Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Newton's Sleep
wishes, is this the fault of science, or of those who would impose
their wishes on the world? All the mammals - and many other
animals as well - experience emotions: fear, lust, hope, pain, love,
hate, the need to be led. Humans may brood about the future
more, but there is nothing in our emotions unique to us. On the
other hand, no other species does science as much or as well as
we. How then can science be 'dehumanizing'?
Still, it seems so unfair: some of us starve to death before we're
out of infancy, while others - by an accident of birth - live out
their lives in opulence and splendour. We can be born into an
abusive family or a reviled ethnic group, or start out with some
deformity; we go through life with the deck stacked against us,
and then we die, and that's it? Nothing but a dreamless and
endless sleep? Where's the justice in this? This is stark and brutal
and heartless. Shouldn't we have a second chance on a level
playing field? How much better if we were born again in circumstances
that took account of how well we played our part in the
last life, no matter how stacked against us the deck was then. Or if
there were a time of judgement after we die, then - so long as we
did well with the persona we were given in this life, and were
humble and faithful and all the rest - we should be rewarded by
living joyfully until the end of time in a permanent refuge from the
agony and turmoil of the world. That's how it would be if the
world were thought out, preplanned, fair. That's how it would be
if those suffering from pain and torment were to receive the
consolation they deserve.
So societies that teach contentment with our present station
in life, in expectation of post mortem reward, tend to inoculate
themselves against revolution. Further, fear of death, which in
some respects is adaptive in the evolutionary struggle for
existence, is maladaptive in warfare. Those cultures that teach
an afterlife of bliss for heroes - or even for those who just did
what those in authority told them - might gain a competitive
advantage.
Thus, the idea of a spiritual part of our nature that survives
death, the notion of an afterlife, ought to be easy for religions and
nations to sell. This is not an issue on which we might anticipate
widespread scepticism. People will want to believe it, even if the
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