Lance Haley answers “So he writes a book mocking people who...”

A Goodreads user asked this question about The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark:

So he writes a book mocking people who believe they or others have meet or been kidnapped by aliens. but he wrote a bestseller about a women meeting aliens in the book Contact? What book did he write first?

Lance Haley Go back and carefully watch Contact again. You will notice that Sagan compares and contrasts the absurdities of religion (magical, unscientific explan…moreGo back and carefully watch Contact again. You will notice that Sagan compares and contrasts the absurdities of religion (magical, unscientific explanations) with the certainties of science. The "aliens" did not contact one person - as is always the case with current claims of the "they beamed me up" crowd. They contacted us with a direct message encrypted in the universal language of math.

They essentially invited one of us to come visit them, so as to enlighten our species as to just how primitive our way of seeing reality was in the hopes that maybe we could take the next monumental leap in intellectual evolution. Metaphorically speaking, although we now knew the earth was neither flat, nor the center of the universe, our species was still living in a geocentric world. Paranoid that anything existing outside of earth was a threat to us, rather than an opportunity to expand our field of knowledge. Such a typical human response. Carl was so wise compared to most human beings.

Moreover, the aliens were not aliens afterall. Rather than our souls going to a heaven - as religion would have you believe, the essence of our energy is transported at death to another place in the universe. Paradoxically, our "higher selves" contacted us. If you think about the quantum world that science has now discovered, coupled with Einstein's Standard Model, this all makes sense. Energy is never destroyed. Just "reimagined".

As Sagan suggests in Contact, the real magic is in thinking about explanations for phenomenon in purely rational, logical scientific terms. Not some magical "guy in the sky" god(s). Reaching for a concept as highly advanced as universal consciousness requires a much greater level of thinking. One based in science and logic. Not some baseless cosmic debris (B.S.) like a daddy in the sky.

That's what Contact was all about. (less)

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The Demon-Haunted World

by Carl Sagan

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