Have you ever noticed
That if you try to forget for a moment about all the cultural connotations—if you kind of close one eye and pretend that you’re seeing them for the first time—churches, specifically Orthodox ones, and, to a lesser extent, Catholic and Anglican ones from Gothic on, look a lot like a sort of a communication post for contacting an extraterrestrial intelligence? It’s as though the architects have had a vision of a radio telescope array, and got the general idea, if not the specifics. Of course, in a sense that’s exactly what churches are.
Short story idea: this is actually true. The reason prayers aren’t answered is that the antennae point in the wrong direction. If you build a church in a certain place, the spire points at a certain constellation, and God picks up the phone.
Bonus idea: the right spot was in Atlantis. The geek in me says it would have to be stationary relative to the sky, so it’d be the north or south celestial pole.
