I don’t think it would be a good idea to take a Carl Sagan quote and add a ‘substitute “God” for “nature”’ postscript. I don’t think this is a good idea either.
Talib Kweli is nonreligious, so I’m not changing the meaning of the quotation. “God” is often used poetically. Example:
“Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.”
Albert Einstein
Even if Kweli were religious the point would not be to put words in his mouth, but to reapply a beautiful quotation to another context where it is meaningful.
reapplying it to another context changes the meaning. because of einstein’s explicitly stated opinions on the meaning of God (and the Lord), we can understand his meaning to be synonymous with that of nature and its order.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. ” − 1936
Talib Kweli, on the other hand, hasn’t given us a clear opinion of his thoughts on the term God. There is no evidence for us to assume that the meaning he gives to the term God would fit in the context of this quote.
-- Talib Kweli (substitute “nature” for “God”)
I don’t think it would be a good idea to take a Carl Sagan quote and add a ‘substitute “God” for “nature”’ postscript. I don’t think this is a good idea either.
Talib Kweli is nonreligious, so I’m not changing the meaning of the quotation. “God” is often used poetically. Example:
Albert Einstein
Even if Kweli were religious the point would not be to put words in his mouth, but to reapply a beautiful quotation to another context where it is meaningful.
reapplying it to another context changes the meaning. because of einstein’s explicitly stated opinions on the meaning of God (and the Lord), we can understand his meaning to be synonymous with that of nature and its order.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. ” − 1936
Talib Kweli, on the other hand, hasn’t given us a clear opinion of his thoughts on the term God. There is no evidence for us to assume that the meaning he gives to the term God would fit in the context of this quote.