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title: "Carl Sagan on The problem of evil"
description: "Sagan saw the suffering and indifference of the natural world as incompatible with a benevolent creator."
canonical: https://opendoubt.com/people/carl-sagan/on/problem-of-evil
source: html
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# Carl Sagan on The problem of evil

> Sagan saw the suffering and indifference of the natural world as incompatible with a benevolent creator.

Position

# Carl Sagan on _The problem of evil_

Argues againstAstronomer and science communicator

Sagan saw the suffering and indifference of the natural world as incompatible with a benevolent creator.

Sagan did not frame the problem of evil in the language of formal philosophy, but the argument pervades his work. His description of the cosmos — its immensity, its age, its overwhelming hostility to life — is implicitly a challenge to any claim that the universe was created by a being who cares about human welfare. A universe of a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars, most of them surrounded by dead worlds — this is not the work of a God who is centrally concerned with one species on one planet.

He was particularly moved by the problem of natural evil — suffering caused not by human choice but by the indifferent operation of natural forces. Earthquakes, diseases, predation, and the vast stretches of evolutionary time during which sentient creatures suffered without purpose or meaning all pointed, in Sagan's view, to a universe without a benevolent designer.

Sagan's alternative was not despair but wonder. He argued that the universe's indifference makes our kindness more precious, not less. If no one is watching over us, then our care for each other is not obedience to a command but a genuine achievement — perhaps the most remarkable thing in the known cosmos.

Key quotes

> “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.”

> “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Continue exploring

[

Carl Sagan

Full profile — positions, quotes, and key moments.

](/people/carl-sagan)[

The problem of evil

The full argument — stated fairly, then answered.

](/arguments/problem-of-evil)

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