When intellectuals are your enemies and Jesus is a demonic straw man burning people forever for having studied nature, it says a lot about you, ignorant control freak. Apparently Sagan wasn't an atheist, but he also didn't believe in a white anthropomorphic bearded deity. So a bit like Einstein and Spinoza, closer to an agnostic or pantheist.
Imagine how unjust your straw man deity would be, if for failing to detect its presence because it's hiding behind everything, one would have to suffer forever? Does that deserve respect or worship? Did you actually read the message attributed to Jesus? Wasn't it about forgiveness and love? Hypocrite.
If your god created the Universe but didn't want humans to study it or learn about it, it could have made it completely opaque. Instead, it's like if Satan created it to deceive, with YHVH or Jesus powerless to prevent "the deception", what intellectually honest humans discover when studying the world. The scientific method is actually designed to deal with common human fallacies, to help determine what is human fantasy or real.
It makes much more sense to put things in their context and understand that the mythology you have been indoctrinated with is of human origin, modern adapted from old. And to recognize that ancient humans had a very limited understanding of the world. It's interesting that human deception is actually at play when demonizing knowledge.
It's also incredible when thinking about it, how religiosity, what used to be fear and denial of death and hope for an afterlife, then what used to be vehicle for ethics and philosophy, was adapted for authoritarian control, exploitation and human evil by some. The same with irrational superstitions used for abuse like "witch" hunts and murder of the inconvenient by an elite.
Vade retro calumniātor!