The Voltage Gate

Sagan on religion, atheism and a a touch of civil rights - specifically our wonderful, sometimes exhausting, right to thoughtful public discourse (from a keynote address given in 1994; Sagan condenses a person's convoluted question in which the in which the abolition of religion is implicit):

SAGAN: ... Should the skeptical movement devote some of its attention to religion?

SAME QUESTIONER: Well said.

SAGAN: This is a really good question, and I know that Richard Dawkins talked about this a year or so ago, and drew the conclusion that many religious beliefs were not noticeably different from any of the parasciences or pseudosciences beliefs, and why one of them is the object of our attention and the other is off-limits, and he urged that we be, if I may use the expression, more ecumenical in our hostility. I will answer in the following way: first, that there is no human culture without religion. That being the case, that immediately says that religion provides some essential meat, and if that's the case shouldn't we be a little careful about condemning something that it desperately needed? For example, if I am with someone who has just lost a loved one, I do not think it is appropriate for me to say, "You know, there's no scientific evidence for life after death." If that person is gaining some degree of support, stability, from the thought that the loved one has gone to heaven and that they will be joined after the person I'm talking to, himself or herself, dies. That would be uncompassionate and foolish. Science provides a great deal, but there are some things that it doesn't provide. Religion is an attempt to provide, whether truly or falsely, some solutions to those problems. Human mortality is one of those where there isn't a smidgeon of help from science. Yes, it's a grand and glorious universe, yes it's amazing to be part of it, yes we weren't alive before we were born (not much before we were born) so we hope we're alive after we're dead. We won't know about it. It's a big deal. But that's not too reassuring, at least to many people...

I think the way to approach the Bible is with some critical wits about us, but not dismissing it out of hand... the idea of an all-out attack on religion I think on many grounds would be foolish, but the idea of treating Biblical literalism, for example, with some skeptical scrutiny is an excellent idea...

I hope that sort of middle ground is not too different from what you were asking about, but I certainly don't think that religion should be off-limits. I don't think anything should be off limits. We should feel free to discuss and debate everything. That's what the Bill of Rights is about. And in that sense, and many other senses, the constitution of the United States, particularly the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment, and the scientific method are very mutually supportive approaches to knowledge. Both of them recognize the extreme dangers of having to pay attention to and do whatever the authority says.