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Summary: Near-death experience !!!
Review: Of course Mr. Sagan's style is a little crabby: he was dying of cancer!This is a great book. I give it 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but foolish political opinions.
Review: Sagan has written a brilliant book about the need for scientific, rational thought. However, his left wing political advice fails to use that mode of thinking. Sagan is (was) a public intellectual, with deep knowledge of specific subjects, who presumes to offer advice in fields of which he's ignorant.
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Summary: Steady on guys...
Review: People keep getting very worked up about this book and it really isn't earth shattering stuff. So a million Americans haven't been abducted by aliens, so burning witches was wrong. I don't think we should need a scientist to tell us this. The problem with Sagan is he protests too much. First science is his religion. His insistence on using words like 'awe', 'wonder' and 'spiritual' show that science is fulfilling needs he has that others might look to religion for. This is fine. But like all other religious fundementalists he then feels that he has to go around telling everyone else they are wrong and misguided. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be totally relativist about this. I have a physics degree and agree with most of what Sagan has to say. What I find annoying is his attempts (like any other religious man) to extend his faith into areas it has no business to be - like the way private citizens choose to run their lives (from the astrology column - so what?) or our desire for wonder and meaning. Finally I must admit that I find a materialist insisting life does have meaning as being intellectually dishonest. I can't for the life of me see how a materialist can avoid being a nihilist. But this doesn't really matter when materialism becomes a faith, as it was to Sagan, because he would be the first to say that faith isn't logical at all.
Rating: 
Summary: To paraphrase Epicurus:
Review: To paraphrase Epicurus: I spit on science and all those who worship it if it does not make us happier. Sagan and all the members of the Church of the Scientific Inquisition need to justify every scientific discovery with an affirmative answer to the following: Will knowing this increase human happiness? If the answer is negative (as it clearly is for such things as the ability to manufacture bio-terrorist weapons) then let us bury that scientific discovery and be done with it. Sagan and his other scientism buddies worship science for its own sake. We need to judge everything according to whether it makes us happier or not. Once you make something other than human happiness be the criterion for what is good or bad, you have disengaged yourself from the species and are an enemy of mankind. If science helps-great! If it unleashes tools and weapons that no one can control-to the trash heap it must go!!
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: I found Mr. Sagan's book interesting and lucid. However, I think he shoots for some easy targets- astrology, alien possession, clairvoyance, and the like. Granted, these beliefs are absurd. But Mr. Sagan fails to examine the need behind the beliefs. Many people- intelligent ones included- turn to new age religion because of an inadequate understanding of science and because traditional religion has let them down. Science may stimulate the mind, but not necessarily the soul,and while science has improved our lives in many respects, I'm not so sure it has taught us how to get along with each other. Logical thinking is very important, but it is only one component of thinking- not thinking itself.
Rating:
Summary: Sagan at his finest
Review: If I could say one thing to Dr. S, it would be, "Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for writing this book." It opened my mind to all the bamboozles that I once believed and equiped me with tools for the "Fine art of Baloney Detection." I'm sure we all know many people who could use this book.
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Summary: I wish the religious would read this.
Review: Sagan carefully takes the hand of the uninformed and politely shows them the facts and let them come to their own inevitable conclusions. Those who don't argree with him decided before reading and refused to budge out of fear. Yes, fear. Fear of change, fear of loss of faith, fear of a dynamic world. Just as cavemen feared fire, this light frightens the uneducated and closed-minded. This book is as close as one can get to saying 'religion is bunk' and still get the religious, mystical, and 'new age' to read it.
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Summary: Another great Sagan's Book
Review: This is one of the best books I've ever read! If I were a teacher I would recommend it to all my students. It's a really masterpiece, wonderfully written, easy to understand, even for ordinary people without scientifical knowledgements and teaches us to think rationally avoiding supertitious and preconceaveble ideas. I'm so sorry that this great human being, writer and scientist is not anymore between us. How many other good books would we glad to read if he were alive? I strong recommend this book for everyone who loves the Truth and hates lyes, illusios and superstition!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding! A book that changed my life.
Review: If you only read a single book for the rest of your life, I urge you to choose this one. Reading it was an awakening experience for me, and it changed my whole way of looking at the world around me. It not only clearly does away with superstitious and pseudoscientific nonsense, but it equips the reader with the proper mental tools for seeing such things as they are whenever he or she might encounter them in the future. This is one of those books which makes the world a better place.
Rating:
Summary: Another masterpiece
Review: Just as any of his previous books, The Demon Haunted World is a true masterpiece, clearly demonstrating the need for a scientific understanding of the world we live in. Carl Sagan has devoted his life to enlighten mankind and to help us emerge from ignorance to realize the splendor and beauty of the Universe we live in. His books are a manifest to clear thought, rational and creative awareness of what is happening around us. He has truly changed the way I think, a great impact on my life.
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