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NASA launched Voyager Spacecrafts 1 and 2 in 1977. They continue to make space exploration history on several counts. After sending back stunning pictures of Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989), Voyager 1 escaped the gravitational pull of the Sun, and in 1998, this high-tech machine became the most distant man-made object in space, hurtling into deep space beyond our galaxy. This remarkable 65,000-piece contraption continues to tear through space at 70,000 mph, 12 billion+ miles from earth. Its onboard investigative instruments and cameras are still sending reports back to earth.
When its cameras sent back the first “close-up” color pictures of Neptune and its moons (1989), several scientific luminaries gathered to pat themselves on the back for this amazing feat. In this context, the late Carl Sagan(renowned scientist and outspoken Atheist—before he died), remarked that since men have demonstrated the ability to “put things right” [sic] with such spacecraft, we should use the same ingenuity to “put things right in our own planet.” We heartily agree that if men used their brains as much on moral, social, and political problems as they do on scientific and technological challenges, our world might be better off. Sagan’s statement is curious, given his atheism.
First, it shall ever be a mystery to rational, realistic folk that brilliant scientists reject the argument from design for the existence of God. No scientists have suggested that the Voyagers just “happened” without planning or design. Sagan knew (and his cohorts know) that it took the planning, designing, and manufacturing talents of many exceptional minds to fashion these relatively simple spacecraft. Yet these same men will look at the vast universe, millions of times more complex than the little Voyagers, and attribute it to a freak cosmic accident. This assertion demonstrates blind, irrational prejudice.
Second, upon what grounds do Atheists speak of “right” and (implied) “wrong”? If God does not exist and the Bible is not His Word (assumptions of every Atheist, Secular Humanist, and Postmodernist), there is no objective standard of right and wrong. All such concepts are merely subjective opinions resting on the fickle, fallible minds and emotions of men. Sagan had no basis (except subjective biases) upon which to label murder, rape, and theft as “wrong” and that respect for the person and property of others is “right.” Perhaps incest, pedophilia, genocide, sodomy, and cannibalism are “good” rather than “evil.” Apart from God and the Bible as the standard, who is to say—and upon what basis?
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in the Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, TX, July 15, 2016.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
