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90fa8a0
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"When my 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 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. 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 . But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as
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true-love
love
ann-druyan
cosmos
sagan
carl-sagan
belief
atheism
superstition
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Ann Druyan |
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3a407cd
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"Interviewer: Didn't want to believe? Druyan:
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science
truth
sagan
astronomy
carl-sagan
belief
atheism
knowledge
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Ann Druyan |
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0c03caa
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I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.
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cosmos
carl-sagan
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Carl Sagan |
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2dc3a67
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Arguments from authority carry little weight - authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
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science
carl-sagan
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Carl Sagan |
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c8ab93f
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Sherrie described atheism as a positive system of belief--one based on data, exploration and observation rather than scripture, creed and prayer. Atheists believe that human life is a chemical phenomenon, that our first parents were super-novas that happened billions of years ago--that humans are inexplicable miracles in a universe of structured chaos. Atheists believe that when we die, we will turn into organic debris which will continue cycling for billions of years in various incarnations. Sherrie explained that atheists appreciate life unfathomably because it is going to end. No one who takes atheism seriously dies without hope.
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hope
philosophy
caitlin-moran
carl-sagan
richard-dawkins
science-vs-religion
science-and-religion
atheist
dying
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Israel Morrow |