"Put Things Right"

NASA launched Voyager Spacecrafts 1 and 2 in 1977. They continue to make space exploration history on several counts. After sending back stunning pictures of Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989), Voyager 1 escaped the gravitational pull of the Sun, and in 1998, this high-tech machine became the most distant man-made object in space, hurtling into deep space beyond our galaxy. As of 2010, this remarkable contraption has torn through space for some twenty-nine years, and it and its onboard investigative instruments are still functioning perfectly.

When its cameras sent back the first “close-up” pictures of Neptune and its moons (1989, as it headed for deep space beyond our galaxy), a number of scientific luminaries gathered to pat themselves on the back for this signal accomplishment. In this context, the late Carl Sagan, renowned scientist (and outspoken Atheist), remarked that since men have evidenced the ability to put things rightly with such a craft for space, we now need to use the same ingenuity to “put things right [sic] in our own planet.” While we heartily agree that if men used their brains as much on moral, social, and political problems as they do on scientific and technological challenges, our world might be better off, Sagan’s statement is most curious, given his atheistic perspective.

First, it shall forever remain incomprehensible to rational and realistic thinkers how “brilliant” scientists can reject the argument from design for the existence of God. Sagan knew (and his blaspheming buddies know) that it takes all of the inventive, planning, and designing (to say nothing of the manufacturing) capabilities of many brilliant minds to fashion even relatively simple spacecraft like the Voyagers. None of them would be so stupid as to suggest that such a machine just “happened” with no design or planning And yet, these same men will look at the universe, millions of times more complex than the little Voyagers, and say it had no designer or planner—it just happened by some freak, cosmic “accident.” Verily, there is no fuller demonstration of blind, irrational prejudice than this conclusion.

Second, upon what grounds does an Atheist talk about “right” and (implied), “wrong”? If God does not exist and the Bible is not His Word (basic assumptions of every Atheist and Secular Humanist), there is no objective standard of right and wrong. All such concepts are merely subjective opinions, existing only in the fallible and fickle minds and emotions of men. Sagan had (and his surviving cohorts have) no basis (except personal subjective prejudices) upon which to say that murder, rape, and theft are “wrong” and that respecting the rights of the person and property of others is “right.” For all they know, incest, pedophilia, genocide, and  cannibalism are “good” and it is only because of their biases (or because they have been the victims of such behaviors) that they call them “evil.”

Sagan should have kept his mouth shut about “putting things right” on planet earth until he acknowledged the only possible objective and true basis upon which “right” and “wrong” can be determined—existence of the eternal, true, and living God, the Designer and Creator of all things: “For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God” (Heb. 3:4). Atheistic scientists agree as one with the first clause of the passage above. Yet their worship of self and pseudo-science makes them deny the equally true (and rational) conclusion of the second clause. If Sagan had been sincere in wanting to “put things right” on earth, he would have had to start by acknowledging God as Creator and Designer and by respecting His infallible Word. Carl Sagan was “converted” to Theism—the moment he died in 1996. ---Dub McClish, TheScripturecache.com

---Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets