I grew up with Cosmos. Looking at the pictures as a small child, then reading it and coming back to it as a young adult.

I think it had a definite effect. Not that I was inoculated against religion in a bullshit sort of way, but rather the opposite. The sense of wonder and awe at the universe we live in, and faith (as well as wonder and awe) in the human potential and striving to understand it has strongly informed my practice of Buddhism.

The text's warning about the tendency of religious political structures to stifle that potential has only helped me to diligently maintain that inquisitive, investigative, and above all open and curious, mindset that so many people who say that they believe in science have abandoned a long time ago, if indeed they ever had it at all.

Get "Pale Blue Dot" too, its an update of sorts.

Oh and how sad.. the google ad for this was http://www.quantumjumping.com/lp/supernatural

i had a small collection of carl sagan's books since around age 10-11, cosmos included. this was after watching the cosmos series as a child through the years (my dad was always watching documentaries). i grew up with him; he's like a mentor to me