Carl Sagan´s Cosmos series is a joy to watch, and when possible, to enjoy for its early CGI more relaxed, relatively unhurried style. Religion-wise, however, he doesn´t realize that his presentation, and anti-theist views, ultimately make him an implicit advocate for "post-Christian" secularist Scientism ideology, though of course his explicit anti-theism is reserved for moments like his book, The Demon-haunted World and chapters led by titles like "The Dragon in My Garage."
As for the proposed metaphor, it is made in a tradition of Bertrand Russell´s 1950s teapot in orbit argument regarding proof as in the existence of God.
Those metaphors are simply falsely put. The issue is well answered by the formulation in empirical philosophy based on interdisciplinary sources in religious experience and the logical consistency of Aristotle´s First Cause argument, and its Christian forms. Christian philosopher WL Craig makes a powerful updated Kalam Cosmological Argument based on the initial premise that "Anything that exists has a cause." The Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha, usually known for avoiding issues related to reasoning about theism, perceived and taught that "the spirit dominates all existence through the Law that Guides all beings to enlightenment" and the "sphere of the unborn, unconditioned, and uncreated that makes liberation possible." I take the logical step then that God is a facet of the Universe, its transcendent /Creator-Source and ongoing Providence. Mircea Eliade referred to hierophany, meaning the perception of the Sacred. Below, more aspects of the spiritual-religious knowledge domain are mentioned.
Scholar J Hoffman´s metaphor makes it simple in the context of a supermarket metaphor. Supermarkets, and food labels for that matter, are a subculture through which certain messages have contributed in some or many cases to a consumer mentality that people get food from the supermarket. "Supermarkets don´t mean that farmers don´t exist." I propose taking that to mean in its metaphor that "Supermarkets exist because farmers grow food in ecosystems and supply the supermarkets, and forgetting the farmers´ role is a mistake." The analogy is a good one since it leads to the importance of relations, since consumer awareness is related to the importance of farmer support policies, ecologically sound practices, the co-operative business model and farmer associations, and the problem of profiteering agribusiness. Sagan´s own concern with human "self-destruction" itself failed to recognize the role of religion building an ethical community, with Christianity´s own examples highlighted by Gandhi´s spritual activism as an interfaith Hindu who not only researched Jesus and Christian dissidents, but Jainism and its ahimsa non-violence.
God isn´t like a dragon in a garage, or a teapot in orbit, God is like a farmer association that supplies a supermarket´s food.
Sagan´s presentation in the episode Traveller´s Tales present a survey of adventurous navigation through history. He starts his historical navigational segment by referring to a Phoenician who sailed for Egypt around the southernmost tip of Africa. As unaware as Sagan is of his metaphysical-religious faith in Science above all, he engages in the Scientism conceit of ignoring religious issues. The Phoenicians apparently were Canaanites, with the name coming from the Greek Phoinikes meaning "Tyre Purple" because of their dye industry for royal Mesopotamian clothing. The Phoenician ships normally had horse head adornments because of their god Yamm, the god of the sea and brother of Mot, the god of death. The 1928 excavation of Ugarit. Tablets dating to 1500 BC/BCE tell the Baal Cycle in which Prince Yamm is the "Beloved of El." In it, he is engaged in conflict with the fertility god Baal. Baal defeats Yamm and achieves supremacy over chaos and death. Yamm and Mot are not stereotyped as villains, however, in terms of the meaning of the victory.
Beyond the partial issue of explaining reality in some ways that we can now explain in secular terms, scholars MD Coogan et al point out the impacts of the relation to the divine, "The solutions of the problems of that “heavenly city” in their stories gave the Canaanites hope for the future."
This kind of cultural religious detail emerges in other episodes of Sagan´s Cosmos, but is trivialized. A full modern analysis with scientific supplement would involve correlating the medical benefits of meditation, prayer, and religious involvement as in BB Hagerty´s survey including U Miami´s Gail Ironside´s research on religion and health and N Spector´s NBC News article including NYU´s Mark Galanter´s research on prayer. Scholars like Coogan speak more in terms of the simpler but essential psychological function of religious concerns. Karen Armstrong specifically addresses the spiritual-religious psychological processes and their importance. Stanislov Grof in Transpersonal Psychology identifies the importance of such important issues as individual human experience, mystical and spiritual experience, interconnectedness of self with others and the world, and the potential of self-transformation. God is addressed in Biogenetic Structuralism by Charles Laughlin et al as "Absolute Unitary Being."
From these perspectives of Comparative Religion, the Freedom of Religion and the importance of University-based scholarship as legacy´s of Jesus Christ´s doctrinal integrity established by "Seek first the Kingdom of God/Heaven...within and among you," the Good Samaritan and the Lord´s Prayer multipack, and "Love thy neighbor as thyself" can be affirmed, along with the unified eclectic pluralism now possible in globalized and United Nations world society. Sustainability needs to overcome the remaining hypocritical unsustainable deviations from integrity.
How does your spiritual and religious search relate to these issues?
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