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The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

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Former professor of astronomy & space sciences and former director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University Dr. Carl Sagan (Nov. 1934 to Dec. 1996) has risen from the dead to write a book on his search for God!!

Well, not quite. Sagan's third wife & widow and his longtime collaborator Ann "Annie" Druyan has turned his 1985 lectures (formally entitled the "Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology") that he presented at the University of Glasgow in Scotland into a fascinating book. Astronomer and the Sagans' dear friend Steven Soter wrote scientific updates that appear in the book's footnotes and, as well, he made "many editorial contributions."

The purpose of these lectures as Druyan tells us is as follows:

"Carl saw these lectures as a chance to set down in detail his understanding of the relationship between religion and science and something of his own search to understand the nature of the sacred."

But exactly why did Druyan turn these lectures into a book (which she edited)? Here's her answer:

"In the midst of the worldwide pandemic of extreme fundamentalist violence and during a time in the United States when phony piety in public life reached a new low and the critical separation of church and state and public classroom were dangerously eroded, I felt that Carl's perspective on these questions was needed for than ever."

Thank goodness that she thought this way because she has given all of us a valuable book to be cherished, "a...stunningly valuable legacy left to all of us by a great human being." For those who have followed Sagan's writings in the past, the science he presents will be familiar and easy to follow. He does though illuminate his discussion with examples from such disciplines as cosmology, physics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural anthropology, mythology, and theology. What was especially new and unexpected to me were the religious viewpoints that he presents. I have never read these before and this is what makes this book a treat to read. These religious viewpoints are especially prominent in the last 5 chapters or lectures. They are entitled:

(1) Extraterrestrial folklore: implications for the evolution of religion
(2) The God hypothesis (an excellent chapter!!)
(3) The religious experience
(4) Crimes against creation
(5) The search

Sagan emphasizes an important point right at the beginning of the book in the "Author's Introduction" that he wrote in Glasgow, Scotland on Oct., 1985:

"I want to stress that what I will be saying are my own personal views on [the relationship] between science and religion...I hope only to trace my own thinking and understanding of [this relationship]."

This book has more than 35 figures or illustrations (mainly in the form of color photographs). The bulk of the photographs occur in the first four chapters that have the following titles (I have also included the number of illustrations per chapter):

(1) Nature and wonder: a reconnaissance of Heaven (14 illustrations)
(2) A retreat from Copernicus: a modern loss of nerve (5)
(3) The organic universe (13)
(4) Extraterrestrial intelligence (2)

After presenting all the lectures, the book ends with selected transcribed questions from the audience. Sagan answers these questions with his trademark style of elegance and style punctuating his answers with reason and rationality. I found this section most interesting.

Finally, a note on the photographs. Druyan explains:

"[I and Steven Soter] felt sure that Carl would not have wanted to use the 1985 slides from the lectures. Astronomers have seen farther and more clearly since then. Steve found the gorgeous [and more recent color] images that replace them."

I can validate Druyan's statement. All the photographs ARE gorgeous and a sight to behold.

In conclusion, this book presents the scintillating lectures of the relationship between science and religion by the late scientific icon, Carl Sagan. I leave you with Sagan's final words in the last lecture presented in this book:

"I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed. I think this search does not lead to a complacent satisfaction that we know the answer, not an arrogant sense that the answer is before us and we need only to do one more experiment to find out. It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it [as religion does] but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us."

(first published 2006; editor's introduction; author's introduction; 9 lectures or chapters; main narrative 220 pages; selected Q & A; acknowledgements; figure captions; index; figure credits)

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Science's esteemed friend Carl Sagan died prematurely in 1996. What a pleasure it is to read more of his crystal clear prose. In these transcripts of his 1985 Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow, he gives us his rich insights on the relationship between science and religion. William James had a turn in the early 20th century and turned his lectures into the acclaimed "Varieties of Religious Experiences." "Varieties of Scientific Experiences" is edited by Sagan's widow and collaborator Ann Druyan and she acknowledges his admiration for James in the title of this book.

Starting with cosmology, Sagan leads us through a naturalistic view of the universe - meaning except for the most extreme liberal interpretation of God, He is not part of the equation. But the believer who desires the bigger picture should not be scared off - this eloquent book is more considerate and gentle than the recent books on religion by Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett. As usual with Sagan, it is also a treatise on why we should view our world with a scientific, rational mind-set. Sagan's bottom line was always: "Show me the evidence." In an interview, Sagan was once pressed by a reporter for a premature conclusion. When asked, "But what's your gut feeling," Sagan replied, "I try not to think with my gut."

I spent a whole day being stimulated and intrigued by this book and there is not a dull page. An 11th century Hindu logician presented the following proofs for the Hindu "all-knowing and imperishable but not necessarily omnipotent and compassionate God":

1. First cause - sounds familiar
2. Argument from atomic combinations - bonding of atoms requires a conscious agent
3. Argument from suspension of the world - somebody has to be holding it up
4. Argument from the existence of human skills
5. Existence of authoritative knowledge - Vedas, the Hindu holy books

Sagan compares them to the Western arguments:

1. First cause - otherwise known as the cosmological argument.
2. Argument from design
3. Moral argument - attributed to Kant
4. Ontological argument - Man is imperfect, there must be something greater that is perfect, therefore God exists
5. Argument from consciousness - I have self-awareness, therefore God exists
6. Argument from religious experiences

Sagan briefly discusses each item on these somewhat similar lists, ending with, "I must say that the net result is not very impressive. It is very much as if we are seeking a rational justification for something that we otherwise hope will be true." About the moral argument, he says, "It does not follow if we are powerfully motivated to take care of our young or the young of everybody on the planet, that God made us do it. Natural selection can make us do it, and almost surely has."

After each of the nine lectures, Sagan took selected written questions from the audience - most of them from believers and one of them signed by God Almighty himself. He answered them all with wit, grace, and poise and this 37 page segment is not to be missed - the whole book is not to be missed and gets my highest recommendation. Whether or not you've previously read Carl Sagan, you're in for a treat.

I would love to spend a paragraph or two on how lucky we were and are to have had Carl Sagan among us. Of course, anyone reading this review likely already knows that this is true and the extent of its truth. So, I will get to the point.

This is a very impressive posthumous collection of Sagan's Gifford's lectures where he talks about the intersection (or lack thereof) of sceince and religion. Most importantly, he talks about how the religious experience - more appropriately, the experience of extreme awe at our surroundings - is more apt for science than in religion. Where religious awe and wonderment revels in mystery, sceintific awe acknowledges the mystery and goes about extirpate that mystery via some explanation. Wheras religion's version of solving a problem is to postulate magic, science's version of solving problems involves solving them with evidence.

The first few essays are about the idea of the 'religious experience' - the acknowledgement of how small we are and how vast is the universe; the acknowledgement of how sublime all of our surroundings truly are. But science, suggests Sagan, seeks to find out about those surrounding, while religion revels in the idea of the 'incomprehensible.'

There is an essay that continues this theme by postulating on the possible NATURALISTIC origins of life. While we have not solved the puzzle, Sagan walks us through very plausible examples of how the chemical process COULD HAVE gone (certainly more plausible than an infinitely complex god deciding to create all of this, by which you then have to explain how THAT god arose.)

Another essay exposes the very embarassing 'proofs' of god that theologians have come up with through the years. Most atheists or agnostics will already be familiar with most of these, but Sagan rehashes and debunks them with crystal clear prose that is not so much combative as matter-of-fact. (Sagan wins over Dawkins here.)

The next few essays - of concern to Sagan his whole career through - talk about the importance of we humans realizing that just as our existince wasn't inevitable, neither is our continued existence. Sagan died in 1996 and, sad to say, not much has changed in terms of nuclear proliferation, etc. In fact, Sagan died before terrorism really took center stage via 9/11. Had he lived to see it, doubtless these essays would sound more urgent (a la Sam Harris). Yet, he writes of the dangers humans face should they want to live a full and long 21st century.

The common theme in this book - as in his earlier Demon Haunted World - was to guard against the perils of superstition, be it religious beliefs that cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny, the belief that our planet is the center of everything, the belief that humans continued existence is assured because of divine fiat, etc.

I am not sure how else to end my review of this very worthy book but to say - Thank You, Mr. Sagan (and Mrs. Drunyan).

Carl Sagan is back, just when we really need him, thanks to Ann Druyan, who has done an elegant job of editing this book. With science under attack from reactionary politicians and fundamentalist preachers, it's time for scientists to abandon their tiresome platitudes about science having nothing to say about religion and come down from their ivory towers and save the world from nonsense. With this book, Sagan continues to set a brilliant example for other scientists who need to learn to speak clearly and without condescension to non-scientists about evolution, the age of the earth, the vastness of the universe, and other matters that for the most part should not be topics of raging controversy and massive ignorance in the 21st Century.

I credit Carl Sagan's television series Cosmos (along with Randi's book, Flim Flam) with being the first to open my eyes to reality when I was in college. I had been raised a xian, but not strongly so, not much praying, church-going, bible-reading, etc. I hadn't really given the matter much thought until I was exposed to the concepts of critical thinking I learned from Sagan and James Randi.

Years later, I felt that Sagan's Demon-Haunted World was the definitive book on the subject of critical thinking. I thought that any intelligent and open-minded individual who read it would absolutely have to come to the same conclusions as Sagan. I thought it should be required reading in schools.

Now comes this "new" book. When I first picked it up, I thought there was nothing new I could learn from Sagan, but I felt I owed it to his memory to read it. I am still not quite finished reading it, but I am so overwhelmed by it that I simply had to post right away. The points that he makes are so amazing and so beautiful and so simple and yet so complex...I lack the words to give this book its fair due. I will simply say...read this book. I feel the way I did when I first discovered these things 25 years ago - in awe. I feel as though I'm discovering these things for the first time, and once again I find that it takes my breath awat. And once more, I can't help but think "how could anyone read this and not give up their belief in a supernatural god?"

I have just finished reading Dawkins's The God Delusion. It was an excellent book and makes several of the exact same points. But nobody does it like Sagan. While Dawkins comes across as angry and hostile toward religion (for good reason, don't get me wrong), Sagan simply comes across as someone who has explored all of the options and come upon the only logical conclusion and simply wants to share it with everyone. A more people-friendly version of Dawkins.

Again, if you haven't yet picked up this excellent book, do it now. Your New Year's resolution just might be to think about everything you thought you knew in a whole new way.

This collection of Sagan's 1985 Gifford Lectures are as fresh and relevant today as they were over 20 years ago...perhaps even more so. In this collection, we are reminded of what made Sagan such as successful spokesman for scientific endeavor and rationality in general.

The material Sagan uses to frame his arguments are familiar to anyone who watched his Cosmos series on PBS. In these lectures, he hits on many of the same themes: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the tiny amount of time that humankind has inhabited the earth relative to the planet's geological age, the wonders of evolution, our willingness (or even "need") to believe in the paranormal and the perils posed by nuclear weapons. These lectures are, however, more pointed about the nature (or "causes") of religion. While Sagan is quite careful and indeed artful in avoiding the direct disparagement of religion and its reliance on God as an explanation for all mysteries, his position is clear. What he requires of all statements and assertions is rigorous proof, demonstrable evidence. In this, he finds paranormal beliefs lacking. The thoroughness, forthrightness and delicacy of his arguments are all the more refreshing in this time of theocratic political leanings and scientific illiteracy in the United States.

Perhaps the most effective aspect of his arguments are that they are not condescending, mocking or inconsiderate. Rather, he dispassionately challenges the listener to find fault with his position that those things which are knowable and true are subject to analysis and confirmation. All else belongs to the realm of subjective emotion.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow, for finding and editing this wonderful series of lectures delivered by her husband more than two decades ago. "The Varieties of Scientific Experience; a personal view of the search for God" deserves to be recognized as the product of one of the most compassionately insightful minds of the twentieth century - and a true treasure for mankind to contemplate as an exemplar of critical thinking. Paradoxically, although Sagan challenges all forms of conventional religious dogma, his over-riding perspective and philosophy leaves one with the clear realization that his sense of the holy and sacred has far more validity than can be found in the faiths of his critics.

This is a potentially life-changing book. It should be read by everyone who values the supremacy of intellect.

This book is a wonderful collection of the personal thoughts & explorations of a wonderful human being. Its editing and compilation enhance the material and create a stimulating, humbling, revealing and most of all, relevant guide for each of us to use as we struggle with what seems to be the global onset of a new "Dark Ages". I wish that I had at some time had the chance to chat with Carl Sagan before he left us & also his long time collaborator Ann Druyan. Together they have created a gift of immeasurable value. Buy it now, give it to others, keep it at hand to refer to.

This is an amazing book that I recommend everyone should read, regardless of there religious beliefs. This is, basically, a book on the existence of god encompassing a collection of lectures Carl Sagan did quite sometime ago and then edited by his wife, Ann Druyan. It combines the reason and logic of some of the best arguments against creationism with the wit of Carl Sagan. I have read several books on the existance of god and I must say this is one of my favorites. Carl Sagan is very convincing in his arguments while in no way being overly blunt, harsh or offensive. This book is somewhat unique in that it implements Carl Sagan's unique explanations of astronomy and the universe to give a convincing argument that the common view of a personal god is unlikely.

For example, a common arugument from a creationist is the anthropic principle. Ignorance, by the common creationist, claims that god must exist because there is no explanation for values of the cosmological constants which resulted in our universe. Carl Sagan offers a unique explanation to this argument show our universe would in fact be very different, but not necessarily barren or non-existant.

He also offers many of his classic and very convincing ideas of skepticism and uses them as parallels to religious beliefs. Please, do not be shunned away from this book because of the ideas behind it. It does not have the literary prestige of some of his other books, such as Demon Haunted World, because it is in the form of a lecture. However, it is an instant classic book for another entrance into the mind of one of the greatest and most ingenious popularizers of science on one of the greatest and most important questions of all. Even if it is in a small way, this book will change your life because it answers, comparatively well, one of the the hardest and most important questions of life itself. "What kind of god, if any, truely exists?"

I was moved to read Carl Sagan's "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God" (2006) after reading the classic study for which it is named: "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902) by the American philosopher and psychologist, William James. As was James's book, Sagan's book consists of the text of Gifford lectures, Sagan lectured in 1985, James in 1901 -- 1902. The Gifford lectures were established in Scotland in 1888 to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term -- in other words, the knowledge of God." Many distinguished thinkers have delivered the Gifford lectures over the years.

Carl Sagan (1934 -- 1996) was an American astronomer who became famous for his efforts in presenting science to a wide lay audience. In spite of the title of his book, which was given not by Sagan but by his editor, Ann Druyan, Sagan's lectures include no mention of James and little consderation of James's approach to religion in the "Varieties". Sagan's book is fascinating nonetheless. But I find it tempting to think of ways in which his approach might be complemented by that of James.

Sagan approaches religion from his background as a scientist. He takes complex scientific ideas and explains them learnedly and eloquently. He covers matters such as the origin of the universe and of the planets, the age of the universe, geological time, the origin of life, the likelihood of finding life on other planets in other galaxies, UFO's, and much else. The book is punchy and provocative without becoming overbearing.

Sagan argues that mankind's source of knowledge of the world comes through science. He argues that the view of the world presented in the Bible, with its creator God active in human affairs, cannot stand the light of scientific scrutiny. He is a skeptic in matters of religion and revelation and he argues that the better course for people is to withhold judgment on matters that they do know know or understand until sufficient reliable evidence is available on which to draw a conclusion. He describes, broadly, in his book how modern science gradually has destroyed the sense of a teleological (purpose-driven) human-centered universe, created and directed by a God with a divine plan, and replaced it instead with universal scientific laws of physics and chemistry. As have many thinkers before him, Sagan examines many of the traditional proofs for the existence of God and finds them wanting. He gives particular emphasis in this book to the argument from design and to the cosmological argument. In his concluding chapter, Sagan comes close to equating the religious search -- in the subtitle of the book -- with the search for scientific knowledge. He concludes (p.221) "I think this search does not lead to a complacent satisfaction that we know the answer, not an arrogant sense that the answer is before us and we need do only on more experiment to find it out. It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us." Form this book, Sagan's philosophical heroes, whom he mentions many times, appear to be Spinoza and Albert Einstein, excellent company indeed.

I want to make a brief comparison of Sagan's approach with that of William James and to suggest that the two approaches largely bypass each other because they are directed to different questions. Sagan considers religion from the standpoint of scientific knowlege. James, in contrast, took as the theme of his "Varieties" the "exploration of religious themes and religious impulses." James defines the scope of his study as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude so far as they apprehend themselves to relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Thus, James explored the phenomena and the experiences of religious life without making any commitment to the cause of or the "objectivity" of these experiences, without commitment to revelation or particular religious dogma, and without challenging the teachings of science. James tried to consider what it was of value that people found in the religious quest and in religious experience. He tried to do so, for the most part, by leaving science free to explore and expand our understanding of the world and of physical law -- as this was understood in James's day and as it has expanded dramatically in our own.

Sagan's account is stimulating, and it reminded me of how much science has indeed changed our outlook on life -- including our religious outlook. I found it liberating. But I found it offered only a partial understanding of the religious search, it purports to describe in the subtitle, and of the religious life. I think religion needs to be approached by, in the words of many religious teachers, "looking within". Such a search need not require the contravention of the teachings of science, the postulating of revelation or of divine entities, or the deprecating of the value of the scientific endeavor. It is a search for meaning and self-understanding. I think this approach goes further even than the approach James took in his "Varieties", but his text suggests it to me. In this sense, I think that Sagan has only studied part of his broad issue. There is room both for his scientific approach and for the complementary approach of William James, who in his Gifford Lectures delivered the still-landmark study of the Varieties of Religious Experience.

Robin Friedman