This is a picture of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 at about 4 billion miles away. "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone \t you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being \t who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, \t thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every \t hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of \t civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother \t and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, \t every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme \t leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on \t a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. \tThe Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers \t of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and \t triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think \t of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this \t pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how \t frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, \t how fervent their hatreds. \tOur posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some \t privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale \t light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In \t our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come \t from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. \tThe Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere \t else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, \t yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we \t make our stand. \tIt has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. \t There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than \t this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility \t to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale \t blue dot, the only home we've ever known." Carl Sagan. Thoughts?
I'm familiar with the video you quoted. Since we're quoting Sagan, I'll add a few of my favorites. My apologies if these are redundant. "Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense." I think of this one a lot, especially when I am pestering people with honest questions. "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." This, to me, is the reason I find complete atheism to be impossible to practice. Who are we to say that gods cannot be those things waiting to be known somewhere?
Exactly. I can't deny the existence of a God. That's the reason I'm an agnostic theist. Btw, I like the quotes.