Ancient questions again come to surface as of last night, 30 July 2018, when the planets of Mars and Saturn were in opposition, and visible from Earth with the unassisted eye. In astronomical terms, opposition refers to when a planet is on the opposite side of the Earth relative to the Sun. This not only means that these planets were closer to the Earth in their respective orbit, but that were also lit by the Sun, which mane them much more visible. This was the closets these planets have gotten to Earth since 2003, and the next time they will be so visible is 2035. And of course it left people wondering if our Earth is the only World in all of space that has intelligent inhabitants, especially since water was found on Mars. Mars was once a warmer, watery place, but between 4.2 and 3.5 billion years ago, this began to change as Mars magnetic field disappeared. As a result, the atmosphere slowly began to be stripped away by solar wind, leaving the surface the cold and dry and making it nearly impossible for water to exist in liquid form. There is a crater, on the cold red planet, that had a large freshwater lake 3.5 billion years ago. And there is a thick layer of ice underground, and it has been confirmed that liquid water still exists beneath Mars’ southern polar region. The liquid water underlies like the glaciers here on Earth. However, the water on Mars is contains 99 percent of salt particle called perchlorates. Perchlorates are poisonous to humans and is the only reason all of the water on Mars is not frozen. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

Once, Saturn had stood in the sky, ablaze like a Sun, during an earlier period on Earth around the second or third millennium BC. This was before about 3,000 BC when Saturn was over the North Pole of Earth as an immense globe, connected to Earth with a stream of dust water, with Mars in an intermediate position. The period of this polar apparition was usually remembered throughout the World as the Era of the Gods. During this time, Saturn ruled and human lived in paradise with the God. The closing of that time was mourned throughout the World and has shaped us ever since. The ending of the Era of the God, in 3147 BC, brought on an explosive rise in civilization: intensive agricultural practice (simultaneously in five or more unrelated regions), monumental constructions, cities, writing, kingships, and wars of conquest. The Era of the God permanently set our languages, architecture, and political systems, and even our ferocious antipathy toward our own species. More importantly, humans developed a subjective consciousness some time after the close of the Era of that Gods. The acquisition of subjective consciousness was not a certain process nor universal. We all have to struggle for things that are important to us. With Saturn and Mars being so close to the Earth, some believe it is a reunification of the Era of the Gods, and that our struggles are now aligned. It is also supposed to represent the fact that there are many battles in life, and not all of them are worth fighting. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

The realignment of Saturn and Mars acts as a sort of chlorophyll that draws from the Sunlight of the spiritual being, elements essential to the healthy growth of the human race; and if the Western humanity is to be saved from becoming a day sapless log, it must perennially renew that foliage which brings it into contact with the ambient upper air, warmed by the glow of righteousness and love. Saturn and Mars bring us the opportunity to know the difference of what is right and wrong and what is important or not, and it gives us the opportunity to know the difference and to prioritize our struggles and bathe. We can stand up for justice an what we know is right. If there is a force that confront us now that is stronger than our abilities, it is suggested that we pull back—but only to gain the strength to resume our battle at another time. This is our opportunity to get the training that we need in order to be more potent warriors, but we must first make sure the fight is worth the effort. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. However, it takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. A wise retreat is not a defeat. So maybe President Trump is right. If the planets are symbolizing a return of the Era of Gods, then we should be do for much prosperity. The planets are supposed to represent Greek Gods. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

Planets that are inhabited by intelligent beings can exist—we live on one. And as we think of all the galaxies, it is utterly unthinkable that among the uncountable billions upon billions of stars and galaxies throughout space, intelligent beings exist on only one World in this whole vast Universe. If only one star in a million should have inhabitable planets, that would still leave over 100,000 such systems in our own galaxy alone! And galaxies like ours exist by the billions. However, whether planets with conditions satisfactory for human life are a dime a dozen or extremely rare, since cannot tell us right now. Other stars are too far away, and our means of learning about them too meager. Even if the nearest star had such planets, we could not hope to see them with the best conceivable instruments, much less tell if they were inhabited—unless the inhabitants should just happen to be sending extremely powerful radio messages our way. The United States government has actually turned its radio telescopes upon a couple of nearby stars that appear to be likely prospect to see if such messages were forthcoming. They were not at that time. How, then, can we ever hope to know about people on other Worlds? Considering the place of the conditions of the World upon which the Lord has placed us, and the current limitations upon our scientific abilities, it seems that there is only one answer. We have no other source of knowledge than that which the Lord himself feels it is important to give us, at this time, in our Earthly condition. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

Latter-day Saints believe that there is existence of people on other Worlds and that these people visit the Earth. Accordingly, they claim that that Earth has been receiving visitors from outer space for years, and these visitors have been leaving highly intelligent messages for our benefits. When we put this all in perspective, it becomes very exciting: intelligent beings from a higher culture have visited Earth frequently. “There never was a time when there were not Gods and Worlds and men and women and children were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing though. That course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity,” reports Brigham Young.  Long before our God began his creations, he dwelt on a mortal World like ours, one of the creations that his Father had created for him and his brethren. He, with many of his brethren were obedient to the principles of the eternal gospel. One among these, it is presumed was a savior for them, and through him they obtained a resurrection and an exaltation on an eternal, celestial World. Then they gained the power and godhood of their Father and were made heirs of all that he had, continuing his works and creating World of their own for their own posterity—the same as their Father had done before, and his Father, and his Father, and on and on. We are essentially trying to find out the generation where Gods began to be? #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

Nothing is more basic in the restored gospel than these truths that, because of recent events of space travel, are so timely. The great hope of the gospel for us is that we may come to a oneness with our Lord and our Father and partake of this same work and glory and godhood. Being joint-heirs and heiresses of all that the Father has, we may then look forward to using those powers to organize still other Worlds from the unorganized matter that exists throughout boundless space. Creating other World, peopling them with our own eternal posterity, providing a savior for them, and making known to them the saving principles of the eternal gospel, that they may have the same experience we are now having and be exalted with us in their turn—this is eternal life. No wonder this possibility continues to fascinate and inspire Saints of all ages. This hope is what inspires members of the church to seek eternal marriage and to seek in all things to be one with our Lord, because we want to be with him and participate in all the marvelous things of which the Saint Paul the apostle said: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of human, the things which God has prepared for the that love him.” I would probably create a World with clear water, tons of mansions, pine forest and cars that I designed and people who did good things and were all nice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

Another basic truth is that all of the Worlds out there are not the same. Some are celestial. Some are terrestrial. Some are telestial. Some, such as ours, are in a phase of temporal existence, which is probably why we cannot physically see intelligent life. And there are other phases, probably some we do not even know of. The Lord has said that there is no space in which there is a greater or a lesser kingdom. All kingdoms have a law given. All kingdoms are not given the same laws, but unto every law there are certain bounds. There is a period called the Millennium coming and it will be a thousand years of peace, love, and joy will begin on the Earth at the Second Coming of our Savior. Because of the destruction of the wicked at the Savior’s Second Coming, only righteous people will live on the Earth at the beginning of the Millennium. They will be those who have lived virtuous and honest lives. These people will inherit either the terrestrial or celestial kingdom. Mortals will still live on Earth, and they will continue to have children as we do now. Immortal beings will frequently visit the Earth. These resurrected beings will help with the government and other work. People will still have their agency, and for a time many will be free to continue with their religion and ideas. Resurrected beings will help us correct the mistakes we have made in doing research concerning our dead ancestors. “The Earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory,” reports Articles of Faith 1.10. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

During this Millennium, the adversary will be bound. This means he will not have power to tempt those who are living at that time. The children shall grow up without sin unto salvation. Because of the righteousness of the Lord’s people, the adversary has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed for the space of many years; for he has no power over the hearts of the people, for they dwell in righteousness, and the Holy One will reign. There will be no war. People will live in peace and harmony together. Things that have been used for war will be turned to useful purposes. No nation shall war with any other nations. The Lord will be king over all the Earth, and all humankind literally under his sovereignty, and every nation under the Heavens will have to acknowledge his supreme authority. It will be the reign of God upon the Earth, and he will enforce his laws, and command that obedience from the nations of the World which is legitimately his right. There will be no death as we know it. Instead, people will be changed from their mortal condition to an immortal condition in the twinkling of an eye. All things will be revealed. Some truths have not been revealed to us. “Reveal all things—things which have passed, and hidden things which no person knew, things of the Earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and end thereof—things most precious, things that are above and things that are beneath, things that are in the Earth, and upon the earth, and in Heaven,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 101.32-34. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

Tian liang le! Lieche benguo-le heiye, ye benguo-le Huanghe! Cong chechuang wangchuqu, nanfang de qingshan lushui yijing kanbujian le, yan-qian shi yi wang wuji de Huabei Pingyuan. Cong chechuang wangchuqu, nanfang de qingshan lushui yijing kanbujian le, yan-qian shi yi wang wuji de Huabei Pingyuan.  Lanse de tainkong xiang bei shui xi-guo yiyang de mingjing; zuowan de menre ye rang liangshuang de qiufeng chui de wuying wuzong. Nei ji ge yao Beijing Yuyan Xueyuan qu xuexi de Yingguo xuesheng zuotian yi tian mangzhe gen tongche de luke tan-tianr, yeili you mei shuihao;Qingzao bei che-shang de guangbo jiaoxing yihou, benlai hai xiang zai shui yihuir, danshi yi kan chuang-wai, like jui rang she kaikuo de jingse xiyinzhu le. Ai zhao xiang de genshi nachu zhaoxiqngji, butingde xunzhao jingtou. Di-li nngzuowu, lu-shang de luo-ma dance, shengzai laodong de gongshe sheyuan, dou bei tamen zhaoxialai le. Zhe ji ge nianqing ren yijing zai Lundun Daxue nianguo-le yi nian Zongwen, xianzai suo kandao de dui tamen lai sho shi name xingi, youshi name qinqie. Tamen lai lixuxue, yi fangmian shi yao tigao ziji de Hanyu shuiping, yi fangmian ye shi xiang liaojie y ixia Zhongguo ge di de fengtu renqing, shiji tiyan y ixia shiyi ren de richang shenghuo. Huoche-shang zhe sanshi dup xiaoshi yijing gei tamen shang-le nan-wang de yi ke. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

These letters are a continued series on the Savior’s plan and purpose, in which advances the theory that the Lord founded a kind of Freemasonry to assist him in his purpose to end superstition, and restore reason to its rightful rule, and unite people in a rational faith in God, Providence, and Immortality. There is a message of a great spiritual vitality and a force, directed to the human heart and resting on a threefold base of reason, revelation, and tradition. The principal is based on the wholehearted conviction of God’s existence and unity. There is a necessity for apprehending the wisdom, power, and goodness of God by careful study of the larger World in which we live and the smaller World of our human nature. The duties of the heart are devotion to God, humility in God’s presence, repentance, self-communion, and renunciation. It is the way humans reach the height of religious life, the love of God. The techniques are of reason to subserve the ends of a contemplative view of life as a moral intuition, and the goal is piety. As it stands, we believe first and prove or disprove afterwards. The essence of the human situation is a kind of circle of activity in which we inevitably acquire new nonrational beliefs as a direct consequence of practically and experimentally testing those we start with. The point is apparent that our actions have consequences. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

 The movement from feeling to knowledge in consciousness is linked with the same facts that give human life the character of a passage from belief to self-criticism. We are unconscious of the undifferentiated. A constant impression is to the mind a blank—if temperature were unvarying we would not notice it. We are conscious of the constant only in the midst and variety and difference. The essence of consciousness is thus to be discriminative, and that discrimination involved in the consciousness, the most liable to be misunderstood is that implicit problem of the external World. It is important to prevent theology from becoming an ideology, that is, a creation of the human culture. Christianity is threefold: intellectual, ethical, and soteriological. First, there is the danger of identifying the validity of the concept of revelation, which is God’s self-manifestation and owes nothing to human initiatives. Second, there is the sanger that the church will simply reflect the social and cultural situation, thus losing its power of criticism and its prophetic function. Third, salvation comes from God alone, and the attempt to identify a human Weltanschauung with God’s Word is an instance of the refusal to accept that the only justification is by grace. This secret identification of ourselves with God carries with it our isolation from him. The principle that theological exposition should be basically independent of human speculations (expect insofar as historical and linguistic investigations, etc. are a necessary part of understanding Scripture). #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

Not only is the human will vitiated by the Fall, but reason also, in such a way that it is impossible for people to discover the truth about God through their own efforts. Only if God manifests himself can there by any revelation. There is a distance between Heaven and Earth. Methodologically, all this implies that interpretation of the Bible should not betray the genuine meaning of the text by explaining away or avoiding those hard sayings that are supposedly scandals know to modern thought. The Bible contains an anthropology; and thus God’s relation to the natural World can only be understood by analogy with his saving revelation to human beings. The biblical saga of creation makes it continuous with God’s covenant relationship with Israel. Because preaching is carried on in the church by human beings, it is liable to go astray. Much like the example set by Pastor Roger Jimenez for spreading hateful and dangerous remarks at the Verity Baptist church due to his misinterpretation of the scriptures. The Old Testament explains how life is for some people in other countries and how people were treated in the past, but the thing is one has to understand what procreation is about and how laying with anyone for other reasons than procreation can damage the body. Also, the seed is only supposed to be deposited in the proper receptacle. The Bible does not set out to prove God’s existence, they know he exists, their goal is to witness his acts. The task of the preacher or theologian is to proclaim this revelation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

Theology must be a rational inquiry that is appropriate to its subject matter, namely God’s gracious self-revelation; and any attempt to establish the truth of the doctrine upon the grounds that are extraneous to its subject matter is both irrelevant and dangerous. Human activity suffers from the defects of human reason. It is therefore necessary to consider the criteria of the worth of a system of dogmatics. These criteria are necessarily derived internally from God’s self-revelation.Theological thinking must be humble: this is a practical test of whether it is refraining from establishing its own claim to truth, i.e., its being in effect an ideology. Also, it must express the doctrine of predestination, which encapsulates the whole of the revelational approach—what people achieve in relation to God is due to God. Because of the element of paradox in the first criterion, at times the Saints are inclined to spea in a syncretistic way. Imagining a conversation in Heaven, one says, “Yes, dear Schleiermacher, I understand you now. You were right, except on some points!” Further, the notion that theology is dialectical, so that statement can be balanced by affirming its apparent contradictory, and it will render the speaker less rigid. Revelation is a natural concept, and thus God does not, so to say, reveal himself independently of the human apprehension of his self-manifestation. Consequently, the knowledge of God is itself given by God, through grace. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

Thus, the analogia entis is replaced by the analogia fidei (the analogy of faith); faith gives us understanding of the nature of God and is God-given. Therefore God is the cause of true theological assertions, as well as their ground. With an outline of a theology that is powerfully biblical without being fundamentalists, we escape the charge of being irrational by being understanding and nonjudgmental.  In relation to knowledge of God, people are capable of only most shadowy awareness of their own. However, if there is no correspondence between the Gospel and empirical Christianity, the church is a sham; and if there is, then the comparison between empirical Christianity and other faiths is possible, and apologetics unavoidable. The channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation and every important matter is revealed from Heaven. A righteous person is one who makes and keeps gospel covebabts. These are holy contract, usually between individuals and the Lord. Sometimes they include other persons, such as spouses. They involve most sacred promises and commitment. Also, education should be cosmopolitan, free from any confessional imprint, equal for all classes, and aimed at enabling people to live useful and happy lives as good citizens. Instruction should appeal to the student’s sensibility rather than simply to their understanding and should be encouraged by games and colloquial interaction. Images are more effective than words. The Universe is a concrete unity in which an infinite mind is manifesting itself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Say, can you see by the dawn’s early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight over the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly, yeah, streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the fireworks bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.  Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress a thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law. Oh, beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness, and ev’ry gain divine. Oh, beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!  America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters. In this life you embraced them with your tender love; deliver them now from every evil and bid them eternal rest.

In Loving Memory of Trayvon Martin