A New Direction
By
Rick Carufel
Prologue
When I was a kid, God said, "Kid, (he always calls me kid 'cause he likes me) I want you to save the alcoholics and the Christians."
Wow, not an easy job. I stayed up late pondering this request for thousands of nights. I think I may have found an answer. I had to figure out everything in order to arrive at a solution. It cost me a lot, but I think I got a plan. This is the solution I've come up with.
Since the beginning of time, when the first hominid ate magic mushrooms (The Forbidden Fruit?) and conceived of a power greater than himself, we have been drawn to the stars.
________________________________________________
2016 May 1
The hired talent, with no more interest in the speech than a paycheck, steps up to the podium to make his presentation. He is an actor, a "B' list talent with an excellent speaking voice. The crowd fills the auditorium to capacity. Scientists, teachers, politicians, military and religious leaders, and the press all gathered to hear what has been rumored to be a ground-breaking announcement by a major U.S. Government agency.
"I come here tonight not to talk about sin or good and evil. Not to talk about guilt or belief in ancient writings that say they have a monopoly on God. I come here today to talk about Revelation. Not the revelations of the bible but revelations that will in fact change your life, here and now, revelations that will change the way you think of yourself and your fellow man. Revelations about why God put us here and what we are supposed to do with our lives."
"These revelations are simple and evident in the writings of all religions, if you but use your eyes to see."
"God did not put us here to kill each other over religious ideology, greed or monotheistic self-righteousness. God did not put us here to judge one another. God did not put us here to destroy the planet. But he did put us here for a reason and that will be revealed tonight."
"I would like to ask you to accept a few logical suppositions about the world in which we live."
"First let us suppose that Mother Earth is alive. Not too much of a leap, it has been suggested for millennium. But we are going to take that at face value. Earth is a life-form."
"Many cultures and religions believe this, with some actually teaching the earth even talks to us if we know how to listen."
"For earth to be a life-form it must meet certain criteria. One of those criteria is the ability to reproduce itself. How can a planet reproduce you may ask? That is one of the revelations."
"Mother Earth is not the planet itself, Mother Earth is the collective biosphere, life. It is the biosphere that has the ability to reproduce itself."
"Well, how could it do that?"
"It would take a specialized reproductive species with the ability to package the building blocks of life and propel them from the surface into space to fall on barren worlds."
"What could this reproductive species be?"
"The Human Race, Us. God did not create us to kill and destroy but in his likeness, to create, to spread life through the universe doing his work."
"Jesus said, 'We will build a new heaven and a new earth.' How much plainer need it be said?"
"This is why we are here in this world, this is why God put us here and this is our purpose."
"This is not a revelation of doom, of end times of fire and brimstone or judgment, this is a revelation of hope. This revelation give us a meaningful goal, a vocation in life, a fulfilling knowledge that we finally get it and are finally on the right course as a species in tune with the needs of our Mother Earth and our Farther in heaven. We now know why we are here, we know what to do. This is the meaning of life, to propagate this life beyond the confines of this world and to do God's work, to participate in the creative process that God himself has been doing since the beginning of time."
Although this discourse went on for several hours with the speaker reluctantly answering endless questions, most of which he had no answers for, that is the gist of what has been hailed as the new religion of man by most, and as the advent of the antichrist by some fundamentalist, monotheistic religious leaders. This was in actuality the launch of a government sponsored project, specifically by DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to garner support for its 100 year starship project.
This one event was a turning point in the ideology of the human race, someone had finally connected the dots and made sense of things.
Over night organizations sprang up eager to do "God's work" in any way they could. The milling masses finally had an endeavor in which to immerse themselves in, that had a positive end goal and created a sense of well-being and oneness with the creator. Crime rates plummeted, wars ground to a halt, as people finally realized what they had to do with their lives.
The first ship was assembled in orbit and launched on 2034 just 18 years after the May first speech in 2016. There was a lottery to see who got to go after all the necessary technical slots had been filled. The vessel was massive, a true ark with thousands of lifeforms and 20,000 humans. After that ships were sent out every 10 years. Eventually technology was developed that allowed the 100 year voyage to be reduced to several months.
On September 12, 2112 the first ship returned with news from a new world. With great fanfare and much pomp and circumstance the crew was welcomed home as heroes and with an unusual tale to tell. They had encountered another race in a distant star system who told them they too were doing God's work by spreading life throughout the stars. After the initial time it took to develop a way to communicate they had decided to mix their crews, since both species were similar in physiognomy and so the returning crew had brought not only new friends home but also many beneficial plants and animals from distant worlds.
As time passed new friends were found and all the space-faring species co-operated in the work to spread life across the stars. Barren worlds were found, environments engineered and species introduced.
When the asteroid hit the earth with a kill shot in 2341, it had been evacuated of most of the people and other species. Some had chosen to stay to the end. As soon as the dust cleared and the earth had stabilized, a coalition no less than 23 races showed up to begin the job of building a new earth. They had already built a new heaven.
http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Carufel/e/B004LCK4P4
By
Rick Carufel
Prologue
When I was a kid, God said, "Kid, (he always calls me kid 'cause he likes me) I want you to save the alcoholics and the Christians."
Wow, not an easy job. I stayed up late pondering this request for thousands of nights. I think I may have found an answer. I had to figure out everything in order to arrive at a solution. It cost me a lot, but I think I got a plan. This is the solution I've come up with.
Since the beginning of time, when the first hominid ate magic mushrooms (The Forbidden Fruit?) and conceived of a power greater than himself, we have been drawn to the stars.
________________________________________________
2016 May 1
The hired talent, with no more interest in the speech than a paycheck, steps up to the podium to make his presentation. He is an actor, a "B' list talent with an excellent speaking voice. The crowd fills the auditorium to capacity. Scientists, teachers, politicians, military and religious leaders, and the press all gathered to hear what has been rumored to be a ground-breaking announcement by a major U.S. Government agency.
"I come here tonight not to talk about sin or good and evil. Not to talk about guilt or belief in ancient writings that say they have a monopoly on God. I come here today to talk about Revelation. Not the revelations of the bible but revelations that will in fact change your life, here and now, revelations that will change the way you think of yourself and your fellow man. Revelations about why God put us here and what we are supposed to do with our lives."
"These revelations are simple and evident in the writings of all religions, if you but use your eyes to see."
"God did not put us here to kill each other over religious ideology, greed or monotheistic self-righteousness. God did not put us here to judge one another. God did not put us here to destroy the planet. But he did put us here for a reason and that will be revealed tonight."
"I would like to ask you to accept a few logical suppositions about the world in which we live."
"First let us suppose that Mother Earth is alive. Not too much of a leap, it has been suggested for millennium. But we are going to take that at face value. Earth is a life-form."
"Many cultures and religions believe this, with some actually teaching the earth even talks to us if we know how to listen."
"For earth to be a life-form it must meet certain criteria. One of those criteria is the ability to reproduce itself. How can a planet reproduce you may ask? That is one of the revelations."
"Mother Earth is not the planet itself, Mother Earth is the collective biosphere, life. It is the biosphere that has the ability to reproduce itself."
"Well, how could it do that?"
"It would take a specialized reproductive species with the ability to package the building blocks of life and propel them from the surface into space to fall on barren worlds."
"What could this reproductive species be?"
"The Human Race, Us. God did not create us to kill and destroy but in his likeness, to create, to spread life through the universe doing his work."
"Jesus said, 'We will build a new heaven and a new earth.' How much plainer need it be said?"
"This is why we are here in this world, this is why God put us here and this is our purpose."
"This is not a revelation of doom, of end times of fire and brimstone or judgment, this is a revelation of hope. This revelation give us a meaningful goal, a vocation in life, a fulfilling knowledge that we finally get it and are finally on the right course as a species in tune with the needs of our Mother Earth and our Farther in heaven. We now know why we are here, we know what to do. This is the meaning of life, to propagate this life beyond the confines of this world and to do God's work, to participate in the creative process that God himself has been doing since the beginning of time."
Although this discourse went on for several hours with the speaker reluctantly answering endless questions, most of which he had no answers for, that is the gist of what has been hailed as the new religion of man by most, and as the advent of the antichrist by some fundamentalist, monotheistic religious leaders. This was in actuality the launch of a government sponsored project, specifically by DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to garner support for its 100 year starship project.
This one event was a turning point in the ideology of the human race, someone had finally connected the dots and made sense of things.
Over night organizations sprang up eager to do "God's work" in any way they could. The milling masses finally had an endeavor in which to immerse themselves in, that had a positive end goal and created a sense of well-being and oneness with the creator. Crime rates plummeted, wars ground to a halt, as people finally realized what they had to do with their lives.
The first ship was assembled in orbit and launched on 2034 just 18 years after the May first speech in 2016. There was a lottery to see who got to go after all the necessary technical slots had been filled. The vessel was massive, a true ark with thousands of lifeforms and 20,000 humans. After that ships were sent out every 10 years. Eventually technology was developed that allowed the 100 year voyage to be reduced to several months.
On September 12, 2112 the first ship returned with news from a new world. With great fanfare and much pomp and circumstance the crew was welcomed home as heroes and with an unusual tale to tell. They had encountered another race in a distant star system who told them they too were doing God's work by spreading life throughout the stars. After the initial time it took to develop a way to communicate they had decided to mix their crews, since both species were similar in physiognomy and so the returning crew had brought not only new friends home but also many beneficial plants and animals from distant worlds.
As time passed new friends were found and all the space-faring species co-operated in the work to spread life across the stars. Barren worlds were found, environments engineered and species introduced.
When the asteroid hit the earth with a kill shot in 2341, it had been evacuated of most of the people and other species. Some had chosen to stay to the end. As soon as the dust cleared and the earth had stabilized, a coalition no less than 23 races showed up to begin the job of building a new earth. They had already built a new heaven.
http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Carufel/e/B004LCK4P4