This Easter Sunday, if you're only mildly religious, or not religious at all,
or non-Christian, let me suggest that you rent and watch the 1951 science-
fiction classic movie:

     "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

This is not as facetious as it sounds. This movie was one of my favorite
science-fiction movies while I was growing up. Indeed, everyone I knew at
Johns Hopkins' Applied Research Labs and NASA that was my age had similar
sentiments about the movie -- and almost everyone of these real rocket
scientists could quote all of the lines. But it wasn't until I was in my late
twenties that it was explained to me that the movie is the Christian Passion
Play, updated and retold in modern terms.

A Jesus-like figure named Klaatu descends to Earth in a space ship, guarded by
Gort, an angel-like robot with the power of life and death of entire worlds.
Klaatu takes on the name "John Carpenter" (initials, "J.C.") so that he can
walk among the people of Earth to better understand them. The story is
ultimately one of the persecution of Klaatu, his murder, entombment, his body
freed from the tomb by the angel, and his resurrection so that he may leave
Earth with a warning, that message being essentially the Christian Doctrine of
Free Will: mankind can either prosper in a paradise on Earth or perish in
fiery hell. The choice is entirely ours -- and is irrelevant to God.

See, I told this was off-topic :-). And those who take offense at such things,
please don't. I'm not making any of this up. I just report 'em as I hear 'em.
And today, Good Friday, is the day to report this bit of information.

Wirt Atmar