"...ethically and morally its foundations are one of an all powerful God who created humanity simply to indulge his misanthropic jealousy"

One of the major flaws of Christianity is the contradiction between the loving, benevolent God presented by those with faith and the reality we see around us every day, where human suffering is ubiquitous, where lies and deceit are part and parcel of everyday life, so much so we don't even consider them most of the time. I don't know why the misanthropic God of a group of desert tribespeople has become so popular, but the core ethics and morality of the various abrahamic religions do have a source.

If we take Christ's teaching of compassion and love as being the real core of Christianity, we can also recognise these concepts in many disparate religious philosophies. They are universal, deeply held values held by people regardless of their religious beliefs. Tolerance, compassion, altruism and love are an integral part of the human condition and not some God-given gift we previously lacked. We evolved to be like this.

Sagan knew this, and he understood we don't need a god to understand the preciousness and beauty of all life and the universe of which we are a conscious part of. This is way more profound than any story imagined by man, and all these religions catechisms, teachings and shallow attempts to impose rule are crude attempts to codify and explain this deep, wondrous and scientifically explicable core of our very being. That we don't recognise how incredible that is and fail to reach our potential and understand the innate beauty of everything is one of our most problematical flaws as a species.

We are the universe made conscious, curious, enquiring and intelligent, contemplating it's own nature and origin and that is true profundity.