Good News: And No Religion, Too
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I wonder what Carl Sagan’s politics were? Having read the above article I’d guess that he was a romantic leftist liberal of some kind – which would seem to justify our suspicion of those who speak of ‘spirituality’.
I would say interesting rather than beautiful.
As for Sagan, what’s he talking about? “Emotional” seems to be the word he is looking for as he says what he has in mind is material and can be studied, as our emotions are and can be.
“Spirituality” is quite the wrong word, with its suggestion of non-material spirits which have been shown not to exist. Anyway it’s already been bagged, with more justification, by the Spiritualists.
I agree with Wez that it’s a word we should be suspicious of.
” I’d guess that he was a romantic leftist liberal of some kind – ”
Well, you’ve got Sagan summed up to your satisfaction.
But I come from a family that doesn’t just contemplate art but actually practises it !
https://www.artrenewal.org/artists/robin-buick/517
‘You really are just Marx and nothing else, aren’t you? Aesthetically void.
What a bore!’
TM – First of all what has aesthetics got to do with spirituality? Secondly I’ve never found Marx devoid of aesthetics as I delight in his dialectical philosophical style.TM – The contemplation of the sublime (your awe at the beauty of the cosmos) is one of the cornerstones of romantic ideology. History shows us some of the political consequences of this worship of nature and they are all bad! Also any aesthetic response to the cosmos is an essentially human characteristic which contradicts your contempt for our species.
” In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos.
“Spirit” comes from the Latin word “to breathe.” What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word “spiritual” that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science.”
I know you have no respect for anything that isn’t specifically human.
I doubt you ever saw the COSMOS series, and, if you did, you probably scoffed at it.
Why don’t you read some Sagan? Not just skimming on the net, but an actual book by him? I recommend Cosmos, The Cosmic Connection, Forgotten Ancestors, and The Demon-Haunted World – and also ask how someone you consider a “mere” Romantic was able to work on so many scientific projects.
“My children were born to dream.”
(Chief Joseph).But I come from a family that doesn’t just contemplate art but actually practises it !
https://www.artrenewal.org/artists/robin-buick/517
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Those sculptures, I have to say, Adam, are very impressive. I’ve tried my hand at sculpturing with terracotta clay myself but am a complete novice by comparison with this. Still, I can recognize a very accomplished artist when I see one and your brother is very clearly one of them !
‘and also ask how someone you consider a “mere” Romantic was able to work on so many scientific projects.’
TM – Many scientists have had very dodgy politics.‘I know you have no respect for anything that isn’t specifically human.’
TM – ‘Respect’ is a very human emotion. As I’ve said I fear the unrelenting nothingness that is 99.9% of the universe. I remember seeing the first close-up images of Jupiter and being suitably awestruck but it’s only a dead spectacle of gas and dust. I think your awe would be more appropriate when contemplating the improbable evolution of the human mind that allows you to project all of your profound emotions onto an indifferent universe.Other animals show respect and follow etiquette all the time in their own societies (and have demonstrated it across species too, including toward us).
I believe you see everything not pertinent to your own species as “other”, as you do the universe. As if you are separate from it.
Sagan was a real materialist who knew that air (spiritus) is matter too. Space is not nothingness. Nothing does not exist. Only matter exists, and you are of it. You are not something else.
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