You see, the religious people - most of them - really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business if there was any competition.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Sagan argues that interventionist religions portray God as incompetent, constantly fixing mistakes rather than designing a perfect world initially.
- In plain terms
- He questions why a powerful god would need to micromanage human behavior and history.
- What can you take from it?
- Intervention implies a flawed design process.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does perfection require non-intervention?
- How do you define divine competence?
Another view
The quote assumes a literal view of religious texts that many believers do not hold.
More from Carl Sagan
Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our …
Permalink to quote #41 Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever…
Permalink to quote #43 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.
Permalink to quote #40
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