When You Make The Finding Yourself -

We Live At A Moment When Our Relationships To Each Other, And To All Other Beings With Whom We Share This Planet, Are Up For Grabs.

Who Is More Humble? The Scientist Who Looks At The Universe With An Open Mind And Accepts Whatever The Universe Has To Teach Us, Or Somebody Who Says Everything In This Book Must Be Considered The Literal Truth And Never Mind The Fallibility Of All The Human Beings Involved?

The Vast Distances That Separate The Stars Are Providential. Beings And Worlds Are Quarantined From One Another. The Quarantine Is Lifted Only For Those With Sufficient Self-knowledge And Judgment To Have Safely Traveled From Star To Star.

My Deeply Held Belief Is That If A God Of Anything Like The Traditional Sort Exists, Our Curiosity And Intelligence Are Provided By Such A God. We Would Be Unappreciative Of Those Gifts (as Well As Unable To Take Such A Course Of Action) If We Suppressed Our Passion To Explore The Universe And Ourselves. On The Other Hand, If Such A Traditional God Does Not Exist, Our Curiosity And Our Intelligence Are The Essential Tools For Managing Our Survival. In Either Case, The Enterprise Of Knowledge Is Consistent With Both Science And Religion, And Is Essential For The Welfare Of The Human Species.

When You Buy A Used Car, You Kick The Tires, You Look At The Odometer, You Open Up The Hood. If You Do Not Feel Yourself An Expert In Automobile Engines, You Bring A Friend Who Is. And You Do This With Something As Unimportant As An Automobile. But On The Issues Of The Transcendent, Of Ethics, Of Morals, Of The Origins Of The World, Of The Nature Of Human Beings, On Those Issues Should We Not Insist Upon At Least Equally Skeptical Scrutiny?