January 29, 2019 – Click here to listen
This morning I was mulling over what the Lord wanted me write in Words for the Day today and the immensity of outer space popped into my mind. Then I opened my e-mail and saw a letter from a great friend with the video below attached. I got some spiritual goosebumps over that one I tell you.
The video contains an excerpt from Carl Sagan’s book “Pale Blue Dot” (1994). It was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan’s suggestion, by Voyager 1 on Feb 14, 1990. The earth is shown from a distance of about 3.7 billion miles. Voyager 1 had completed its primary mission, and was leaving the Solar System when, at the request of Carl Sagan, it was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around, and take one last photo of Earth across a great expanse of space. The attached video’s accompanying words spoken by Sagan, and written almost 24 years ago, are very interesting.
Sagan’s narration for the video is as follows: Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. – Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Carl Sagan was Jewish. His mother believed in God and was faithful to her beliefs. His father was not enamored by religion and didn’t go to the temple. Sagan became a world-renowned American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and author. In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, “I’m agnostic.” Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator God of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe. His last wife, Ann Druyan, stated: When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens – and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl.
I felt his commentary was powerful and moving especially with the backdrop of Voyager 1 rapidly moving away from earth until it was indeed a pale blue dot. Much of his commentary was spot on and set the stage for the need for Jesus to save us from ourselves. The problem with his philosophy was his statement that “there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” So sad that he died believing that Jesus Christ who will save us from ourselves was some fable. His is a classic posture for those scientific minds who must see in order to believe and insist that we are all alone.
Help is coming my friends and His name is Jesus. The cosmos is no accident and no scientist dead or alive can prove there is no God that created it, though many have tried. Bill Bright used to say we were like a microbe on the back of a flea on a dog’s back in the Master’s house. Yes, the universe is outrageously large and humbling which makes it all the more wonderous that God would care so much for us that every hair on our heads would be numbered and a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His knowledge – (Something Sagan often ridiculed.)
Mr. Sagan was correct in that we have a responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot. God implanted that in his heart, such a shame he refused to acknowledge God which according to the Bible is likewise written in all of our hearts . . .
Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;