Astronomy for the Layman
Table of Contents
Preface
Section One
- Choosing Priorities: Ancient Religious Myths or Twentieth Century Science?
- How Much Reality Can be Found in Religious Belief?
- Four Billion Years Squeezed into 24 Hours
- Evolutionary Ancestors or Descendants of Adam and Eve?
- Another Theory About the Origin of Modern Man
- The Reality: One Big Global Animal Family
- Insects and Evolution
- The Power of DNA and Genes
- More on the Real Building Blocks of Life
- An Ever-Changing Universe - Nature Never Stands Still
- Life Exists Where It was Never Expected - and - The Possibilities of a "Biblical Flood"
- Ongoing Battles: Intelligent Reasoning Against Senseless Beliefs and Emotions
- Looking for Common Sense in Religion
- Who was Jesus Christ?
- All Life is Really "Victim" or "Beneficiary" of Natural or Man-Made Circumstances
- "Victims" and "Beneficiaries" Regardless of Religious Faith
- Scientific Facts and Changing Environment are Shaping Our Lives, NOT Religious Myth
- Birth, Life and Death - Determined by "God" or by the Facts of Nature?
- Negative and Positive Effects Through Civilization and Technology
- Death - Part of a Natural Chain of Events of "God's" Wish? What is "Heaven" and "Hell?"
- Causes of Death
- Science May Never be Perfect, It is Usually More Beneficial to Humanity than Religious
Faith
- Nature: Self-Regulating, Always Trying to Catch Up With Itself, yet Forever Imperfect
- World Religions, Traditions, Facts and Logic
- A Critical Look at Major Scriptures and at Religious Prophecies of Doom and Gloom
- Criminal Laws - Influenced too often by Religion
- The Reality of Statistics and World Religions
- Facts about Death and Destruction in the name of Religious Faith
- What is a Believer's "True" Image of "God" or "Allah?"
- Prayer: What Does It Do For Anybody? Is it a Form of Self-Hypnosis?
- Did Prayer REALLY Help?
- The Greatest Clash Between Reality and Mythical Religious Belief: Simple Numbers
- Higher Life Forms and Three Basic Varieties of "Love"
- "Homo Sapiens" and Other Mammals: Identical in Many Ways, an Often Overlooked
Reality
- Predictability of Disasters Through Science
- What is the "Spirit" - What Do We Know About It?
- Reincarnation - Reality and a "Transfer" of "Spirits?"
- Extraterrestrial Visitors, No Longer Just Fiction, the Evidence is Mounting
- The African Dogon Tribe and Their Most Incredible Legend
- More Creditable Reports of UFO Sightings
- Why are Alien Landing Sites and UFO Sightings Usually Reported from Remote
Areas?
Section Two
- The True Source of all Creation - The Universe
- Facts and Theories of Astronomy Made Easy and Compared with Religious Teachings
- A Variety of Radiation Throughout the Universe
- The Solar System, Planets, Satellites and Asteroids
- The Planet Mercury Never Really had a Chance
- Venus, our Inhospitable "Twin" - Or the Biblical "Hell?"
- Mars, Often Thought to be the Closest "Relative" to Earth
- Asteroids, Mysterious and Dangerous Companions in the Solar System
- Jupiter, our Giant Companion in the Solar System
- Saturn, the Second Giant and a Majestic Sight
- Interesting Discoveries in the Atmosphere of Saturn's Moon "Titan"
- More About Saturn
- Uranus, too Distant to be Seen with the Unaided Eye
- Neptune, What we see Happened Over Four Hours Ago
- Pluto, Usually the Most Distant Companion Planet, Planet "X" and the Ancient Sumerians
- Interstellar Space Beyond Pluto
- Our Home Star, the Sun
- A Basic Introduction to "Fusion" or "Thermonuclear" Reaction
- More About our Sun
- Nothing in Interstellar Space is "Stationary"
- Our "Neighbors" Beyond the Solar System and the Constellations
- Astrology or Astronomy?
- How Immense are Galaxies Really?
- Our own "Average" Galaxy
- Galactic Neighbors, and Their Origin
- Continuous Creation in the Universe, Observable and Predictable?
- The Creation of a Star
- What have we Learned from "Halley's" Comet?
- Aging of a Star
- The Building Blocks of the Universe, Seemingly the Same Everywhere
- Probing into Old Mysteries of Deep Space with the Hubble Telescope
- Quasars - Are They Part of the Answer on the Formation of the Universe?
- Black Holes, Perhaps the Strangest Cosmic Phenomenon
- Mythical Religious "Creation" vs. Cosmic Creation
Section Three
- The Future - Will it be Guided by Knowledge and Logic and Less by Religious Myth?
- Uncontrolled Weather Extremes: One of the Most Destructive Forces on Earth
- Gradual Elimination of International Borders to Commerce, Ultimately a World
Government
- Another Choice: The Annual Loss of Tens of Thousands of Lives or Giving up "The Right
to Bear Arms?"
- After Weather Control, Let Scientists "Cut Out the Middle Man" in the Food Chain
- More Small Priorities, Often Overlooked
- The Final Choice is Ours
Index