Carl Sagan: we are put a blip in time & space, carried around on a (wonderful) pale blue dot, just one insignificant, tiny dust-speck in a great, vast universe. To think that we are the center of the universe... or that an anthropomorphic, human like "being" (with human-like vanity, jealousy, insecurity, favoritism, and wrath) created the universe - is the ultimate in hubris & folly, is the ultimate in arrogance & delusional pride.
The lesson of humility would be most dramatically viewed in reverse order of the way we have posted the 4 videos here.. but the wonder of the vastness & majesty of the universe around us is more easily appreciated starting from simplest to most philosophical (in order we have posted them).
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Each of these 4 short videos, below, narrated by Carl Sagan, is about humanity's role in the universe... is about the place of "our" solar system based home (on earth) in the solar system, in the milky way galaxy, and in the universe... Each video is an abject & awe inspiring lesson in humility.
As ever improving copies of Galileo's telescopes delivered increasingly precise images of ever more distant neighbours in the celestial universe, science was delivering a series of body blows to human pride, a "series of Great Demotions, downlifting experiences, demonstrations of our apparent insignificance; wounds that science has, in it's search for Galileo's pride, delivered to human pride."
"MAN IN HIS ARROGANCE"
Centuries of human philosophers and theologians are stunningly wrong: humans are NOT at the center of the universe; and, equally, the notion that a human-like deity "created the entire universe" for "his" enjoyment - or "for the sole benefit of mankind, 'his' greatest creation" - is delusional pride & arrogance, sheer folly.
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The lesson of humility would be most dramatically viewed in reverse order of the way we have posted the 4 videos here.. but the wonder of the vastness & majesty of the universe around us is more easily appreciated starting from simplest to most philosophical (in order we have posted them).
Each of these 4 short videos, below, narrated by Carl Sagan, is
As ever improving copies of Galileo's telescopes delivered increasingly precise images of ever more distant neighbours in the celestial universe, science was delivering a series of body blows to human pride, a "series of Great Demotions, downlifting experiences, demonstrations of our apparent insignificance; wounds that science has, in it's search for Galileo's pride, delivered to human pride."
"MAN IN HIS ARROGANCE"
Centuries of human philosophers and theologians are stunningly wrong: humans are NOT at the center of the universe; and, equally, the notion that a human-like deity "created the entire universe" for "his" enjoyment - or "for the sole benefit of mankind, 'his' greatest creation" - is delusional pride & arrogance, sheer folly.
A Universe Not Made For Us (Carl Sagan on religion)
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