CARL SAGAN:
Out of the Silent Planet!

May 2006's thought from my agnostic calendar is:-
"What I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message,
and ancient writings were the only way he could think of
doing it, he could have done a better job." Dr Arroway
in Carl Sagan's ["CONTACT"].

First off, it should come as no surprise that God has spoken
throughout history - so the writings would be ancient wouldn't they?
From a Christian perspective God is not limited to writing - he
speaks through Creation (Romans 1), he speaks to the
consciences of people (Romans 2) and we believe that God
has revealed himself definitively by being born as a human
being and so revealing God to man in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1).

On the specific issue of ancient texts it is clear on any objective
count that when one compares other ancient writings, such as
the Mesopotamian creation, flood and Gilgamesh stories etc,
with the Bible one realises that it is in a different league. While
the other texts relate amoral tales of the pantheon the Bible
lays a foundation of ethical monotheism and as such touches
us directly in a way that the other texts cannot (as we saw last
March with Gene Roddenberry). This is not to say that the
pagan writings are not gripping yarns. Equally this is not to say
that it is always easy for christians to correctly apply the Biblical
text, which is why we are keen to ensure that it is set in the right
context....in a nutshell we are living in the fourth act of a five part
drama!

Sagan was instrumental in the design of the plaques fitted to the
Voyager spacecraft launched in the 1970's to explore the outer
solar system; these robots are now heading out into interstellar
space. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the future these were recovered
by some extra-terrestrial civilisation only to be met with the same
sniffy disdain as Sagan's? What if they too looked with contempt
at this, what will be by then, ancient writing - (well it would be
wouldn't it?) - "Is this the only way Sagan could think of sending
a message?!" - and missed the true significance of what was before
them; "you are not alone!"

The real issue here is not the antiquity of the communication, or
the mode or even the efficiency of the revelation - the real issue
is the message itself....because of the implications it may have
for the recipient. The problem is not transmission but receptivity,
the recognition that "we are not alone" theologically means we are
not the centre of the universe, and some people will find that hard
to hear.



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