The first time I heard the name Carl Sagan was when I was listening to the album "I Scream Sunday" by a Christian punk band called One Bad Pig. They have a song called "You're a Pagan!" Here is an excerpt of the lyrics...
You´re a pagan, with a capital P
You´re a pagan, full of idolatry
You´re a pagan, that is what you be
There´s no fakin´, fry like bacon
You´re a pagan!
You´re a man whose out of shape
But before that, you were an ape?
In eons past, you were a worm
Not long before, you were a germ
Where you goin´, where you been
Your cruddy heart is full of sin
Like Charlie Darwin and Carl Sagan
You´ve evolved into a pagan!
You´re a pagan, with a capital P
You´re a pagan, full of idolatry
You´re a pagan, that is what you be
There´s no fakin´, fry like bacon
You´re a pagan!
I was reminded of this band just recently, and had to pause to note just how miseducated we were back in the good ol' days of church youth group. One Bad Pig was one of my favorite bands back in the day, and, as you can imagine, I was as anti-evolution as a person could get. Hell, I wrote an argumentative essay in an English class when I was a freshman titled, "The Fatal Flaws of Evolution." This was my primary resource:
Yes folks, that's a Chick Tract.
Not only were we miseducated in science, we were convinced that "Charlie" Darwin and Carl Sagan were gonna "fry like bacon" for advocating evolution. I had no idea who Carl Sagan was. All I knew was that my youth minister and One Bad Pig said he was one of the "bad guys" who promoted that evil thing called "evolution" and they apparently hated god, and that's all my happy little Christian mind needed.
Then I committed the greatest of all evils: I started reading. Not just the Bible, although I read that too. I started reading other books: books not written by Christians. I began to learn about guys like Darwin and Sagan. Over time, One Bad Pig and my youth minister were replaced by credible sources of knowledge. I went through a period of time - like many who find themselves at a crisis of faith - in which I loathed myself for being so blind. I wanted to go talk to Carl Sagan and apologize personally for the things I said about him in my miseducated ignorance.
I wish I could say this was a condition brought on by youthful zeal coupled with childish idealism saturated in misinformation, and with age comes wisdom, but unfortunately I cannot. I posted a "Happy Carl Sagan Day!" message on my Facebook profile, along with a link to my blog entry, Carl Sagan on Science. One of my Facebook friends - a Christian lady around my age who went to Lincoln Christian College the same time I did - was less than enthusiastic about Carl Sagan Day. Here's our conversation on Facebook:
Leave it to Focus on the Family to continue the miseducation of the masses. As if my old youth minister and One Bag Pig needed the help.
Dead-Logic.com
PS- Check out the Iron Chariots Wiki entry on the "Big Daddy" Chick Tract: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Big_daddy
