An Appropriate Carl Sagan Memorial - In a Church
by Warren Allen Smith
The following article is from the Secular
Humanist Bulletin, Volume 13, Number 2.
An atheist's memorial service held in a cathedral? Yes, Carl Sagan's was held February
27th at New York City's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the one featuring a
statue of God (a bearded Caucasian with His arms outstretched) on the front facade. The
former dean, James Parks Morton referred to "Carl the great atheist," and
Sagan's non-theism was also cited by Harry H. Pritchett, the present dean, and Joan Brown
Campbell, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the USA. The
cathedral was chosen because of Sagan's record of having successfully worked with church
leaders on environmental matters.
MIT physicist Philip Morrison, who is confined to an electronic wheelchair, related how
at the age of six Sagan had been told that you can always add one to a number, that Carl
had tested this by laboriously writing all the numbers from one to 1000, stopping only
because he had to sleep.
Sagan's curiosity never diminished, for he went on to solve the mysteries of the high
temperature of Venus (i.e., a massive greenhouse effect), the seasonal changes on Mars
(i.e., windblown dust), and the reddish haze of Titan (i.e., complex organic molecules).
Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, a member with Sagan of the International Academy of Humanism, remarked that unlike the
Brooklyn garment worker's son who turned his eyes upwards to the skies, he as a boy in
Queens had turned his eyes downwards to the ground. He added that the two New Yorkers had
not known each other until much later. Ending an eloquent summary of how important Sagan
had been to the entire scientific community, as well as the world's other peoples, Gould
paraphrased Longfellow, saying Sagan had turned the spheres and left no hell below.
Ronald Sagedeev, who had been Gorbachev's adviser and director of the USSR's Space
Research Institute, called Sagan a citizen of the world, one who was against the false
promises of the Star Wars defense, and said "the Cold War was ended because of Carl
Sagan and his friends."
Other speakers included Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician-friend who called attention to
Carl's passion, humor, and forgiveness. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York City's
Hayden Planetarium, told of Sagan's consideration when, as a young black college student,
he had first gone to Cornell for an interview. Frank H. T. Rhodes, who had been President
of Cornell University during much of the time Sagan headed Cornell's Laboratory for
Planetary Studies, called Carl "a scientist but a humanist at heart," one who
was comfortable with philosophy.
One of Carl's daughters, Sasha, described how her father had taught logic, critical
reasoning, and (to the large audience's amusement) the importance of questioning
authority. Carl's son, Jeremy, said that his agnostic father was a warrior for the world,
an avid anti-racist, an evolutionist rather than a creationist, and one who disapproved of
anyone who masked ignorance by using jargon.
Carl's wife, Ann Druyan, secretary of the Federation of American Scientists, told of
his and her exuberance at having included an interstellar message along with Bach,
Beethoven, and other music in two NASA Voyager spacecraft now beyond the outer solar
system. At a speed of 40,000 miles per hour, the objects are traveling in space and have a
projected shelf life of a billion years.
Vice-President Al Gore noted that he the believer and Carl the non-believer had no
problems whatsoever working together upon behalf of Earth's environment. The two were
instrumental in getting scientific and religious leaders to unite on issues of
environmental protection. Carl had shown him we are no longer central to the universe,
that therefore we must do something significant if "the pale blue dot" as seen
from space is to flourish. Gore was both folksy and eloquent in relating his warm memories
of Sagan.
The most eloquent of all, however, was Carl Sagan himself. A taped excerpt of his
"Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" resounded over the
loudspeakers.
Warren Allen Smith is an editorial associate of Free Inquiry.
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