Posted by Amanda on January 01, 1997 at 02:08:38:
In Reply to: Re: Carl Sagan posted by Jason on December 31, 1996 at 15:08:10:
: : When I subscribed to "Skeptic" magazine over the holidays - the woman who took the call mentioned that they were working on a tribute issue on Carl Sagan much like their first issue on Asimov. It will no doubt be a beauty so I thought I'd share the info. He was a great man and I was looking at other great minds that have died such as Asimov and Russell and a host of others and I'm wondering if anyone has any examples of ones that are alive today - fighting to get science out to the people and perhaps minimizing the effects of religion and mysticism in the process? One I can think of is Stephen J. Gould.
: When I learned that Carl Sagan died, I felt saddened by it. I consider him a role
: model. I admire him not only because of his views on science and reason, but also
: his concern and activity for the community, environment, tolerance of differences,
: and other humanistic principles.
: Another person I am impressed by is right here in the Skeptic Society. It's Dr.
: Michael Shermer (if you're reading Mike, I hope you don't mind a little bit of
: flattery ;) ). I'm generally quite impressed by his writings and I consider him
: a good role model as well. I like the fact that he stood up to Holocaust
: Revisionist bigots (I wouldn't be surprised if he got a few death threats). In
: another case, when he was debating Duane Gish, he stood up to an atheist handing
: out obnoxious anti-religious hate literature. It's not good enough to champion
: reason and skepticism only. Tolerance and concern for the community should be
: championed as well.
: - Jason
Just a comment on that last bit. I agree that atheists handing out hate material due to anit-religious beliefs is wrong but I don't think that all anti-religious material can be considered wrong. I consider myself not only a non-religious type but also an anit-religious type because I believe it does a lot of harm to soceity and humankind. I disagree with Sagan's comment that he made once concerning his opinion that we should just leave religion alone and if we can't be kind then be silent. I believe there is a middle groud that could do a lot of good and examples of such are the writings of Bertrand Russell and William Fielding - even Nietzsche to an extent. I do try not to attack people personally but I do attack religion and I try to do this in an intelligent manner with as much respect and kindness that is appropriate. Humanism has many aspects - my feeling is that everyone would be better off without religion. If you can show me where I might be wrong - please do.