I lean hard towards believing that there is life, of some manner, out there. Take all the wildly varied examples of life here on earth, then consider the amount of “sweet spot” planets in our galaxy alone, then multiply that by the ocean of galaxies we’ve been able to detect so far.
Perhaps some advancing species hit the wall of self destruction, or natural disaster, while other lesser species are still climbing the lower rungs of development. Perhaps species at our level or beyond are just too far removed to detect during our time frame of attempts, or use a manner of communication yet to be detected. All reasonable scientific theories.
I’m religious and find it hard to imagine that God would create such an immense playground/laboratory, and not fill it with more creatures to entertain himself. I personally suspect he set up the rules of creation, and mostly lets it run autonomously. If that’s correct, then life should develop elsewhere just as handily as it does in even extreme environs here.
Take all the wildly varied examples of life here on earth,
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All that wildly varied life comes from a single common ancestor that only evolved one time.
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But the argument that life seems to have evolved very early and quickly, so therefore is inherently likely, can be turned around, Dr. Joyce said. “You could ask why, if life were such a probable event, we don’t have evidence of multiple origins,” he said.
In fact, with trivial variations, there is only one genetic code for all known forms of life, pointing to a single origin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/science/oldest-fossils-on-earth.html?_r=0
Let’s suppose there is at least ONE planet out there God has created intelligent life on. And then go on to say they did NOT disobey God and they are still pure and unfallen. IOW they did not partake of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Would God let them meet and mingle with us? No. But it is possible they are watching us from a distance.
“I’m religious and find it hard to imagine that God would create such an immense playground/laboratory, and not fill it with more creatures to entertain himself.”
God’s ways are not our ways. You are anthropomorphizing God, a heresy.