Implications for The Evolution of Religion
Summary: What I got out of this chapter is: 1)We have a hope that someone or something would come and save us from ourselves and 2)This is a dangerous idea because the more we look for someone/something to save us or for a solution outside of ourselves the less likely we are going to solve our problems ourselves. 3)Extraordinary claims require evidence just like anything else that is claimed: i.e. "Is is more probable that nature should go out of her course or that man should tell a lie?" 4)We want miracles because it makes a better story 5) Sometimes history is rewritten to our satisfaction and not for truth. 6) If we have an emotional stake in the answers the more skeptical scrutiny is required.
Chapter 6: The God Hypothesis
What I got out of this chapter is:1) Natural Theology has long meant that theological knowledge can be established by reason, experience, and experiment alone. 2) What is the definition of God? In the West, God is defined as omnipotent, omniscient, compassionate, and personal. How could we establish that the Western God have these qualities? 3) Is God the sum total of the laws of physics as described by Einstein and Spinoza? 4) There is no truly Natural Theology because all arguments or proofs given so far cannot be established by reason, experience, and experiment and are not compelling when held-up to scrutiny.
Chapter 7: The Religious Experience
What I got out of this chapter is:1) Humans are millions of years old with the human species perhaps being one million years old(with uncertainty) 2) Whatever feelings, thoughts, and approaches to the world must have selective advantages. 3)If we analyze for examples of hunter-gathers from the !Kung (i.e. non-hierarchical society) versus Jivaro (extremely hierarchical society)their gods are similar to the society that worship them. 4) Religious experience must has a molecular base because certain chemicals (via drugs like LSD, peyote, etc.) or deprivation can trigger molecules in our brains that can have mystical/religious experience and there must have been a selective advantage for it to have stayed with our species. 5) Religion is hardwired into our species to get us to cooperate, be dominated, to try and control our environment and to understand/explain the unknown.
Chapter 8: Crimes Against Creation
What I got out of this chapter is: 1) In the history of our planet many natural catastrophes or events has happened, yet with nuclear weapons we have the ability to destroy our planet. 2) It is Dr. Sagan's thesis that it is not only imprudent but foolish to an extreme for the human species to have so large an arsenal of weapons of such destructive power simply available. 3) Religion can speak truth to power. 4) Christians should rein in fundamentalist who goals are to expedite the world's end. 5) Not one country who claim to have a Christian foundation or Christian founding fathers, not even the United States has adopted Jesus tenets of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you or Love your enemies, etc." 6) We all are mutually dependent on this small planet, we breathe the same air and whatever divides us it is clear the earth will be here thousands or millions of years from now, but the question is, will we?
Chapter 9: The Search
What I got out of this chapter is: 1) It is the search for the answers to what we are and why we are here that open a two pronged investigation into the nature of the world and ourselves. 2) Our intelligence separates us from other species. 3) Because of our intelligence we have increased in numbers and occupy outpost everywhere on this planet. 3) If we don't destroy ourselves we will continue our expansion to other planets. 4) Our species started off as hunter-gatherers millions of years ago, as we grew and expanded we move from small tribes to city-states to nations to empires, our next move needs to move to being citizens of the planet. 5) We have tow conflicting natures in our hearts one is aggressive i.e. reptilian, the other has the capacity for compassion, sympathy, and love. 6) People are fighting over myth and are afraid that their version of the truth is untrue. 7) So we must be willing to question everything even our own ideas. 8)If we think about where we came from 15,000 million years ago; it is truly amazing that the Big Bang lead eventually to a self-replicating organism. 9) We need to hone the talents our evolution and history has given us in order to increase our chances of survival. 10) History shows us how we went from the divine rights of kings to revolutions(i.e. American, French, Russian, etc.) so that we no longer believe in the divine right of kings, we no longer believe in chattel slavery, 11)Disease have been reduced over time it is no longer thought or taught to be a god-given part of life. 12) We all have a vested interest in the elimination of nuclear weapons. 13) The better we understand ourselves and others the better we understand the framework of how we fit in and not to go to our force our emotional predisposition on whatever our exploration tell us but accept the universe as it really is. The end of the book has selected Q & A that occurred after each lecture my favorite Q & A was Chapter Five a Questioner asked Dr. Sagan How do you recognize truth when it is upon us. Dr. Sagan replied "A simple question: How can we recognize truth? It is, of course, difficult. But there are a few simple rules. The truth ought to be logically consistent. It should not contradict itself; that is, there are some logical criteria. It ought to be consistent with what else we know....he went to say "The more badly we want to believe it, the more skeptical we have to be. It involves a kind of courageous self-discipline..."
Black Socrates
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