SOURCE: "Science and the Sacred Cosmos: The Ideological Rhetoric of Carl Sagan," in Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 71, No. 2, May, 1985, pp. 175-87.

In the following essay, Lessl examines elements of religious discourse and rhetoric in Sagan's television program Cosmos. According to Lessl, Sagan's Cosmos provides "a mythic understanding of science which serves for television audiences the same needs that religious discourse has traditionally satisfied for churchgoers."

A bomb outrage to have any influence on public opinion now must go beyond the intention of vengeance or terrorism. It must be purely destructive…. You anarchists should make it clear that you are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of the whole social creation. But how to get that appallingly absurd notion into the heads of the middle classes so that there should be no mistake? That's the question…. A bomb in the National Gallery would make some noise. But...