George,
It could be argued that Carl Sagan's insistence of abundant life in the
universe is his statement of faith and that a government-funded search for
extraterrestrial life is mixing politics and religion. ;-)
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Thursday January 18, 2001 8:35 AM
To: Vandergraaf, Chuck
Cc: 'Moorad Alexanian'; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Is this a signal from aliens?
"Vandergraaf, Chuck" wrote:
> Moorad,
>
> Considering the low probability of detecting anything remotely intelligent
> from outer space, one wonders why society spends the time and effort on
> this. Could it be that, deep down, some are afraid that mankind is "home
> alone"?
I'm sure this is true for some people. When I used to teach
introductory astronomy I would sometimes bring up related topics: "Do you
think
there is intelligent life in the universe? Why? Why is this important?"
&c.
Ensuing discussions convinced me that for some students ETs filled the void
which lack of other serious religious commitment left. (The fact that this
happened at a church-related college is rather ironic.) For many people the
possibility of communication with ETs is the answer to Pascal's "The eternal
silence of those infinite spaces strikes me with terror". Some of that
attitude
comes out in the film _Contact_ & in fact for Sagan's insistence on the
abundance of life in the universe.
Shalom,
George
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