In a recent post on Lifehacker, as part of their series on people's productivity tips, was a set of 'tips' from Carl Sagan; notwithstanding that he is long dead. So I guess there's a bit of a paean to the famous scientism-ist in that.
But two of his tips collided with each other:
"Scrutinise your own beliefs" and "Remember your place in the Universe"
The latter is a belief and Sagan's notion of placeness is a direct
outgrowth of his materialism. His dictum amounts to saying that we are
just dust so nothing is of
true value...indeed that statement itself has no value in Sagan's
world as he dumbly excludes himself from his own epistemology. But it also means that the notions of 'belief' and 'scrutinise'
collapse into the same self-important dust.
Another self-refuting puff from a materialist! Must we give these people air time when by their own world-view nothing is important, only momentarily diverting.
