Gedol,, stripped of verbage, you’re arguing with not only the aruch hashulchan, but the rema.
Re, rav saadya; my point is that this was not part of rav saadyas mekubal writings, like the tafsir, emunos vedeos, etc…it is suspect. It is missing language – maybe more words were added – have you seen a ksav yad of the original? The bigger the claim, the bigger the evidence is needed. You’d like that line because it came from carl sagan, not chazal, so it’s not archaic and you are probably more convinced by him than rishonim kmalaachim.
You decided that you can pasken in a shailoh that can cost you your olam haba based on your own understanding and online research (be honest, you didn’t just come across these sources on your own, and neither do i).
Were this a shailoh of hilchos shabbos, would you overturn the nosei keilim because you learned the sugya with geonim and a few rishonim differently?
I forgot to mention that the mechaber also holds you can’t argue with chazal about science/history etc…when meor aynayim came out, the shulchan aruch was extremely upset, and was working on a letter to put the book in cherem due to such content, but was niftar. His talmidim reported this.
So we have the rashba, rabbeinu tam, the gra, maharal, maharsha, rema, shulchan aruch, gedolei italia who put the meor aynayim in cherem, the aruch hashulchan, the gedolei yisroel in our time who put slifkins initial denial of chazal in cherem, and many others.
But because you found an unused ke’ta of a translated rav saadya gaon and an ibn ezra, you decided to overturn this clear mesorah. You have an agenda, something is clearly driving you to embrace this ideology, and can it in any way be coming from the yatzer tov? Do you not feel the freikeit in it? Does it perhaps make you feel more comfortable doing certain things you were taught in yeshiva not to do, but have invented justifications for? Does thinking that you know better than chazal not make you feel empowered
Your tone is exactly the same as those who mock chachamim, which I’m sure also makes you chuckle…the idea of being accused of heresy is laughable only to people who are guilty of it. I’ve seen that defense mechanism over and over among this sort of self styled philosophers. Rather than consider the possibility and the risk involved, you just go further and further.