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[Frank Tipler] rejects all this. We have a theory of everything, all the problems were resolved 30 years ago. Subsequent stringy speculations are just that, speculations without any experimental proof. To deny the multiverse is to deny quantum theory; a complete theory of quantum gravity was stumbled upon long ago by Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg, and the Standard Model is founded on rock-solid foundations of experimental evidence. Why, then, do the physicists deny all this? Because, says Tipler, they don't like the universe that emerges, a universe that begins and ends with God. The experimentally based physics to which Tipler refers predicts a singularity -- a point at which all known laws of physics break down and to which, therefore, our science has no access -- from which the universe sprang. There is a further singularity at the end of the universe and a third joining the two. This is the Holy Trinity. The first singularity, says Tipler, is God the Father, the second God the Holy Ghost, and the third God the Son. The latter, because of his role as the singularity that runs alongside the present, is able to appear in human history.

The depiction of human identity in the pop‐science futurology of engineer/inventor Ray Kurzweil, the speculative robotics of Carnegie Mellon roboticist Hans Moravec, and the physics of Tulane University mathematics professor Frank Tipler elevate technology, especially information technology, to a point of ultimate significance. For these three figures, information technology offers the potential means by which the problem of human and cosmic finitude can be rectified. Although Moravec's vision of intelligent robots, Kurzweil's hope for immanent human immorality, and Tipler's description of humanlike von Neumann machines colonizing the very material fabric of the universe all may appear to be nothing more than science fictional musings, they raise genuine questions as to the relationship between science, technology, and religion as regards issues of personal and cosmic eschatology. In an attempt to correct what I see as the cybernetic totalism inherent in these techno‐theologies, I argue for a theology of technology that seeks to interpret technology hermeneutically and grounds human creativity in the broader context of divine creative activity.

Unique epistemological challenges arise whenever one embarks on the critical and self‐critical reflection of the nature of time and the end of time. I attempt to construct my preference for an eschatological distinction between time and eternity from within a middle way, avoiding both the hubris that claims complete comprehension and the resignation that concedes readily to know nothing. Surveying the history of reflection on this multifaceted question of time, with its ephemeral and everlasting dimensions, I argue that the eschatological interplay between the “already” and the “not yet” has much to offer: promise for the religion‐science dialogue as well as hope for humanity, especially for those on society's bleakest edges. But understandings of time, to be authentically theological, must be also informed by cosmology and the physics of relativity. My proposal seeks to respect the theological and scientific interpretations of the nature of time, serving the ongoing, creative interaction of these disciplines. Between physics and theology I identify four formal differences in analyzing eschatology, all grounded in the one fundamental difference between extrapolation and promise. Discussion of what I term deficits in both the scientific and theological approaches leads to further examination of the complex relationship between time and eternity. I distinguish three models of such relationships, which I label the ontological, the quantitative, and the eschatological distinction between time and eternity. Because of the way it embraces a multiplicity of times, especially relating to the culmination and the consummation of creation, I opt for the eschatological model. The eschatological disruption of linear chronology relates well to relativ‐istic physics: This model is open, dynamic, and relational, and it may add a new aspect to the debate over the block universe.

''I have a salary at Tulane,'' says [Frank Tipler], ''some 40 percent lower than the average for a full professor at Tulane as a consequence of my belief.'' Tipler rejects all this. We have a theory of everything, all the problems were resolved 30 years ago. Subsequent stringy speculations are just that, speculations without any experimental proof. To deny the multiverse is to deny quantum theory; a complete theory of quantum gravity was stumbled upon long ago by Richard Feynman and Steven Weinberg, and the Standard Model is founded on rock-solid foundations of experimental evidence. Why, then, do the physicists deny all this? Because, says Tipler, they don't like the universe that emerges, a universe that begins and ends with God. The experimentally based physics to which Tipler refers predicts a singularity - a point at which all known laws of physics break down and to which, therefore, our science has no access - from which the universe sprang. There is a further singularity at the end of the universe and a third joining the two. This is the Holy Trinity. The first singularity, says Tipler, is God the Father, the second God the Holy Ghost, and the third God the Son. The latter, because of his role as the singularity that runs alongside the present, is able to appear in human history.

The answer is simple. OK, it's not at all simple, but it goes something like this. Assuming that by that stage we are in control of all the matter in the universe, we should be able to prod it a bit so that when (and this is also assuming if) the Big Crunch happens, it happens in such a way that, as all the matter in the universe gets closer and closer together, it becomes faster and easier to use this matter to process information. The universe will then, apparently, eventually reach something called the \"Omega Point\", theorised by Frank Tipler in The Physics of Immortality. This is a point where its power is such that the universe can process an infinite amount of information. What happens after reaching the Omega Point - basically the end of everything - becomes immaterial since, if you could process an infinite amount of information, you could, at that point, simulate an infinite universe, or even run all the possible histories of the universe that there could ever have been. As in Zeno's paradox, the finish line will never appear. And this has an interesting, mind-blowing consequence, completely consistent with the laws of physics. As Tipler says: \"One way or another, we are going to find ourselves resurrected in a computer simulation at the end of time\". For reasons too complex to go into here, the final simulation will not be any old simulation; it will be just like Heaven. And the good news (especially for those still contemplating the existential implications of \"All the Myriad Ways\") is that if Tipler is right, then, on exiting this life, you go straight there.

Wolfhart Pannenberg's engagement with the natural sciences is surveyed. A critique is given of his treatment of these themes: the concept of a field; contingency; the role of the future.

Before God passes judgment on science, though, other scientists will address the case of their brother, [Frank Tipler] - a process that the author welcomes. In fact, says Tipler, until peers reach consensus on the quality of his ideas, he will continue referring to himself as an atheist (as a boy in Alabama he referred to himself as a Southern Baptist) and, likewise, urged that readers exercise their own scientific skepticism. Don't be too quick to buy a God-and-heaven theory, says Tipler - even his own. In a television report on Tipler's book, a scientist at the University of Chicago called the work \"an insult to physicists\" and a review in the prestigious journal Nature begins with the wilting observation: \"This must be one of the most misleading books ever produced.\" The reviewer, George Ellis of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said Tipler made selective use of scientific principles, embroidered his work with academic \"absurdities,\" demonstrated a total lack of \"intellectual rigour\" and foisted on the public \"a masterpiece of pseudoscience.\" Tipler says a speaking engagement at the esteemed Max Planck Institute in Munich was cancelled earlier this year after word of his book circulated. \"I was flabbergasted,\" Tipler says with a hint of resignation. Soon after, he said, an institute in Switzerland withdrew an invitation, too. Some suggest Tipler is just out to make money by pandering to the spiritual hunger of the times, and others hint he has been swept away by his own reductionist ideas. But, scientists agree, Tipler, 47, has done substantial work in the past and generally is highly regarded. \"Heretofore, he's had quite a fine reputation,\" said Josh Frieman, head of the astrophysics department at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. Fine reputation or not, says Frieman, Tipler's book is more science fiction than science. \"The only merit I see is as entertainment,\" he said.

Nevertheless, [Frank J. Tipler] marshals an impressive array of evidence from recent discoveries in particle physics and relativity theory to show that the biblical prophets were not deluded wishful thinkers. Rather, he shows that they were inspired seers who somehow stumbled on the most profound truths of our existence: That \"God exists, and 2) he/she loves us all and will one day resurrect us all to live forever.\"

Solid, three-dimensional copies of objects now can be transmitted electronically. A device dubbed a fabber uses a laser to scan an object, creating a record of its exact shape. Then the record is sent to another computer -- thousands of miles away, if necessary. That computer instructs a laser to fire into a vat of liquid polymer. The laser beam hardens the polymer, slice by slice, starting from the bottom and working upward. The result: a plastic replica of the original object. Details appear in Discover magazine. Nor am I making up this item about [Frank J. Tipler], a Tulane physicist whose new book, The Physics of Immortality -- Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead (Doubleday, $24.95), describes how he used \"the most advanced and sophisticated methods of modern physics, relying solely on the rigorous procedures of logic that science demands, {to create} a proof of the existence of God.\" I'm pretty familiar with the history of physics and the manner in which J.J. Thomson determined the unit charge on the electron, back in the 1890s, and frankly, I don't see any similarity between his careful laboratory toil and Tipler's speculations; but maybe I've been blinded by my heathen attitudes, as my creationist readers assure me.

It is only when reporting the extreme ideas of cosmologist Frank Tipler that [Marcus Chown] is prepared to show any real doubt at all. Tipler believes that mankind will one day colonise the entire universe, download its collective memory into indestructible computers, and resurrect every human in a simulated afterlife that will last for an eternity - the never-ending days of Chown's title. The opinion of most physicists is that Tipler's theory is good after-dinner entertainment but scientifically worthless. Chown, however, gives it the sort of even-handed presentation customarily adopted by television pseudo- documentaries about ghosts or alien visitation, offering no more than a disclaiming shrug after a long and sensational exposition.