The dragon in the garage

Carl Sagan used an interesting argument to attack religion and God. I will list his argument and then evaluate how meaningful this argument is.

Carl Sagan's quote:

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

Evaluation:

Carl Sagan speaks like a true scientist. Everything that can be measured matters, everything else does not. Clearly Carl Sagan has in mind the idea of a transcendent God. The Transcendent God is seen as the creator of the universe, existing outside of and independent from the world. If God is no present within and present outside, how can one know him? It has to be through the senses. What Carl Sagan states is that if the external God cannot be understood by the senses, then he does not exist. This is a solid argument that often goes unanswered in circles of theology. How can one know anything about something external, if not through the senses?

The problem for Carl Sagan begins when it comes to the concept of divinity in the Indian Darshanas (schools of philosophy). The divinity is immanent not transcendent. In addition, the Vedic divinity is not a anthromorphic form to be revered but a state of consciousness that can be realized. That state is beyond the senses of the body and thoughts of the mind. It is superior to both body and mind. It is consciousness itself. You can easily see that Sagan's argument does not apply even to the mind, and certainly does not apply to consciousness. Let us elaborate further.

None of what Carl Sagan says makes sense for something that is already part of you from within. For example, can you prove through your senses that you have a personality? Where is the objective proof that you have an ego? How can you prove to anyone your inner qualia? Your experience of say the color "red" is intensely personal, there is no way you can communicate that feeling to anyone else. All your descriptions never mean much to an outsider. Ego, Intelligence, Mind and Intellect are all constructs that have to be assumed to exist, without any proof.

Can you ever know if a person talking to you has an ego inside him? Do you not assume that that person has ego without proof? Are you a fool because you make that assumption. Is it wiser to assume that the nobody in the world has an ego, if you have no proof of ego inside another person? Clearly there are limits to scientific proof. Do you need proof that your mother, or child genuinely love you, or would you assume that they have no love for you and are only pretending to love you? Clearly, there cannot be any person in this world who is perfectly scientific and 100% logical. One cannot live a life, if you need proof for everything.

Hence, next time a person asks - where is the proof of God, ask him whether he refers to an Transcendent or Immanent God. The former can be disproved easily, but the other is impossible to disprove by simplistic arguments of scientific proof.

Carl Sagan, you got somethings perfectly right and some perfectly wrong. Maybe, you would have done well to understand what Vedanta is all about.