The Bible Answers the Fermi Paradox

 Part 1.

From a certain point of view, we can surmise that we are living in a quarantined solar system, hedged within a simulated view of the Cosmos, supervised by a transcendant Empire. This Empire is ruled by a unique God-King, a Triune Being, who is omniscient, omnipotent, ubiquitous, loving, intimately compassionate, and totally self-sufficient. His Authoring Word created everything, including both the material Cosmos, and a vast host of lesser spiritual beings who have their homes in the Heavens. 

From all appeances, we were uplifted from proto-chimps (which was not a unanimous decision) via the slow path of direct genetic modification and self-adaptive drift. We were declared a protected species, and placed inside a heavenly sphere a bit larger than our heliosphere. Thus, it should be no surprise if our probes cease to send data home.

The quarantine was imposed, primarily to protect us from too early observations of the Empire. Seeing that would have intimidated us and crushed our will to make independent progress toward faithful allegiance and mature moral conscience, and precluded our desire for spiritual transcendence. Even now, the "Kingdom  of Heaven" is just beyond our capacity to fully comprehend. No wonder we were given such minimal descriptions, as that was all our mythologies could grasp.

The "prime directive" said we were to be left alone, but an anti-uplift faction broke the blockade, intermingling with us, and trying to influence us to kill ourselves off. Then the pro-uplifters began trying to teach us laws and morality, so we would resist such perverse impulses. The result is the messy battlefield that the Earth has become. But the reason we don't see the aliens is that they are spirits, transcendent beings. Compared to us, they are the minor gods, and when they wish to be seen they can appear identical to us.

The ways we are protected are as follows:
1. A heliosphere sized "crystal sphere" to limit our view outward, hiding the Empire from us, and showing only a simulation,
2. A localized lightspeed velocity limitation, created by a damping field that distorts our physical observations, so the math won't reveal its interference,
3. A camouflage shield technology, used to hide any ships that pass through to observe us (or they will get blasted beyond possible recognition, like Oamuamua), and
4. Certain promising specimens, who have chosen allegiance to God, have their own assigned "guardian angel." These ward off direct attacks from the enemy, but they don't stop us from choosing risky behavior.

This speculation serves to explain all of our observations, and matches what we should expect from mythological sources and theological revelations. And it does explain why we don't see any evidence of aliens in our galaxy, or even beyond it in the Cosmos at large. After all, "what we call Truth often depends upon our point of view." Right? And how much we should reveal of it must be conformed to our moral sensibilities and our concern for the wellbeing of others.

Part 2. 

Ever since Zarathustra, we've been hearing about a war in Heaven. Even today, when we have the power to destroy civilization and devastate our planet, we are faced with this conflict on an ideological level. Some of us want to build machines that could be made to think like humans, while others believe that would be a very bad idea. Politics and Religion are the proxy battlefields where the lines are drawn between good and evil. But how shall we determine which flag and faction we are serving?

That answer depends upon how we know what is the best, most correct morality, and we have only our own internal moral sense for a compass. But the Most High God is not an arbitrary autocrat, unfathomable and unreasonable. Instead, He has given us a map and fair orientation. He told us that we should love Him first with our whole selves, and each other next, equal to ourselves, then the Decalogue to preserve civil society, and for simplicity, the Golden Rule, followed by our core ideal principles of Love, Truth, Freedom and Wisdom, all this in the service of Life, so we would know what to judge by. Those central foundational principles, plus the Revelations we have preserved from ancient days, which teach us to revere them as good, give us the standard (in hoc signo vincit) that we must follow. They are supported by God's promises of personal salvation and an inevitable final victory over the adversary who desires our demise. Together, those will always point and guide our moral compass.

And then, one day when we have passed the tests, or progressed to the point where we can no longer be conscientiously contained, everything will be openly revealed, showing just how much has been hidden from us. Hopefully by then, humans will have matured enough as a species to be able to step smoothly into the role of Citizens of the Empire, and accept the privileges thereof without abusing their potentials. We will be welcomed to our true home, where we will be privileged to represent the One True God as his image and likeness. Then we will know how protected we have been. We will know the final answer to the Fermi Paradox, and the mystery will have been solved.

Part 3.

According to Genesis, God stood before the Heavenly Council and announced that He was going to make Humans in the likeness of spiritual beings, so that they could represent and follow His purposes, to be His image, on the Earth. For this unique proposal, it seems that unanimous consent was lacking. So God told the dissenters to watch how Humanity would be faithful, and stay out of trouble.

But the Watchers rebelled. Satan entered the protected area, and caused Adam and Eve to sin. They led people to behave in ungodly ways, with violence, unruliness, idolatry, and mating between angels and the daughters of men. This provoked God to condemn the Watchers and send the Great Flood, to destroy the cities that they had built. And still, the survivors, instead of spreading out and tending the land as God said they should, rebuilt a great city, Babel, with a Temple Tower. They meant to tempt God to come down where they could influence His plans, and show how depraved people would be. But God destroyed the Tower, and scattered the people, and gave the Watchers, (now "fallen angels") a last chance. They were told to care for the "nations" and teach them to be civilized. But instead, they taught the people how to build the world in their own image, and to worship them as gods, false gods.

The "fallen angels" will neither relent nor repent because it's an ideological conflict. They disagree on the very idea of "uplifting" the animals that evolve in creation to become like elohim, spirits with souls. Animals are basically nasty creatures, unclean, and just because they can evolve some rudimentary intelligence doesn't make them spiritual. They have to be improved and gifted. And this takes millions of years, and lots of interference. 

God is trying to prove a point. Since He is a unique Being whose essential character is loving, He wants to be as inclusive of his creatures as possible, and to reach out as far and to as many persons/beings as He can. To do this, He is giving us a mission to learn to be like Him, to represent his Presence in the world. The "fallen angels" don't believe that we can do it, because we are too easily distracted and corrupted by self-interest. They don't want to be compared to beings with animal bodies, who "evolved" (nasty word) on a planet. In their view, we are beneath them.

So the battle rages on, while we are trying to learn how to live by faith. We are trusting God to make everything work out right, forgiving our failures, and leading us to become all that we can be. The stakes are perhaps even higher than we know. If we succeed, there may be other creatures on other planets that could be raised to Heaven after us, and we might be given a part in that. We might actually be the firstborn among God's creatures who can be both elohim and embodied.