About this title: In his charmingly down-to-earth voice, the late astronomer Carl Sagan discusses the relationship between religion and science and describes his own personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos.
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Description: New. 0143112627 New from the publisher-has remainder mark. Ships within 1 business day. Your 100% satisfaction is our guarantee! read more
Description: Good. 2007-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Date Published: 2006-11-02
ISBN-13:9781594201073ISBN:1594201072
Description: Fair. Ex-Library copy. Usual stamps and stickers; dust jacket in mylar cover taped to boards. Text is unmarked; spine slightly leaning but sound. A good reading copy. read more
Binding: book Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781594201073ISBN:1594201072
Description: Brand New. Brand new. Never read or owned. May have a remainder mark. 284 pages. 9.80 x 6.00 x 1.20 in. 19.2 oz. Published to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's death, a volume based on his famous Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology presents a detailed exploration of the relationship between religion and science as well as Sagan's personal effort to understand the nature of the sacred in the cosmos. 150, 000 first printing. Sagan sets down his detailed ... read more
"This was a good book. It would have been a lot better if a) I hadn't already read a lot of its arguments in Contact; b) I had read it many years ago, before the rise of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and other intellectual-activist atheists who have beaten the subject to death.
I honestly don't care about the big question. I can die happy not knowing if there is a god or not. But I liked how playful Sagan was in Contact and how he left open the possibility of a designed and purposeful universe. The creators of our universe leaving a message for us encrypted deep inside pi! Cool! But this book is a collection of serious lectures. I guess he had to control his imagination and stay away from speculations. I don't know why the book is subtitled A Personal View for the Search for God. That subtitle tricked me into reading the book, in spite of my boredom with the subject matter (thanks to Dawkins and Co.). There wasn't anything personal in the book, neither Sagan seems to be searching for a god."
"Perhaps the best way to describe this book is to provide a couple of quotes that I think epitomize what Sagan is trying to convey in this series of lectures. The first, in my opinion is his central theme. That is ... regardless if you believe in a creator God or not knowledge (and thus science) is the most important tool we have to help us decipher and navigate our best path through this amazing thing we call life...
(Sagan p31) Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy? 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.
In the end Sagan warns us that our very nature must be scrutinized and perhaps even held in check for ...
(Sagan p216-217) We (may) kill each other, or threaten to kill each other, in part, I think, because we are afraid we might not ourselves know the truth, that someone else with a different doctrine might have a closer approximation to the truth. Our history is in part a battle to the death of inadequate myths. If I can't convince you, I must kill you. That will change your mind. You are a threat to my version of the truth, especially the truth about who I am and what my nature is. The thought that I may have dedicated my life to a lie, that I might have accepted a conventional wisdom that no longer, if it ever did, corresponds to the external reality, that is a very painful realization. I will tend to resist it to the last. I will go to almost any lengths to prevent myself from seeing that the world view that I have dedicated my life to is inadequate. I'm putting this in personal terms so that I don't say "you," so that I'm not accusing anyone of an attitude, but you understand that this is not a mea culpa; I'm trying to describe a psychological dynamic that I think exists, and it's important and worrisome.
I think that it is perhaps easy to find a good example of this very behaviour within the motivations for the attacks of 911. But don't be short sighted, all of our responses to these attacks may not be completely devoid of similar motivations.
This is, in my opinion, an important series of lectures but for even more detail on a similar theme one should read Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sagan and Druyan."
"This is the first book of Carl Sagan's that I've read, and I think it's probably the perfect bridge for me between my science books and the books on religion (or atheism) that I've read.
I have seen Cosmos and found it remarkably ahead of its time, and the same is true for what Carl had lectured on at the Gifford Lectures, from which this book is transcribed. Always ahead of his time, and always showing amazing grasp of the topic at hand, the book is both funny and astonishing. Even though much of what he has said I've heard before (I'd even go so far as to say that more recent critics of religion, such as Dawkins and Hitchens, have simply rehashed Carl's original ideas) - the way Carl has with words is something you have to read firsthand. He phrases things in a way that, even though they are ideas not new to me, he gave me another way of thinking about them. And that's one of the things I love the most about science.
I almost took a star off because the end chapter focuses a bit too much on our self-immolation at the hands of nuclear weapons (due to the paranoia of Cold War Soviet aggression) but I felt that it serves to keep the book rooted in a point of history that is both important and still quite relevant. Therefore, 5 stars.
Highly recommend this book for fellow atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, and doubters. Even those who are already believers might find it enjoyable, despite being a challenge to their faith."
"Who doesn't like Carl Sagan? I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't. Well, maybe some religious zealot. I always enjoy any opportunity to think about the ever-expanding universe. Sagan touches on all the cool stuff you want to talk about when talking about space, such as the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, the existence of God, and if the universe is ever-expanding, what is it expanding into? Huh? Answer me that! Some sort of Fourth Dimension!? Whoa. I think my brain just exploded."
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