a time has come
where we are reaching the end of a cycle
and the intelligent civilized advanced
thoughtful caring knowledgeable
compassionate
human being is facing a future
a door is being opened for them
to an infinite reality out there
and we have got to be prepared to go
through that door
and we're not ready yet nasa decided
just a few short years ago from
estimates estimates mind you
that there are 400 billion
stars in our galaxy alone
now you know what our galaxy's like that
big spinning wheel looks like a lot the
andromeda galaxy beyond that they
said that they roughly have an estimate
that there are 400
billion galaxies in the known universe
and i'd like to say share with you that
the only people i know who can deal with
those kind of numbers are the guys that
deal with our national
debt the budgetary people back in
washington
but beyond those two figures of 400
billion stars and 400 billion galaxies
they have said
at the modest minimum we estimate
that there are probably a hundred
million planets with intelligent life
out there and now
think about it for a moment when when i
have my slide show and i
there won't be time here today maybe
some other time to while this conference
is on
i have photographs that are literally
stunning
mind-boggling photographs taken through
the great telescopes
of those galaxies and those stars
hundred million planets with intelligent
life
how many of those are well beyond us can
you imagine what a planet with
intelligence
that's a thousand a hundred thousand a
million years ahead of us
in science that we would think of them
as gods would we not
if they come here and show themselves
and interrelate with us
our ancestors did they call them gods
and those guys out there aren't really
wanting that they don't want us to look
upon them as gods
they want us to look upon them as fellow
citizens you know vast vast community of
life
now we're going to have to be prepared
to go through that door that's being
opened for us
and what i'd like to point out to you is
we're going to go through that door
together one people
from one planet with one future
or we're not going to go through that
door at all
we are all the same it doesn't depend
what color we are it doesn't make any
difference what church we go to
it doesn't depend in any way on what
language we speak
every human being on this planet
is an immortal life form and we're going
to have to reach that understanding
the garbage and the savagery and
yugoslavia of the ethnic cleansing has
got to stop
the famines have got to stop there's
enough food on this planet to feed
everybody
we have got to reorder our lives
so that we can take our place and go
through that door
and become members of that infinite vast
community of intelligent
life now that's my personal view
i would like to close by quoting a view
from
one of my great great teachers one of
the
people i admired the most as a great
writer
count leo leo tolstoy some years back
he repeatedly made clear this is one of
his basic
beliefs that there is something in the
human spirit that will survive and
prevail that there is a light that will
not go out
no matter how dark the world becomes
i believe that to be so i know that to
be the case
i'm glad to share that statement from
leo tolstoy with you
and tell you that that is my view as
well and i have a nagging suspicion that
it's the same view of everybody in this
room