Are We Going to Make It Through the Great Filter?

 A BioPanentheistic Look at Humanity’s Place in the Cosmos!

By Allan W. Janssen

Writer & Author, Children of the Divine:

What Is the Great Filter?

The “Great Filter” is a concept from the Fermi Paradox... the question of why... if the universe is full of stars... and potentially habitable planets... we see no evidence of intelligent alien life!

The Great Filter refers to some extremely unlikely or deadly step that prevents life from reaching the level of interstellar civilization! 

The big question is:

"Is the Great Filter behind us... or ahead of us?"

✅ If the Great Filter Is Behind Us:

If some earlier step in evolution was almost impossibly rare — like the emergence of life itself, or the leap to complex multicellular organisms — then perhaps we are the lucky ones. (We’ve already passed the test. No wonder the galaxy seems so quiet.)

In this case:

• We’re rare.

• We’ve already succeeded where countless potential civilizations failed.

• Our biggest danger now is self-sabotage — not cosmic inevitability.

🟢 Chances of long-term survival: Reasonably good... if we don’t destroy ourselves.

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🚨 If the Great Filter Is Ahead of Us

But if intelligent life commonly emerges — and then disappears — the silence of the cosmos may be a warning. 

Something may tend to wipe out civilizations like ours once they reach a certain level of technology.

Possible future “filters” include:

• Global nuclear war

• Climate/ecosystem collapse

• Artificial intelligence misalignment

• Engineered pandemics

• Resource exhaustion or societal breakdown

• Cosmic events (asteroids, gamma rays)

• Or even... the end of a simulated reality

In this case:

• We are likely doomed unless we act wisely and decisively.

• Most civilizations never make it past our stage.

🔴 Chances of survival: Poor to moderate... unless we radically evolve our ethics, systems, and global coordination.

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🧬 The BioPanentheist Perspective: A Sacred Filter

From a BioPanentheist point of view, the Great Filter isn’t just physical or technological. 

It’s spiritual!

BioPanentheism holds that:

Biological life is the vessel through which the Divine experiences reality!

In this light, the Great Filter is not merely a cosmic accident, but a sacred selection mechanism! 

It sifts out civilizations that do not learn reverence... for life, for complexity, and for one another!

• Civilizations that destroy their biospheres fail to carry the Sacred forward.

• Those who treat life as sacred may continue the Divine unfolding!

• The “Filter” is also a test of wisdom, empathy, and stewardship.

🌱 Humanity survives... not by domination... but by participation in the sacred story of Life.

📊 What Are the Odds?

Philosophers like Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord have tried to quantify our existential risk:

• The risk of human extinction this century is estimated at ~10–30%

• Most of these threats are human-made — and therefore, solvable

🧭 That means:

We still have a choice. The future is not written — but it is being drafted... by our actions, our ethics, and our willingness to evolve.

***

✨ Will We Get Through?

We might — if we recognize that our survival depends not just on science or policy, but on a deep spiritual transformation:

• To see life as sacred again

• To act as caretakers, not consumers

• To reclaim our role in the Divine’s experience of creation

The Great Filter is real... but so is our potential!

🌌 If we are the way the cosmos becomes conscious of itself... then we had better act like it.

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