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This one will be different from the others.
He is so wrong.
Atheists needn't know anything to disbelieve in gods.
Proof that I'm right:
Despite his beliefs, Carl Sagan is dead.
Despite my beliefs, I'm still alive & revolting!
It seems that Sagan focused upon that rarest of atheists....the strong atheist.lol I ran across that quote recently too, and I was taken aback that it came from Carl Sagan. Atheism isn’t an authoritative position on whether a god exists or not, it’s merely a lack of belief in the supernatural/a deity. For me personally, I’m open minded to the idea of a ‘Creator’ but as far as it being anything remotely intimated by the thousands of ‘religions’ out there, no…I don’t believe in those ideas. And I don’t ‘need’ to know anymore, which brings relief and peace.
It is likely the quote is out of context, but I would suggest Sagan is talking about very strong claims to knowledge about the non-existence of gods. That's what he means by "some definitions". He's trying to suggest a certain level of epistemic humility. As in the distinction between an atheism that withholds assent to the proposition that "at least one god exists" and one that makes the positive claim "no gods exist". Sagan was clearly an atheist in the first sense (he does not believe) but thinks the second is problematic (the claim to absolute knowledge)
I don't even know if it's accurate to attribute that quote to him.It is likely the quote is out of context, but I would suggest Sagan is talking about very strong claims to knowledge about the non-existence of gods. That's what he means by "some definitions". He's trying to suggest a certain level of epistemic humility. As in the distinction between an atheism that withholds assent to the proposition that "at least one god exists" and one that makes the positive claim "no gods exist". Sagan was clearly an atheist in the first sense (he does not believe) but thinks the second is problematic (the claim to absolute knowledge)