Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, “I set before you two ways: You can use y… - Carl Sagan

we still talk about the Sun “rising” and the Sun “setting.” It is 2,200 years since Aristarchus, and our language still pretends that the Earth does not turn.

If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot sympathise and understand? We long to be here for a purpose even though, despite much self-deception, none is evident. The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for our parents to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Our common sense intuitions can be mistaken. Our preferences don’t count. We do not live in a privileged reference frame. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

When I say I’m an agnostic, I only mean that the evidence isn’t in. There isn’t compelling evidence that God exists — at least your kind of god — and there isn’t compelling evidence that he doesn’t.