Tag Archives: sagan

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?

Carl Sagan famously uttered the title, sans question mark.  I’d say he is in the right direction, as a corollary to Ockham’s Razor.  Things that are especially unusual or impactful deserve more scrutiny.

But I prefer Greg Koukl’s take, which is that extraordinary claims require adequate evidence or justification.  Just because the Bible makes claims of miracles doesn’t mean God needs to perform one for you on demand. 

I’m glad to stack up the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus — even just the parts that almost all historians agree with — against the atheistic theories about the creation of the universe and how life came from non-life.  Those are wildly extraordinary claims that go begging in search of evidence.  They not only don’t have extraordinary evidence, they have no evidence at all — just atheistic presuppositions. 

Sadly, it appears that Carl ignored the evidence for God:

Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

So if anyone quotes the title to you, be sure to point out who has the best evidence for their extraordinary claims. 

More information

Could life have emerged spontaneously on the early Earth?  Short answer: No.  But that doesn’t stop some from believing it.

Does God exist? Is there any scientific evidence to prove that God exists?   Yes and yes.  We not only have scientific evidence, but logical, historical, moral and more.

Carl Sagan’s catch phrase: (Bad) philosophy, not science — UPDATED

Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos is all there is, all there was, and all there ever will be.”

The irony is that each of those statements is philosophical, not scientific.  He merely tipped his hand for all to see.

The cosmos is all there is

No scientific evidence for that. 

all there was

No scientific evidence for that. 

and all there ever will be.

No scientific evidence for that. 

They say that Carl Sagan didn’t believe there was a God.  He does now.

UPDATE: Bubba made a good point in the comments section about the definition of cosmos (“the world or universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious system”).   Another irony is that as science demonstrates more and more spectacular fine-tuning of the universe, desperate materialists are having to posit the pathetic “multiverse” theory to prop up their worldview.  This is in direct conflict to all of Sagan’s erroneous statements and is just as unsupported factually.