Thanks Nard! You too B-Two, I will check that out sometime. I haven't conversed with you lately, hope your well and all is going good. Chapter has certainly been a lurker lately, I miss his witty poetic posts. Nicely spaced question marks Grass, why 41 of them. TELL ME NOW! Oops, did I write that out loud?????????????????????????????????????????

Sorry for the double post, I didn't think the first one took and it started downloading something I feared may have been from large sheep boy with spinning tassles!

Robot Lincoln:

Thanking God is a good thing.
But why are you thanking Him?

Since you were raised a Roman Catholic (I have as well)..let's clear-up a few things:

(A) Your description of heaven does not exist in scripture, except for the 'perfection' part. Christ did say, "You must be as perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
(B) You are demanded in scripture to know the mind of God...or die. Put another way, you are already dead until you know it. Remember the old Roman Catholic 'catechism'? It reads, in part:

Why am I here?

I am here to "know" love and serve God in this world, in order to be happy with him in the next." (I put emphasis on the "know" part.)

(C) God is behind it all. In the Old Testament, in Genesis, it says, God spoke the entire universe into being.
In the New Testament, in John, first chapter, it says that everything that there is, both seen and unseen, was all created only thru the character, the passion, the Spirit, the personality, and person of Jesus Christ... and without the presence of Christ, there would be absolutely nothing.

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I don't want to go on further because I need to re-stress and repeat this one thing: The mind of God is accessible! Scripture explains that God is fully present and understandable thru the character, spirit, personality and mind of Jesus Christ. This is possible because Christ is the prism thru which we see God. Otherwise, yes, we would be consumed.

Ray Bradbury is, at best, hazy on all this. Mr. Electrico, whoever the man really was, turned a young Bradbury's ideas towards re-incarnation. Oh Yes, 'Live Forever' was already in Ray's heart, set there by God! As long as Ray is alive, God is not finished with Ray. Just why doesn't God "zAp" Ray with the Holy Spirit like he did others, for instance, author C.S. Lewis? Hmm?!! Maybe that's what's upcoming soon...

I respect your view Nard. I think what B-Two said was equally profound in that no two views are ever the same. I probably shouldn't have used that example as it was tinged with negativity. I beleive you can know/feel God or the Universal Mind or whatever you may want to call Him, however I do not beleive that you can know the inner processes involved in His creations or that you can really beleive that this is the only world that He created. That is unfathomable from where I stand. One of my favorite Hubble pictures is the one where they pointed it at a point in the sky which amounts to a grain of sand held at arms length. The astronomers at Nasa purposefully chose a spot void of known galaxies. They opened the lens on the scope for something like twenty hours, what they got in return astounded them by the richness of countless galaxies. Each galaxy in the known universe contains billions of stars with more than likely some of those stars containing planets with life. Can you really claim to know the purpose of the Mind that brought that into being? That said, I do not beleive your wrong in your views, but I also do not think Ray is wrong in his, or a Budda, Jew, Native American, or any other religion. I think they are all right as long as the foundation is Love. I think we are all gods too in our own way because we have the capacity to love and to create. I think its all a wheel within a wheel, a mystery within a mystery. And I thank God for it all.

Robot Lincoln:

Okay! I see where this is all going.
So I stop right here!

These views aren't my own. Basic scripture tells of things far, far more imaginative, far far more incredible than any human brain can figure out, or any writer in history has ever discovered with pen. Do you think God would bother to display words that profoundly gifted writers would exceed with greater insightful declarations? That is NOT the definition of God. You 'cannot' out-think scripture.

A dreadful sinner I will be to the very day of dying. 'I' cannnot, never will, impossible to ever know...am a fool to think 'I' can ever...know the mind of God!

But it CAN happen...when the mind of Christ is fully considered.

Most of my life it has taken to figure that one out. Wasted years!

NOT thru MY rational.

Have you not known that Christ suffered for sinners such as myself? That Christ "exchanges" His mind for my sinful mind? Thru the centuries it has been called the Great Exchange!

Christ turns your mind ON!

Your brain activates into super-drive.

For moments here, moments there, for long breaths here, longer breaths there, you SEEEEEEEEEEEE! And what you see is ...LIFE!

In Christ....I am becoming humane and genuine. I attain compassion that is NOT in me. I ascertain Love and display it even tho it cannot be found in me. I discover strength against lust. And that strength has to be given to me as a gift. Tho I struggle against lust, the struggle is too a gift, otherwise I would be overcome continually.

Outside of Christ, I am a babbling philosopher marveling at all the paths that certainly point to God...an unrepentent conjecturer of things I have come to consider important real life ...an open minded theologian who says he has plummeted the depths of the soul and has discovered the untold wisdom found there; an astronomer whose wonder of the cosmos is displayed for all to see like the night stars themselves, and finds in himself traits of those endless possibilities in man's quests, while entertaining with all his energy the vast venues of every impossibility as mankind's inherent right.

There is a word in scripture for all these things just described:

Vanity. Vanity. All is Vanity!




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[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 09-09-2006).]

That was beautiful! Thats closer to what I think too, seems like a lot more humility as well.

By the way, I'm an amateur astronomer. 12.5" Dob, 8" Meade LX200, and 3" refractor. I never cease to be amazed by it all, not just the stars, everything. What kind of scope do you have if any? Sometimes I like to just sit in the chair and gaze naked eye at the splender of the stars and the Milky Way, with maybe a meteor or two crossing it.

Thanks Nard.

[This message has been edited by Robot Lincoln (edited 09-09-2006).]

Robot Lincoln:

You've got a great reflecting telescope size. Even the 3" refractor is no slouch. Nope, no telescope of mine at this time, tho I did buy my daughter a 3" inch Meade refractor with extra Celestron eyepieces couple years ago.

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Sometimes, when the mood is just right, the air has that special "earth-is-showing-its- face-to-the-stars" feel to it, I let wander my eyes amongst the universe. I watch the stars for a long, long while, waiting for that realization about how infinite it may go on to take hold on my small imagination. And it's always all there: the uncountable stars, the uncountable galaxies. And it's almost like praying. You pray over a passage in scripture describing God, or his character, or a desire He puts in your heart thru his word, and you meditate on it long enough until something just grabs hold of you inside and you know it has become part of you...well, something like that, while looking at the stars. And then, only then, I do this: I slowly lower my eyes onto the surface of this planet, that I am standing on, while the stars catch an upper part of my vision, and I marvel that here...here is one of the planets. This is how one of them looks like...and I see perhaps the lights of the cities in the far distance, or I see on the edges of my vision activity denoting life, and if I have captured that special moment, I am fully struck with awe! The mind, well it sort of bounces inside the head, startled to suddenly perceive a sense of great mystery: what is all out there if THIS is what one of the places in space looks like with all its life...?

Best regards, RL

Well put Nard! I haven't gotten my scope out in a while. Sometimes binoculars can be a great boon to the experience of lawn chair observing. With the weather becoming crisp and lower humidity here, I am looking forward again to some serious star gazing. Some of the most profound and amazing events I have witnessed ever happened late into the early morning hours with my eyes to the heavens. I truly appreciate you sharing your insights on here.

Take it easy,

Greg

Robot Lincoln:

Tomorrow (Sep 13th)...meeting with Patrick and catching Ray at the Encino Library, just north of Los Angeles. He'll be speaking around 6PM ... Earlier in the day, at his home, people from Waukegan will be filming, for the upcoming festival in Waukegan,IL in late October.

Few more photos from Ray's collection on my redesigned website probably end of next week.
Can you believe this: Ray told me to come on over today, but I had other things pressing. That is the FIRST TIME I ever turned down such an invitation from Ray. No, come to think of it, I did once before...1972. He requested we get together for a repast after the Christmas Holidays. Instead, I made it to Chicago, and stayed there for the next 4 yrs. Ah, memories!

(envy, envy, envy...)

Braling II:

Simple!

Don't be envious. You can do it, too. Quit your job. Move out of where you are and move in to the Los Angeles area. Have a few dollars to be flexible for ahwile. Or get a part time job. See? Simple. Much simpler than, for instance, figuring out a way to go hear Charles Dickens give a lecture, or Robert Luis Stevenson read from his works. Or wait in line for an autograph from C.S. Lewis himself. Someday, however, someday...even the simple...will be...impossible!

Well, one of my sons attends USC, so, maybe when next I go down there to visit or help him move, I could get ahold of you first and work something out? Maybe?

Jes dewit, homeslizzle.

"Hi, Mr. Bradbury. I didn't have your phone number, so I wasn't sure if I would be intruding, but Grasstains said I should take a 5 hour drive and just drop in on you!"

That should work.