I shall provide a physical foundation for eschatology—the study of the ultimate future—by making the physical… — Frank J. Tipler
I shall provide a physical foundation for eschatology—the study of the ultimate future—by making the physical assumption that the universe must be capable of sustaining life indefinitely... for infinite time... [W]e have to have some theory for the future of the physical universe—since it unquestionably exists— and this is the most beautiful postulate: that total death is not inevitable. All other theories of the future necessarily postulate the ultimate extinction of everything... there is nothing uglier than extermination. We physicists know that a beautiful postulate is more likely to be correct than an ugly one. Why not adopt the Postulate of Eternal Life, at least as a working hypothesis?
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[T]he claim that the central concern of religion is nonsense. Throughout human history, the central concern of religion has been human self-interest. In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, all morality has been obtained from declarative sentences of the form "Thou shalt not kill—because you'll go to Hell if you do!" In the Hindu-Buddhist tradition... "...—because you'll be born as a cockroach if you do!" ...In both cases, the appeal is to physics, not to fundamental moral postulates.
The germ theory was resurrected... by Pasteur and his new medical physics.
Thus... physics had to be extended to medicine in order to save the germ theory. Similarly, for religion to survive, physics must be extended into theology.
With the introduction into physics of the Dirac/Dyson Eternal Life Postulate, science has taken the last independent stronghold of theology.
