Sermon: Carl Sagan and Voyager

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Carl Sagan and Voyager 

Don Ruhl • Savage Street, Grants Pass, Oregon • August 24, In the year of our Lord, 2014

Scripture Reader and Reading: Dan Calvert – Genesis 1.26–28

Prelude: 

1. Carl Sagan used to host the television show Cosmos. 
   1. Why did he not call the show, “Chaos”?
   2. That more closely resembles the thinking of an evolutionist.
2. Some years back, he wrote an article, “The Triumph Of Voyager” (Parade Magazine, November 26, 1989, pages 4–8). 
   1. Carl Sagan did not attack Christianity the way the new atheists are,
   2. yet, he was an evolutionist at heart and led many away from the faith.

Persuasion: 

1. The Hopelessness of an Evolutionist 
   1. Ultimately, the hope of an evolutionist is no hope.
      1. When they die,
         1. they believe that they cease to exist, and
         2. they do not believe that they shall come back in a resurrection.
      2. They also believe that ultimately this universe shall
         1. implode,
         2. die, or
         3. otherwise go into oblivion.
   2. Listen to his hopelessness leak out in the middle of a sentence,

      “…what our species has accomplished in the peaceful exploration of the Solar System is nothing short of mythic and may, in the long run—provided we do not contrive to destroy ourselves first—turn out to be the path to the next stage of human history” (Page 4).

      1. The evolutionist sees the destiny of humanity
      2. in the hands of humanity, because
         1. they do not believe in divinity.
         2. Hence, they cannot see the possibility.
      3. The evolutionist has an uncertain future.
   3. This is how he ended the article,

      “In 5 billion years, everyone we know and love will be gone, all humans will have become extinct or evolved into other beings, no human artifacts will remain on Earth, the continents will have been unrecognizably altered or destroyed, and the Earth itself will have been reduced by the evolution of the Sun to a charred cinder” (Page 8).

   4. Man does deteriorate
      1. himself and
      2. his world.
         1. However, the evolutionist can only despair.
         2. He looks to other worlds for something,
            1. realizing the answers do not lie here.
            2. The answers do lie elsewhere, but
               1. while on Earth we can find those answers
               2. without leaving the Earth.
   5. Why should potential self-destruction frighten Sagan?
      1. Evolutionists tell us that man improves with every generation.
      2. Isn’t destruction of others an expression of “survival of the fittest”?
   6. The Christian has hope after the Earth disappears.
      1. Second Peter 3 prophesies
         1. that the Creator shall destroy the Earth,
         2. although man thinks he himself has the ability, and
            1. this passage shows what the evolutionists willfully forget,
            2. although the evidence surrounds them,
               
               5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2Pe 3.5–7).

               10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up (2Pe 3.10).
               

      2. Christians shall be spared destruction and
         1. ushered into eternal life, and
         2. evolutionists or anyone else,
            1. can have the same hope,
            2. if they turn to Jesus the Creator.
2. The Brilliance of Design (quote II, page 5)
   
   “But because of the brilliance of the engineering design—and the fact that the JPL engineers who tell the spacecraft what to do are getting smarter faster than the spacecraft is deteriorating—both Voyagers are still radioing data back to Earth.”
   
   1. Who can deny the brilliance of
      1. the technological advances that produced Voyager?
      2. The creation of such devices
         1. did not happen by accident,
         2. nor did they come from an explosion.
            1. No, the Voyagers did not just happen, but
               1. brilliant minds built upon the work of
               2. former generations and contemporary colleagues.
            2. The designing of these designers boggles the mind.
   2. However, which is greater:
      1. The brilliant engineering design of voyager? Or,
      2. the brilliant engineering design of the designers of voyager?
   3. Voyager, though marvelous,
      1. is a creation of man, and
      2. man as a design far surpasses the Voyagers.
         1. Does it make sense
            1. to conclude that the superior of the two
            2. evolved from an accidental explosion, or inflation as they call it?
         2. Which one is the fairy tale:
            1. A princess kissing a frog and immediately turning it into a prince?
            2. Or, a frog turning into a prince after millions of years?
               1. I believe they are both fairy tales.
               2. Time is the main difference between the two;
                  1. time is Carl Sagan’s, and
                  2. other evolutionist’s miracle.
   4. If you want to know something brilliant, consider these passages,
      
      4 For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God (Heb 3.4).

      3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Heb 11.3).
      

3. Some Ingredients of Life (quote III, page 5)
   
   “The Voyagers also have found evidence of the first stirrings and intimations of life—a rich and diverse organic chemistry, but not life itself.”
   
   1. Shall life evolve on Neptune?
      1. Let us assume that the impossible happens,
         1. what shall the first life eat?
         2. How shall it survive until it’s digestive system develops?
      2. Assuming it quickly develops a digestive system,
         1. how shall it reproduce?
         2. You see, life,
            1. regardless of its small size,
            2. is not simple.
   2. Finding some ingredients is not significant.
      1. God used the earth to create all life,
         
         11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (Gen 1.11–12).

         24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so (Gen 1.24).

         7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Gen 2.7).
         

      2. If we find
         1. sugar,
         2. flour,
         3. water,
         4. eggs,
         5. baking powder, and
         6. other ingredients,
            1. shall they form themselves into a cake?
            2. If that sounds ridiculous, then how does life creating itself sound?
   3. Barry Commoner, a biologist from Queens College, observed,

      “Only cells are capable of replicating themselves. If something is self-replicating, its got to be able to do it by itself, with no clever biochemist standing on the sidelines helping it along” (“The Search for Life’s Origins—and a First ‘Synthetic Cell,’” Smithsonian, June, 1984, by Paul Trachtman, page 50). (emphasis in original).

4. A Whale of a Universe (quote IV, pages 7–8)
   
   “It was known from the start that both Voyager spacecraft would leave the Solar System, that they were destined to wander forever in the dark between the stars. So NASA invited a group of us to design a message to be affixed to the side of the spacecraft, a message intended for any interstellar spacefaring civilizations that might one day encounter Voyager. As each Voyager left Earth for the planets and the stars, it carried along with it a golden phonograph record encased in a golden, mirrored jacket containing, among other things: greetings in 55 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby’s cry and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; 118 pictures, digitally encoded, on our science, our civilization and ourselves; and 90 minutes of the Earth’s greatest hits—Eastern and Western, classical and folk, including a Navajo night chant, a Pygmy girl’s initiation song, a Peruvian wedding song, a Japanese shakuhachi piece, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, and Chuck Berry singing ‘Johnny B. Goode.’”
   
   1. I knew we had a whale of a universe, but
      1. do they expect the Voyagers to meet a whale flying a spacecraft?
      2. Shall the Voyagers crash into an ocean
         1. without much damage
         2. so an unintelligent whale can play the record
         3. on a phonograph the whale does not possess?
            1. Hey, whales download their music now.
            2. They are into mp3s.
               1. Perhaps Sagan just wants space aliens to know
               2. what sounds a whale makes.
   2. Here is what evolutionists miss.
      1. Man can communicate with life outside the Earth.
      2. We call it prayer.
         1. The only thing that keeps this line of communication
         2. from not working is sin.
            
            18 If I regard iniquity in my heart,
            The Lord will not hear.
            (Psa 66.18)

            1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
            That it cannot save;
            Nor His ear heavy,
            That it cannot hear.
            2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
            And your sins have hidden His face from you,
            So that He will not hear.
            (Isa 59.1–2)

            31 “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him” (John 9.31).
            

5. Space Exploration 
   1. The space program has benefited mankind in many ways.
   2. However, the space program is not everything, because
      1. space is not everything.
      2. The more we look into space and go into space,
         1. the more we see the truth of Psalm 19,
            
            1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
            And the firmament shows His handiwork.
            (Psa 19.1)
            
         2. And the more we see the truth of Psalm 115,
            
            16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s;
            But the earth He has given to the children of men.
            (Psa 115.16)
            
            1. We think that we shall find the answers in space, but
            2. Earth is our home, and
               1. as long as we are in the flesh,
               2. Earth shall always be our home, because
                  1. our searching of space
                  2. shows it to be a very hostile place.
   3. However