I actually find something about attitudes like Sagan's to be very abrasive. Sure, I can understand their point that we're insignificant compared to the rest of the universe, but I can't get over the feeling of "so what?" I mean, we're not galaxy-striding colossi. We can't compare ourselves to the entire rest of the universe, whether it's to self-aggrandize or foster a feeling of humility and understanding, because everything that we are becomes moot. Trying to put some "grand perspective" on things that makes everyone seem absolutely insignificant isn't going to do anyone any good because it removes the very concept of good and bad. For example, when Sagan mentions war and suffering -- "think of the endless cruelties visited by one corner of this pixel on the scarcely-distinguishable inhabitants on some other corner." Well, my question is, by your perspective, who gives a damn? Sagan seems to assume that removing all concept of relative meaning to our lives will humble us and make us want to work together, but if none of what we do really matters any in the long-term perspective of the cosmos, why not spill "endless rivers of blood?" People may call you evil, but hell, in the long run, you're just a momentary master of a fraction of a dot; you're not evil, you're too insignificant to be evil. You're no more evil than one colony of ants taking over another, or a group of microbes eating another. Why should anybody be bothered by what you do on your corner of a tiny, insignificant dot in space?

It's a dangerously amoral position.