Carl Sagan wrote a complete piece of tripe. It is a perfect example of Modern Materialistic Science logic. It seems logical, but, of course it ignores most of reality. And Modern Materialistic Scientists only use it to "prove" atheistic viewpoints, but never accept the same lame reasoning when used against them.
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
- Carl Sagan
All of this seems logical, until you start having conversations with the dragon. Then what?
Modern Materialistic Science ignores their own journey.
Do you believe in germs? Why?
Why don't you believe in little demons that make you sick?
Everyone, and i mean EVERYONE believed in little demons. And it wasn't until the microscope (and a bunch of lies) that we now believe in germs.
But, now, the scientists say, if i can't see it, i don't believe it. (They don't see the dragon, so it doesn't exist.)
Well, the greater part of this universe is invisible to humans. Things like radiowaves are only, just recently, something that scientists can "see". But what about auras, spirits, gnomes, fey, angels, ghosts… things that so many people can see, but not all people, and it seems, not any scientists.
And the Modern Materialistic Scientist don't give any credence to these things. Not even NDEs, which have encyclopedias of stories that are extremely similar, but we can't prove them, so they say anyone who believes in it is wacko.
However, Modern Materialistic Scientists believe in "Dark Matter" (matter that exists, but it can't be seen) and "Dark Energy" (energy that exists, but it can't be measured) and demand that you believe in them too. How duplicitous.
The duplicitous language Sagan uses
It must be noted that Sagan goes out of his way to paint one side as being logical, and the other side as being an idiot.
…I reply, waving vaguely…
While trying to show someone your dragon, you "wave vaguely"???!! Only the person who doesn't believe in the dragon could say something so meaningless. "I reply, outlining the dragon with my hands so that he may catch a glimpse of it" would be a proper description.
I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
It is interesting how the writer alludes to ALL test won't work, when it is only a small amount of physical tests that were postulated. And of course, he doesn't even bother to discuss future inventions that may help see the dragon. Nor does he even inquire about, "how do you know the dragon is there? How do you interact with it?" Sagan only guessed at silly ways to see signs that the dragon was there. You know, the dragon might really be offended when sprayed at with paint. You'd never get all the paint out from between all your scales.
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless,
And Sagan ends with this piece of garbage.
I guess Carl just doesn't like doing science. You know, the story of science is finding ways to make the untested, testable. If it was straight forward, it would be done in science class, not in a research lab.
And then, Carl states "assertions immune to disproof are veridically (big word) worthless. Which means, if it can't be verified, it is worthless. Which, if applied to Modern Materialistic Science would be saying that all freshly forming theories are worthless. Carl really hates doing science.
The metaphysical
The trips on cannabis are not always easy to describe, however they are quite uniform in their appearance, and so you get a fairly complete picture talking to many people who have taken trips.
However, by Sagan's philosophy, all that is worthless.
Still, cannabis users know very well the experience, and often seek it again and again. To them, it is the furthest thing from worthless. It is a gateway to seeing/interacting with the metaphysical.
Modern Materialistic Science wants to call all of this hallucinations, or "group hallucinations" (now, try to find a "scientific" explanation of how a group has the same hallucination.) That sounds to me like "data that the scientists do not want to have to deal with".
The thing about trips, or guided meditations, is that the people involved often experience the same thing. Even if they are separated by time and/or space. People who come later describe the same thing when they meet a spiritual entity. Just this should start a new branch of science to study this occurrence. Really, why/how do many people experience the same thing?? Every thought about how this may be leads to very important questions for mankind to find the answer.
And all psychonauts will tell you that the metaphysical realm is huge and diverse. Many of them will tell you that the real world is so boring in comparison, but that is the only realm that Modern Materialistic Scientist will deem exists.
There is so much world to explore out there, but Modern Materialistic Science wants to shove everyone into a tiny box. And the belittle, ignore, make fun of, anyone who tries to think outside that box.
These scientists are very disingenuous. And, in the future, these people will be handled like we deal with people who have no sense of humor.
These scientists will tell you that they know all about the universe, with only some small details yet to be filled in. They have it all figured out, except for that one spot where something comes out of nothing. (To describe how the big bang works, it starts with a miracle)
And, if you want something that will really blow your mind, study Organic Chemistry. In that class, they will draw flow charts on the board, where A goes to B, B goes to C, C goes to "And then a miracle happens" and then goes to D. We don't know how the basic forms of life happens, but they do, and Organic Chemistry just puts a box around it, and the rest of science ignores it.
We have so much to learn, too bad that Modern Materialistic Science wants to stand in the way of us learning. How unscientific.