When I was very young I was fascinated by the cosmos. I had a room with an accurate map of the stars painted on my ceiling with glow in the dark paint. I had the solar system painted on my walls. I would fall asleep almost every night listening to a tape that described a journey through our universe. I wish I could remember the name of that tape and who narrated it, but unfortunately I lost track of that tape years ago.
Recently I discovered Cosmos by Carl Sagan on Hulu. It reawakened my fascination with the universe and science. I highly recommend this series because Carl Sagan gives a passionate account of the birth of the universe and our evolution, but most importantly he speaks about how important science and rationality are and how dangerous mysticism and religion are and have been to the progress of our species.
I have found this series great to fall asleep to because I think it helps bring me back to my childhood when my passion for rationality and science were so new, fresh, exciting and yet to be stomped down by public education, my family and the general populace. It really helps to relax me and make me feel genuine happiness at being a unique life-form in this universe.
Carl Sagan says in this series, “I believe our future depends, powerfully, on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.”
Compared to what? The cosmos. What is killing each other when we are so small, yet so significant? So unique. It helps me to appreciate my life and life in general more. Please watch this series and let me know what you felt while watching it.
Tags: atheism, cosmos, rationality, science
November 6th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I really enjoyed the series, and wanted to leave you with one of my favorite quotes.
“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.” – Carl Sagan
It’s a very powerful quote, one that once fully understood, can change your life.
Kyran Luhrs, Founder of The Ivory Tower