11. 資料原文及摘譯

There is life after death, and here is proof

From Vancouver Sun, Saturday, January 6, 1996 B3
The Baltimore Sun

"A trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised,"we are told in 
the Bible, and for centuries believers have taken this prophecy literally. 
Yet until now, belief in the world to come has been exclusively a matter of 
religious faith, unsupported by tenents of modern science.

So it's no wonder that physicist Frank J. Tipler has created a stir with his 
recent book, Thephysics of Immortality, which purports to demonstrate to a 
mathematical certainty thatancient promise shall indeed come to pass.

Tipler's book is subtitled Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the 
dead, an ambitious convergence of traditional religion and scientific inquiry 
that, by the author's own admission, is as startling to him as it may appear 
to his readers. 

" When I began my career as a cosmologist some 20 years ago, I was a 
convinced atheist,"he notes. "I never in my wildest dreams imagined 
that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central 
claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are 
straightforward deduction of the laws of physics as we now understand them. 
I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own 
special branch physics.
 
Tipler's specialty is the field of global general relativity, a branch of physics 
pioneered in the late 1960s and early 70s by the British physicist Stephen Hawking 
and Roger Penrose to investigate the structure of the universe on the largest scale. 
When viewed from this perspective, the visible universe of stars and galaxies 
emerges as only a tiny fraction of all that exists, because most of space-time lies 
in the distant future outside our understanding. 

Nevertheless, 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 He/She loves all and will one day 
resurrect us to live forever.

" In Tipler's equations,God is identified as the "Omega Point",
a cosmological "singularity" at the boundary of all future time, 
analogous to the "big bang" in which the universe was created 
and which lies at the boundary of all past time. The key to this theory lies 
in the premise that intelligent life must play a decisive role in order to
ensure its own survival. 

From this, the author proceeds by a series of inferences to show not only 
that human beings will have life after death in an abode that closely 
resembles the heaven of the great world religious, but that far from being 
an insignificant accident in a hostile universe, life, in whatever form, 
may be regarded as the ultimate cause of the existence of the universe itself.
The attempt to reconcile the world as explained by the scientific method 
with that of revealed religion is a fascinating endeavor that already has 
borne unexpected fruit in this century.

Consider that as recently as a generation ago many astronomers still doubted 
the "big bang" theory of creation on the grounds that it too closely 
resembled the biblical account in the book of Genesis. 
Today, virtually all physicists accept the hypothesis that the universe came 
into being in a stupendous flash of light between 10 billion and 20 billion 
years ago. If recent experience is any guide, Tipler's ideas eventually may
well provide the basis for a similar scientific consensus in the future. 
Of course, given the antagonism between science and religion that has been 
going on at least since Copernicus's day, the prospect of rapprochement offers
hope to many people. 

Tipler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University,suggests that
in order to reconcile science and religion, however, we may have to give up 
many naive but reassuring notions. For example, the everlasting life he posits 
for humanity's future is more akin to the cybernetic limbo of a computer simu-
lation than to the conventional image of St. Peter's pearly gates. 

Even Tipler's definition of life is apt to be disconcerting to traditionally
minded: 

He defines life as "information preserved by natural selection
"- a perfectly logical procedure until one realizes that the concept is 
broad enough to include automobiles and personal computers as well as humans
in great chain of being. 

We live in an age in which the certainties of the past are continually 
reinterpreted and reanalysed, then revalidated or dismissed, Tipler offers
hope that reason may serve as the handmaiden on faith, as in St. Thomas 
Aquinas's time.

If so, we may imagine God himself looking down from his heaven on the professor's 
provocative little book and seeing that it is good.

死後有靈魂, 科學已証明< 摘譯自 溫哥華太陽報 1996年1月6日>

聖經預言, "將來會號筒吹響, 死人復活". 但是, 這麼多世紀來, 這些都是基督徒的
信念, 沒有一點科學根據.

最近, 數學物理學家 Frank Tipler 教授發表了一本書,名為永恆物理學 (Physics of
Immorality} 在這本書中, Tipler 教授用數學推導証明, 靈魂的回歸, 死人的復活, 實
在是真實的.

這本書的副題是, 宇宙哲學, 上帝和死人復活, 作者把傳統的基督教的教義與科學的
探索匯合起來, 這在全世界引起了極大的震動, 包括作者本人也大吃一驚.

Tipler 教授從事于宇宙論已經有二十多年, 他自稱是一個堅定的無神論者, 他說:"我連
做夢也沒有想到, 有一天我竟然會出一本書, 其目的是証明基督教的教義是真實的
這個結論完全是從我們已經知道的物理定律直接推導的結果, 也就是說是從永恆
物理學, 這門物理學的分枝, 嚴密邏輯推導的結果"

Tipler 教授專長于地球廣義相對論, 他從粒子物理學和相對論最新的發現, 列舉了許多
給人深刻印象來說明一件事, 那就是聖經不是在愚弄人們, 乃是因為人們對于自身存在
的真理, 在這深奧的問題上, 始終摸不著頭腦, 于是聖經給于人們靈感, 要人領會, 上帝
是存在的, 他愛我們, 有一天他會使我們復活, 進入永恆的境界..

科學與基督教自從哥伯尼時代開始, 一直是對立的, 但隨著科學的發展, 使這種對立日趨
緩和, 可以期待, 科學與基督教有一天會和諧起來.

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