I watched Cosmos on my teens, late at night (actually, past midnight on Fridays, which made my early Saturday classes painful, but that's another story) on a TV station not particularly known for their love of science or reality. A couple posts back, there was a discussion opposing science and religion. Both are quests for ultimate truths opposed only by the methods of their search.

When I look deep in the sky, when I contemplate the mindboggingly vast emptiness punctuated by countless whirlpools of countless stars being violently born and evolving during the ages to their fiery (or cold) deaths, of which we only see an infinitesimal fraction, or the extremely small and quick, the things we cannot see, that we can barely measure and that are so faint that border non-existence, or the irrelevance of existence of pure math, it it's impossible not to feel the same deep wonder that's associated with religious experience. Science is humbling.

I do not envy the religious (or those who call themselves such) for they take a shortcut into a comforting notion of their Truth when it's not the destination that matters - it's the quest. I hope this new Cosmos puts more kids like me on the right path.

Here are Sagan's own words about how cannabis use has increased his own love and empathy for others:

"The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down." [...]

"The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I’ve had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds." [...]

"I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for."

source: http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/

It's rare with or without drugs, let's be honest. I've known lots of stoners and they didn't seem particularly empathetic.

I don't think Mr. Rogers ever smoked weed, and he's the best example other than Sagan of a TV personality that projected a lot of love and empathy for the audience.