Fellow Patheos blogger Kathy Schiffer has a rather joyful blog post up in which she realizes that Carl Sagan didn’t claim to be an atheist.

This is rather common knowledge actually, when I read her headline I was originally not shocked at all, then I continued reading to see what looked like Sagan being misrepresented.

Sagan himself said he was agnostic in a 1996 interview. He shied away from atheism in the same way Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t claim to be an atheist. However we have little doubt that neither man believe in God and for their own reasons chose to avoid the label.

As Schiffer points out, Sagan avoided the term because he seemingly had the wrong idea about the claim atheists make, believing they claim to know God does not exist, saying of atheists:

“…is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.”

That is not what atheism is, but if this is what Sagan believed atheism to be, it is no surprise he would have rejected the term.

Schiffer later goes on to say that Sagan “believed that Faith and Reason were partners.” However, her to quote to prove this claim is:

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.”

When did he ever say faith and reason are partners? Many atheists believe you can be spiritual without religion or faith, just ask Sam Harris.

So the statement that Sagan believed such a thing is simply dishonest and misleading.

Though Schiffer is wrong when she says, “Anyway, I learned that Carl Sagan most definitely was not an atheist,” because she doesn’t know that for sure. What she knows is he didn’t call himself one. If he did not accept the theological claim that God existed, he most certainly was an atheist, regardless of his adopting the label or not.

I will not claim certainty either way, he did reject the term but he also seemed rejected the idea of a God in any way shape or form that existed in the minds of men, but like all good scientists, was open to being proven wrong.

Yet in an article for the Washington Post, Joel Achenbach spoke to one of Sagan’s close family friends, David Grinspoon, a planetary scientist, who spoke of Sagan’s beliefs,

“In his adult life he was very close to being an atheist. I personally had several conversations with him about religion, belief, god, and yes I agree he was darn close. It’s really semantics at this level of distinction. He was certainly not a theist. And I suppose I can relate because I personally don’t call myself an atheist, although if you probed what I believe, it would be indistinguishable from many who do use that term.”

And David Morrison, one of Sagan’s former students said of his professor,

“Carl acted like an atheist but rejected the label. I guess it seemed too absolute to him. He always tried to be open to new evidence on any subject. I am reminded of Bill Nye answering a question about what could change his mind about evolution : ‘evidence’.”

And finally his widow, Ann Druyan when asked specifically about her late husbands atheism said,

“Carl meant exactly what he said. He used words with great care. He did not know if there was a god. It is my understanding that to be an atheist is to take the position that it is known that there is no god or equivalent. Carl was comfortable with the label ‘agnostic’ but not ‘atheist.’”

So to me, it seems more correct for Schiffer to say that Sagan did not label himself an atheist, but wrong to claim with such certainty that at least by definition he was not one.