Heaving Dead Cats: pale blue dot

Matthew 7:7-8 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (NASB)

Ok. Awesome. The bible says all I have to do is ask. All I have to do is seek.

Oh, will you look at that, it's in the following passages as well! (Bear with me. Feel free to skip down a bit.)

Luke 11:9-13 "ditto"
and
Matthew 18:19 Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.
and
Matthew 21:22 And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.
and again...
Mark 11:24 Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.
and again...
John 14:13 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
wait there's more...
John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
and again...
John 15:16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
and again...
John 16:23 In that day you will not question Me about anything Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.
Ho Hum, even more...
James 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
This is really getting repetitive...
1 John 3:22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
Finally, the last one!
1 John 5:14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

Whew! Sorry for going biblical on you. But obviously if the "good book" repeats the same message twelve times, it must be important and it must be relevant. I should be able to believe in it as a Christian. Right?

I guess this is why people rely on prayer so heavily, even in this day and age when it's pretty obvious that prayers aren't answered any better than chance. But I digress. I have a point to make.

I found this video the other day and wanted to share it with you. It's Carl Sagan reading from his book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, from the chapter titled A Universe Not Made For Us.

I read a Terry Pratchett book recently called Reaper Man (it was great, of course). In it, he said, "In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away - until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence."

In that sense, Carl Sagan is still very much alive.