Carl Sagan, optimist.

Mankind, especially in America, has never been less empathetic and more inhumane than it is today.

We gotta start somewhere.>> ^rougy:

Carl Sagan, optimist.

I smell a fanboy. I can think of far less humane places than America.

disgustingly sentimental

HUMANIST POETICS = FAIL

I would find it far more difficult to assume that all of this was a mere accident.

The laws of probability state that the universe has reached a level of complexity that is statistically impossible. Sagan's folly is to assume that the universe is too complicated for God (or "a god") to have created. But, the sheer complexity of the universe is the primary reason man believes in God in the first place. The universe is simply so complex that a Designer MUST exist.

Occam's Razor says that belief in an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient deity is much more logical than assuming the universe happened all by itself.

Sagan was a brilliant man, make no mistake. But the only thing worse than a religious man's zeal to get people to believe, is the atheist's zeal to make people NOT believe.

@soulmonarch You are making a logical misstep in that evolution (which is not an 'accident') explains itself as well as the world. A divine designer omits his own explanation and assumes that he exists somehow outside the universe, or however the current hypothesis is.

Occam's razor is not applicable since, one the designer explanation doesn't not explain it all, while the evolutionary one does.

I don't have a zeal to not believe, although I'm a pretty staunch atheist, but no evidence for a creator has yet to explain anything, and really, by definition it cannot ever be a real answer, because a god would have to come from somewhere as well.

Evolution explains everything in a nice, neat package that makes sense in the world that we live in - why try to dismiss that?

"I would find it far more difficult to assume that all of this was a mere accident."

So you choose to "assume" that a magic sky god waved his hands (BTW, why does god need hands?) and created everything? Why? Why is that ridiculousness easier for you to believe? Because someone told you so?

"The laws of probability state that the universe has reached a level of complexity that is statistically impossible.

I can't imagine what "laws of probability" you are referring to, or how you are applying them, or if you are just regurgitating nutter dogma. Anyhoo, watch the last couple minutes of this video (Richard Feynman story). Actually, watch the whole thing. It's a great talk. Or don't.

"Sagan's folly is to assume that the universe is too complicated for God (or "a god") to have created. But, the sheer complexity of the universe is the primary reason man believes in God in the first place. The universe is simply so complex that a Designer MUST exist."

Sagan claims nothing of the sort. Your folly is to state your assumptions about Sagan here, as if the rest of us are as uninformed as you. And claiming the complexity of the universe as the primary reason for man's belief in god is patently ridiculous. Man created God LONG before he understood the complexity of the universe (not that we truly comprehend it even now), or that a universe even existed. Your god has become a "god of the gaps". As we learn, through science, more and more about the nature of our universe and reality, he will die just like the thousands of other gods man has created and abandoned over the millenia. Well... we can all hope. There will always be nutters in need of Teddy Bears.

"Occam's Razor says that belief in an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient deity is much more logical than assuming the universe happened all by itself."

In your world, maybe. Using the ramblings writings of a 14th century theologian to support your silly beliefs is like quoting Sarah Palin to bolster your position on energy policy. Occam's Razor is a principle, not a scientific law, not that you would understand the difference. However, if you believe that an infinitely complex being creating everything as is (with all it's complexity) with a wave of his noodly appendage is the simplest explanation, rather than 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution that began (possibly) with a simple quantum fluctuation, you either don't understand the concept of Occam's Razor (fewest assumptions for competing theories that predict the same results), or you choose to remain comfortably ignorant.

"But the only thing worse than a religious man's zeal to get people to believe, is the atheist's zeal to make people NOT believe."

Spoken like a true zealot.

Trivia: background music from the beautiful OST (by Clint Mansell) of "The Fountain".