[Music] Here we are on a planet which is about 5 billion years old. The sun around which it orbits is

not much older. It is part of a galaxy which is perhaps 10 or 12 billion years old, which is one of

perhaps hundreds of billions of other galaxies. None of these planets, suns, or galaxies were around at

the time of the Big Bang. At the time of the Big Bang, there was energy, elementary particles which slowly

evolved into the kind of universe we know today. We are the product of a grand evolutionary sequence, Cosmic Evolution,

about which we are only occasionally aware. One of the great accomplishments of Dr. Hawking is to plug us better into the knowledge of

this long evolutionary sequence. There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong; that's perfectly right. It's the

aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the

most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in

religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of

[Music] science. Our ability to understand things instantly, so-called common sense, derives from a certain range of size and

speed and duration that are appropriate for human existence. We know about things from a tenth of a millimeter to a few

kilometers, from a fraction of a second to a lifetime, and so on. So when we are dealing with matters of quantum

physics, where particles have a size of 10 to the minus 13th centimeters, or in cosmology where

we are talking about 10 billion light years or more, it is very reasonable that intuition is not adequate to the task.

One point I'd like to make about this is that every human culture has a set of creation myths, but they're in the

realm of mythology, religion, or folklore, and they are, of course, all mutually inconsistent. The great thing that is

happening in our time is that we are able, through a method which can actually make some progress towards the real

universe out there, to find out something about origins. And this is the scientific method applied to the science of

cosmology. The thing about science is, first of all, it's after the way the universe really is and not what makes us

feel good. And a lot of the competing doctrines are after what feels good and not what's true. I think the essence of the

scientific method is the willingness to admit you're wrong, the willingness to abandon ideas that don't work, and the

essence of religion is not to change anything; those supposed truths are handed down by some revered figure, and then no

one is supposed to make any progress beyond that because all the truth is thought to be in hand. My sense

is that the scientific way of thinking is a delicate mix of creative encouragement of new ideas and the most

rigorous and skeptical scrutiny of new and old ideas. I think that is the path to the future, not just for science,

but for all human institutions. We have to be willing to challenge because we are in desperate need of

change. It's not that pseudoscience and superstition and New Age so-called beliefs and fundamentalist

zealotry are something new; they've been with us for as long as we've been human. But we live in an age based on science and technology, with formidable technological powers. Science and technology are propelling us forward.

at accelerating rates. That's right, and if we don't understand it—by "we," I mean the general public—if it's something

that, "Oh, I'm not good at that. I don't know anything about it," then who is making all the decisions about science

and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in? This combustible mixture of ignorance

and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. I mean, who is running the science and technology in a

democracy if the people don't know anything about it? And the second reason that I'm I'm worried about this is that

science is more than a body of knowledge; it's a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe

with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those

who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next

charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along. It's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on.

It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a in a constitution or a Bill of Rights; the people had to be

educated, and they had to practice their skepticism and their education. Otherwise, we don't run the government; the

government runs us. What is faith? It is belief in the absence of evidence. Now, I don't propose

to tell anybody what to believe, but for me, believing when there's no compelling evidence is a mistake. The idea is to

withhold belief until there is compelling evidence. And if the universe does not comply with our predispositions, okay, then we have the

wrenching obligation to accommodate to the way the universe is. I mean, but I mean you, so you step forward to say, "I"

I deny all religion because I can't see, scientifically, the value of religious experience and the value of reaching for higher experiences.

Let me say, religion deals with history, with poetry, with great literature, with ethics,

with morals, including the morality of treating compassionately the least fortunate among us. All of these are

things that I endorse wholeheartedly. Where religion gets into trouble is in those cases that it pretends to know

something about science. The science in the Bible, for example, was acquired by the Jews from the Babylonians during the

Babylonian captivity of 600 BC. That was the best science on the planet then, but we've learned something since then. Roman

Catholicism, reformed Judaism, most of the mainstream Protestant denominations have no

difficulty with the idea that we have evolved from other creatures, that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, with the

Big Bang. They don't have any trouble with that. The trouble comes with people who are biblical literalists, who believe

that the Bible is dictated by the creator of the universe to an unerring stenographer, and therefore they

make their political and economic choices, and scientific choices, from that. And that's part of the problem with that idea; it is that

because of the wrong reasons, we make the wrong choices about science.

scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who

says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth, and never mind the fallibility of all human

Beings involved in the writing of this book, my question is: given all these demotions, what is your personal religion?

Or do you... is there any type of God to you? Like, is there a purpose, given that we're just sitting on this speck in the

middle of this sea of stars? Now I don't want to duck any questions, and I'm not going to duck this

one, but let me ask you: what do you mean when you use the word 'God'? It seems that, through the ages,

we have—humans have created a mythological framework that always involves some kind of higher spiritual

powers, and as every human culture does that. As that goes away, as we know more and more, that... and it seems harder and

harder to prove that anything might exist like that. Where does that leave us? On our own. [Applause]

Which, to my mind, is much more responsible than hoping that someone will save us from ourselves, so we don't

have to make our best efforts to do it ourselves. And if we're wrong and there is someone who steps in

and saves us, okay, that's all right. I'm for that. But we, you know, hedged our bets.

It's Pascal's wager run backward. Um, I... I'll say another word: the word 'God' covers an enormous

range of different ideas, and you recognize that in the way you phrase the question. Running from an outsized

lightskinned male with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the sky and tallying the fall of every

sparrow—for which there is no evidence, to my mind. If anybody has some, I sure would like to see it—um, to the kind of

God that Einstein or Spinoza talked about, which is very close to the sum total of the laws of the universe. Now it

Would be crazy to deny that there are laws in the universe, and if that's what you want to call God, then of course God

exists. And there are all sorts of other nuances. There is, for example, the deist God that many of the founding fathers of

this country believed in, although it is a secret whose name may not be spoken in some circles; a, uh, a do-nothing King, the God who creates

the universe and then retires, and to whom praying is sort of pointless. He's not here; he went

somewhere else; he had other things to do. Now that's also a God. So when you say, "Do

you believe in God?" If I say yes or if I say no, you have learned absolutely nothing. I guess I'm

asking you to define yours, if you have one. But why would we use a word so ambiguous that means so many different

things? It gives you freedom to define it; it gives you freedom to seem to agree with someone else with whom you do not

agree. It covers over differences; it makes for social lubrication, but it is not an aid to truth, in my view.

And therefore, I think we need much sharper language when we ask these questions. I lost both my parents about

12 or 15 years ago, and, uh, I had a great relationship with them. I really miss them. I would love to believe that their

spirits were around somewhere, and I'd give almost anything to, uh, spend five minutes with them. We, we demand the

most rigorous standards of evidence, especially on what's important to us. So if some guy comes up to me, a

channeler or a medium, and says, "I can put you in touch with your parents," well, because I want so terribly to believe

that, yeah, I know I have to reach in for added reserves of skepticism because I'm likely to be fooled, and, uh, much more

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Why Humanity Must Overcome Religion | Carl Sagan

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