!38Andromeda

In April of 1997, with the approach of the Hale Bopp comet, 41 members of the Heaven’s Gate Religious Cult took their own lives in San Diego, California. This group believed that a space ship following the comet was their means of transport to a higher spiritual level and that suicide would bring them to that ship…they went the way of the Dodos! The first image is a NASA photo composite of the earth at night showing the lighted, heavily populated areas. The second image is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). It is our closest neighbor, some 800 thousand light years away. We are in the Milky Way Galaxy. Andromeda contains somewhere around 300 billion stars. The third image is the wondrous Omega Star Factory Nebula (M17). The last photo is a full moon taken from our backyard...or should I have said the Universe is our backyard! Just think, there are more than a billion, billion galaxies.

Don't you think the probabilities are such that it is foolish for man to continue to be in denial of 1) the eventuality of his own extinction, 2) the existence of other intelligent life in the universe, 3) the basic right of women to choose what happens to their own bodies, and 4) the fact that we are the root cause of the cruelest condition of all, overpopulation.

Andromeda’s Denial

                  Imagination’d e’er defy,
                  An Answer, still, we’d ne’er deny;
                  We’re not alone, just stargaze high,
                  At countless Souls, who occupy,
                  Those Planets bright across the Sky,
                  In Galaxies that pass us by;
                  Too numerous to quantify!

                  Clear, stellar Nights would let us be,
                  With Constellations, Nebulae,
                  Near Solar Systems, heavenly;
                  Grand starry Voids, we could agree,
                  Set Asteroids and Comets, free;
                  Blue Harvest Moons in Perigee,
                  Black Holes, Quasars, Infinity!

                  Whene’er you feel such Self-import,
                  Of Right to Life, do not abort;
                  Or Man, indeed, will come up short,
                  With no one left to guard the Fort;
                  One final Act; our last Resort,
                  To Outer Space, let’s teleport,
                  All surplus Folks, we’d dare export!

Click On Image To Return To Contents Page