To start this post, I must make the disclosure that I’m a Pagan. Yep. Not really a surprise, but I feel I must mention it all the same. A lot of Pagans believe that the Earth is sentient on some level and to some extent, and in a lot of ways, science has proven Pagans aren’t exactly wrong in this idea.
Through a neat combination of radiation and rotation and oscillation, our blue marble as its own voice. So do all the other planets that share the light of our Sun. Its music, in a way. Heartbeats even, of the celestial bodies of the universe, no matter how big or small or strange.
So, in one of the few instances I can immediately bring to mind, science has given credence to a belief that is longstanding. A belief that humanity felt in our very bones once upon a time. A belief that humanity had cast aside with the rise of science. Cool, no?
I wonder if other life forms out in the universe had a similar experience with a religious belief that had no real evidence to back it up until long after that species had cast it aside. Are there still some on those worlds hold steadfast to that belief and are vindicated by science, in the end?
A prime piece of alien cultural world-building, that idea. What type of effect would such a revelation have? Would they not see the stacking evidence until it smack them in the face? Would such proof cause societal upheaval? It is possible such an occurrence could change that world, or even ours at a distant point in the future, for better, or worse?
The possibilities are endless. Have fun with it.
-T.A. Creech
Author of LGBT romance and speculative fiction.