By Angoo Ba
She had an insatiable curiosity about the mysteries of life that nobody in her family or at school seemed to share. Neither her parents nor her teachers ever talked about things like these. Such issues were the farthest from the minds of her classmates, too, whose interests she couldn’t resonate with, no matter how hard she tried. Luckily, though, she had access to the Internet to seek answers to her many questions.
Recently, she had come across an article on the Internet that talked about the sheer immensity of the universe. Apparently, there were billions upon billions of heavenly bodies in the known universe—and no one seemed to know how many more there might be beyond that! Compared to the size of the rest of the heavenly bodies taken together, planet Earth was so tiny as to be almost completely insignificant.
She was taken aback completely at this discovery. How really strange it seemed! She hadn’t given the universe much thought before. Beyond Earth, the only heavenly bodies that she was aware of were the sun and the moon and the couple of stars that she had seen on the half a dozen or so occasions she had cared to look up at the night sky (which might happen once or twice a year or so). At school, she had learnt the names of, and some sundry details about, the planets that make up the solar system where Earth is located. But other than this, she knew almost nothing about the universe beyond Earth.
Discovering that there was much more to the universe than the few heavenly bodies she knew of was an astounding revelation for her! It drove her to try to read up more about the vastness of the universe on the Internet. Although much of the material on the subject was very technical, she was able to get enough understanding to keep her awestruck.
One fact about the immensity of the universe which really intrigued her and which she didn’t seem able to find convincing answers to was the function of the billions upon billions of heavenly bodies other than Earth and the other bodies in the solar system of which Earth was a part. If God created the universe (as she firmly believed), what role did these heavenly bodies (that collectively formed almost the whole of the known universe) play in God’s scheme of things? Surely, she thought, they must have some function(s).
That Earth had its role in God’s plan for the universe as a location for hosting millions of life-forms, including human beings, was clear to her. The role of the sun—in providing light and heat—to Earth in order to sustain life on Earth was also obvious. She had read that the moon also played a role in enabling conducive conditions for life on Earth (although she wasn’t clear how). She could also understand that the rest of the planets of the solar system might also play such a role, in some way or the other. And so, she could appreciate the possibility that all of the bodies in the solar system needed to exist in order for life on Earth to be made possible. But what about stars and planets far beyond our solar system or even our galaxy? What possible role could they play? Why had God created them—so many of them that it was impossible for human beings to count them?
Was it possible that their existence was also necessary—in some unknown way—for human life on distant Earth, located maybe billions of light years away, to be possible? She didn’t think it might be likely, but she wasn’t sure. They were located at such an enormous distance from Earth that she thought it quite unlikely that life on Earth would have been impossible if they didn’t exist, although she couldn’t say so with any certainty.
There were other possibilities also. Might it be possible, she mused, that there was life on some or all of these heavenly bodies? If so, that might explain their function—as a location for these life-forms. She was aware that scientists had said that they hadn’t found life anywhere other than Earth despite explorations and complicated observations, but she felt that this didn’t mean that it was impossible for life to exist anywhere in the vast universe other than Earth. For one thing, scientists might have explored just a few other heavenly bodies and come up with their conclusions on the basis of these limited studies, but of course they hadn’t explored all the planets and stars in the universe, and so there was no reason not to believe that life was not possible anywhere other than Earth. Further, it might be that living beings on other heavenly bodies assumed forms other than the physical bodies that living beings did on Earth—they could be spirits without inhabiting physical bodies, for instance—which might explain why even though such beings might exist on other heavenly bodies, scientists who assumed living beings must occupy a physical body might have been unable to detect them.
The more she thought about these questions, the more intriguing it all seemed. It didn’t seem quite rational, she thought, that of all the billions of heavenly bodies in the world, only one—tiny little Earth—hosted life, and barring a few others (the sun, the moon and some of the other, half a dozen or so, planets in the solar system), the rest of them (billions upon billions) really had no function in sustaining life.
What if the distant heavenly bodies—or at least some of them—were actually abodes of living beings, who may or may not live in physical bodies, she mused. What if these heavenly bodies were places where souls (who had occupied human or non-human bodies) went after completing their spell on Earth? Perhaps, she speculated, some of them were places of comfort and joy—or Heaven(s)—while others were burning infernos—or Hell(s)? Who knew? Only the Creator of it all did!
Comentarios