YouTube Transcript: Carl Sagan on "God" and "Religion" | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Carl Sagan on "God" and "Religion"
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
View:
if the general picture however of a big
bang followed by an expanding universe
is correct what happened before that was
the universe devoid of all matter and
then the matter suddenly somehow created
how did that happen in many cultures the
customary answer is that a God or Gods
created the universe out of nothing but
if we wish to pursue this question
courageously
we must of course ask the next question
where did God come from if we decide
that this is an unanswerable question
why not save a step and conclude that
the origin of the universe is an
unanswerable question or if we say that
God always existed why not save a step
and conclude that the Universe always
existed there's no need for a creation
it was always here these are not easy
questions cosmology brings us face to
face with the deepest Mysteries with
questions that were once treated only in
religion and
[Music]
myth who knows for certain who shall he
declare it whence was it born whence
came
creation the gods are later than this
world's
formation who then can know the origins
of the
world none knows whence creation arose
or whether he has or has not made it he
who surveys it from the lofty Skies only
he
knows or perhaps he knows
[Music]
not these words are 3,500 years old
they're taken from the rig Veda a
collection of early Sanskrit hymns the
most sophisticated ancient cosmological
ideas came from Asia and particularly
from India here there's a tradition of
skeptical questioning and
unselfconscious humility before the
great Cosmic
Mysteries amidst the routine of daily
life in say the harvesting and winnowing
of grain people all over the world have
wondered where did the universe come
from asking this question is a Hallmark
of our
[Music]
species there's a natural tendency to
understand the origin of the cosmos in
familiar biological terms the mating of
cosmic deities or the hatching of a
cosmic egg or maybe the intonation of
some magic
phrase
[Music]
the Big Bang is our modern scientific
creation myth it comes from the same
human need to Solve the cosmological
Riddle most cultures imagin the world to
be only a few hundred human Generations
old hardly anyone guessed that the
cosmos might be far older but the
ancient Hindus
did
[Music]
they like every other Society noted and
calibrated the Cycles in
nature the rising and setting of the sun
and
stars the phases of the
moon the passing of the
[Music]
seasons
[Music]
all over South India an age-old ceremony
takes place every January a rejoicing in
the generosity of nature in the annual
harvesting of the crops every January
nature provides the rice to celebrate
pangal even the draft animals are given
the day off and garlanded with
flowers
[Music]
colorful designs are painted on the
ground to attract Harmony and good
fortune for the coming
[Music]
year
[Music]
[Music]
pangal a simple porridge a mixture of
rice and sweet milk symbolizes the
Harvest the return of the
[Music]
seasons
[Music]
however this is not merely a Harvest
Festival it has ties to an elegant and
much deeper cosmological
[Music]
tradition the pungle Festival is a
rejoicing in the fact that there are
Cycles in nature
but how could such Cycles come about
unless the gods will them and if there
are Cycles in the years of humans might
there not be Cycles in the eons of the
Gods the Hindu religion is the only one
of the world's great faiths dedicated to
the
idea that the cosmos itself under goes
an immense indeed an infinite number of
deaths and
rebirths
[Music]
it is the only religion in which the
time scales correspond no doubt by
accident to those of modern scientific
cosmology its Cycles run from our
ordinary day and night to a day and
night of Brahma 8.64 billion years long
longer than the age of the Earth or the
Sun and about half the time since the
big bang and there are much longer time
scales
[Music]
still there is the deep and appealing
notion that the universe is but the
dream of The
God Who after a hundred Brahma years
dissolves himself into a dreamless
sleep and the universe dissolves with
him until after another Brahma Century
he
stirs recomposes himself and begins
again to dream the great Cosmic Lotus
dream
meanwhile
elsewhere there are an infinite number
of other
universes each with its own
God dreaming the cosmic
dream these great ideas are tempered by
another perhaps still
greater it is
said that men may not be the dreams of
the Gods but rather that the gods are
the dreams of men
[Applause]
[Music]
oh
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
