Only Religion Can Deliver a ‘Star Trek’ Future

In 1950 the physicist Enrico Fermi was dining with three colleagues at the nuclear weapons development facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the conversation turned to extraterrestrial life. The topic had been on the public mind since the supposed crash of a flying saucer near Roswell, N.M., a few years before. As his colleagues later reported, Fermi asked: Where is everybody? Given the billions of planets that might be capable of supporting life, why haven’t emissaries of other advanced civilizations—claims about Roswell notwithstanding—visited Earth? This simple question has since become known as the Fermi Paradox.