Reply #107: Yeah, context. And since when are newspaper quotes reliable...

[Deep13]

....especially when this article was written 10 years after he died? Not 10 years after the interview, mind you--we don't know when that was. Also, the writer does not claim to have conducted the interview. We also don't know for what audience Sagan was tailoring his remarks. When Cosmos first ran in 1980, Sagan never came out and said "And there's no God either." It would have been professional suicide to do so. (He DID say that God was an unnecessary explanation.) He has disclaimed belief for a supernatural god and, like Einstein, said if there were a god it would be the laws of nature. (That's not what "god" means.) His widow has also said that Carl did not believe in god or and afterlife. That is pretty much the definition of atheism. The quote in the article suggests that the definition is certainty that there is none. It isn't. It's lack of belief.