People love to put Carl Sagan in a box. If you go on social media today, you’ll see his face plastered over "Atheist Pride" memes, usually next to a quote about how we are all made of "star stuff." But honestly, if you actually sit down and read his Gifford Lectures or flip through the dog-eared pages of Pale Blue Dot, you’ll find that the reality of Carl Sagan on God was way more nuanced—and a lot more interesting—than a simple "yes" or "no."
He wasn't a believer in the traditional sense. Not even close. But he also had a pretty famous beef with the word "atheist."
To Sagan, being an atheist meant you were certain that God didn’t exist. And certainty, in his eyes, was the ultimate sin against science. He once told an interviewer that an atheist is someone who knows more than he did. He didn't think he had enough evidence to close the door forever. He was the world's most famous "I don't know" man, but he said it with such poetic grace that it felt like a religious experience anyway.
The "God" Sagan Actually Believed In
When people asked about Carl Sagan on God, he’d usually start by asking them to define their terms. He was a stickler for definitions. If you meant a giant, bearded man in the sky who keeps track of every sparrow that falls and gets annoyed when you eat pork on the wrong day, Sagan was a hard pass. He saw no evidence for that. Zero.
But there’s another kind of God.
The God of Spinoza. The God of Einstein. This is the idea that "God" is just a shorthand for the sum total of the physical laws that govern the universe. In his 1985 Gifford Lectures—later published as The Variety of Scientific Experience—Sagan touched on this. He argued that if by "God" you mean the set of physical laws that keep the stars burning and the planets orbiting, then God clearly exists. But he’d also tell you that such a God is "emotionally unsatisfying." It doesn't hear your prayers. It doesn't care if you're a "good person." It’s just... gravity.
Why Evidence Was His Only North Star
Sagan lived by a mantra: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
He applied this to UFOs, he applied it to nuclear winter, and he definitely applied it to theology. He looked at the vastness of the cosmos—the billions of galaxies, the "billions and billions" of stars—and found the traditional human-centric religions a bit small-minded. Why would the creator of a hundred billion galaxies care about the specific dietary habits of a hairless primate on a tiny "mote of dust"?
It didn't add up to him.
He often spoke about how religion was a sort of "narcissism." We wanted to be the center of the universe. We wanted to be special. Science, to Sagan, was a "profoundly humbling and character-building experience" because it showed us we aren't the center of anything. We are a tiny, fragile species on a lonely planet. To many, that's depressing. To Sagan, it was a call to action. It meant we had to be kinder to one another because there was no one else coming to save us from ourselves.
The Misconception of the "Angry Scientist"
A lot of modern "New Atheists" can be, well, kind of jerks. They like to mock. They like to belittle. Sagan wasn't like that. He had this deep, almost spiritual respect for the impulse toward religion. He understood that people crave meaning. He just thought science provided a better, more reliable version of that "numinous" feeling.
He used that word a lot: Numinous.
It’s that feeling you get when you look up at a dark sky in the middle of nowhere and realize just how big it all is. For Sagan, that was his religion. He didn't need a book written thousands of years ago to feel awe. He just needed a telescope. He felt that the wonders of nature—the way DNA replicates, the way stars cook heavy elements in their cores—were far more miraculous than any "revealed" religious miracle.
The Flatland Analogy
Sagan was a fan of the book Flatland, and he used it to explain his stance on higher dimensions and, by extension, higher powers. If a 3D object passes through a 2D world, the 2D "Flatlanders" would see something incomprehensible. They’d see a shape changing size and appearing out of thin air.
He was humble enough to admit that we might be the Flatlanders.
Maybe there is a higher intelligence or a deeper layer to reality that we simply aren't evolved enough to perceive yet. But—and this is the big "but" that defined Carl Sagan on God—he refused to assume it was true just because it felt good. He wanted proof. Until the data came in, he was staying in the "undecided" column.
Spirituality Without Superstition
In his final book, The Demon-Haunted World, which honestly should be required reading for every human being alive, Sagan laid out his "Baloney Detection Kit." It was a set of tools for skeptical thinking. He was worried that as the world became more complex, people would retreat into superstition and "pseudoscience" because they were scared.
He saw religion as part of that retreat.
But he never called for the end of spirituality. He just wanted a "science-based spirituality." He thought that realizing we are part of a 13.8-billion-year-old cosmic story was more "spiritual" than any myth. We are the way the cosmos knows itself. That’s a Sagan line that still gives people chills. It’s a way of finding belonging in the universe without needing a supernatural father figure.
The Religious Reaction to Sagan
Surprisingly, not all religious thinkers hated him.
While some fundamentalists certainly weren't fans of his evolutionary teachings, many liberal theologians found him refreshing. He wasn't trying to destroy their faith; he was trying to challenge it to be bigger. He wanted a religion that was "consistent with the facts." He once mused that a religion that looked at the universe through modern telescopes and said, "Our God is even greater than we imagined," would be a religion he could respect.
He didn't find many that did that. Most, he felt, were stuck in the Bronze Age, defending a tiny, provincial view of the creator.
His Personal Life and the "Deathbed" Myths
When Sagan was dying of myelodysplasia in 1996, the vultures started circling.
There were rumors, as there often are with famous skeptics, that he had a "deathbed conversion." People wanted to believe that when the end was near, he finally folded and prayed to God. His wife, Ann Druyan, has been incredibly clear about this: it didn't happen.
She famously said that there was "no deathbed conversion. No last-minute return to a comforting faith." They looked at each other, they knew they were saying goodbye to the only life they would ever have, and they found that realization beautiful. They didn't need the "illusion" of a reunion in heaven to make their love meaningful. To them, the fact that their love existed at all in such a vast, indifferent universe was the miracle.
How to Apply Sagan’s Perspective Today
If you’re looking for a way to navigate the "God" question in the 21st century, Sagan’s approach is actually a pretty solid roadmap. It’s not about being a cynical "hater" of religion, and it’s not about blindly following dogma. It’s about "skeptical wonder."
Here is how you can actually use the Carl Sagan on God philosophy in your own life:
- Embrace the "I Don't Know": It is okay to not have an answer. In fact, it’s the most honest position you can take. You don't have to choose between "angry atheist" and "devout believer." You can just be an observer.
- Audit Your "Baloney": Use Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. When someone makes a claim—religious, political, or otherwise—ask for the evidence. If the evidence isn't there, you are under no obligation to believe it.
- Find Awe in the Real World: You don't need a temple to feel small and connected. Go to a planetarium. Read about the James Webb Space Telescope's latest discoveries. Look at a cell under a microscope. The "real" world is plenty weird and beautiful on its own.
- Center Your Ethics on People, Not Deities: Sagan believed that because there is no divine intervention coming to save us, we are responsible for each other. If you want to be a "good person," do it because it helps your fellow "star stuff" survivors, not because you're angling for a reward in the afterlife.
Sagan’s legacy isn't one of disbelief, but of a higher standard for belief. He wanted us to stop being satisfied with easy answers. He wanted us to look at the dark, vast, terrifying, and gorgeous universe and have the courage to see it for what it actually is, rather than what we wish it to be.
That might be the most "religious" act a human can perform.
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To really get into the weeds of his thinking, grab a copy of The Variety of Scientific Experience. It’s basically the transcript of his deep-dive into theology, and it’s arguably the most lucid thing ever written on the intersection of faith and the stars. It won't give you a simple answer, but it'll definitely make you ask better questions. No "billions and billions" required. Just one man, a lot of curiosity, and a refusal to blink.