Otherworld by Jared C. Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

that’s your right, but can you see how this thing you call God and this event called the big bang could coexist? I mean, one doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other. The thing you call God—some designer or force with some intention, conscious or not—could have very well lit the fuse. Are you with me?”
    â€œYeah, I guess.”
    â€œOkay, God or not, those of us who have dedicated ourselves to science, to the pursuit of the origins of our universe, have found this to be the most logical resolution to the problem of beginnings. Follow?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œNow, even the most devout materialist will admit that what happened in the beginning was a … well, a long shot. For the explosion to happen at the right place at the right time, and for that explosion to bring about a prototype for life—this planet, I mean—and then, for the atmosphere and ingredients and the catalyst, lightning or what-have-you, to all be in place … well, the odds of all this are beyond astronomical. The chances of all this happening in one huge cosmic accident are virtually nil. But it did. How can anyone believe it could happen again someplace else? Even in another galaxy across the far reaches of the universe, it exceeds plausibility.”
    â€œSo you’re saying what happened here was so impossible it couldn’t have occurred anywhere else.”
    â€œExactly. I’ll use the standard argument of intelligent design against this very scenario to illustrate. If you set off a bomb in a junkyard, the result will not be a working automobile. Well, I say it very well might be. It might produce a Rolls Royce, even. Given enough time and enough parallel dimensions, it would certainly happen. And it did happen. But it didn’t happen twice.”
    â€œBut,” Mike said, “wouldn’t the same logic that says such a thing could happen—given enough time and parallel dimensions—also provide that it could happen more than once?”
    â€œCertainly. That is entirely logical. But it’s not very reasonable. And by reasonable, I mean, it’s not a very good matching of both logic and the available evidence.”
    â€œThen what are people seeing?”
    â€œA multitude of things, I suppose. Queer reflections of earth-based light shimmering in the sky. Airplanes. Experimental military aircraft. Perhaps nothing but illusions, tricks played by the mind. Some, though”—he lowered his voice dramatically—“are real .”
    â€œBut you just said—”
    â€œI know what I said!” Bering smiled big. “Are you hearing me?” He wasn’t scolding. He was drawing Mike in.
    â€œI guess not.”
    â€œSome are real, Mike. Some are very, very real. And they are aliens. They are aliens from another place.”
    â€œOkay, now I really don’t think I’m hearing you.”
    â€œI don’t either. But I’ll put it to you plainly. When I say ‘aliens,’ I don’t mean aliens like the kind I’ve just laid a case for disbelieving. I mean visitors from this world.”
    â€œYou mean people.”
    â€œNo, not people. Not people like us, anyway. Not human beings.” Dr. Bering hesitated, and the look on his face seemed to say, You probably won’t believe this, but … “It’s not even fair to call them aliens. This is more their home than ours, really. I’m talking, Mike, about beings who travel to our world from within our world.”
    â€œWhat?” Mike asked, simultaneously skeptical and intrigued.
    â€œAnother dimension. A world within our own, on this very earth, but invisible and unreachable by us.”
    Mike fumbled in his computer bag for his pen and notepad. He had to write this stuff down. “Okay,” he prodded.
    â€œMike, I believe there is another dimension connected to our own planet, maybe even on it, with beings very similar in most respects to