Just started reading this finally, after having it staring at me at the top of my book pile for a couple months.
31 pages in, and it's already excellent.
Sagan's already essentially made all the points I have on this blog about the dangers of superstition and credulity, and the importance of science in just the first couple chapters.
I suppose I could have saved a lot of typing by just telling people "read Demon Haunted World", but, you tell people to read books, they more often than not don't.
Or, they pull "*sneer* yeah, you tell me to read some book, rather than have anything to say in your own words", like that's some upper-hand giving argument.
Well, I said it all in my own fucking words.
So shaddap.
But Sagan is better.
Read "Demon Haunted World".
Dammit.
Harry Hembock, Jade Shade, movie and TV reviews, and other blog stuff.
That is an EXCELLENT book. One of my all-time favorites.
ReplyDeleteSagan could get his point across effortlessly. What a loss when he died.
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ReplyDeletePrevious comment(s) [not quite sure what happened there, I thought there was only one] of mine deleted for crass spelling error reasons...
ReplyDeleteAnyway...
As so sadly often, I have, alas, posted in haste here: I also meant to say in relation to your:
Well, I said it all in my own f***ing words:
Yes you did, and, furthermore, quite marvellously so, too...
Hooray!
Mark_W
Hmm...I seem to have deleted too many comments. The first one was agreeing with MattR and Lanz about how great, and what a sad loss, Sagan was...
ReplyDeleteMark_W
*Sigh* posting drunk again eh?...
ReplyDelete(Pasted from my e-mail notice)
Yes, you (and MattR and Lanz) are quite right, Demon Haunted World is (to quote Keats) a thing of beauty, and, therefore, a joy forever...
Like Sagan's life itself, in fact...
Mark_W
*Sigh* posting drunk again eh?... .
ReplyDeleteAlas, at least to some extent, I fear so. I actually have a post-it note on my computer which reminds me that an electronic "opening port" notification is, in fact, not an instruction to start drinking, but there are occasions, in and out, when I find it rather too easy to ignore, unfortunately...
:-)
Mark_W
I read "The Demon-Haunted World" a long time before I got to Dawkins' stuff. I thought that it wasn't so much mind-blowing as more a rational call to reason in the face of increasing superstition and pseudoscience.
ReplyDeleteThen Dawkins came along and "The God Delusion" blew away any left-over questions I had on faith. Maybe Sagan didn't go far enough in tackling the superstitious foundations of religion, but I loved the way he described the world's wonders when viewed through the lens of science.
No need for fairies in the garden then :)