Ted Peters

Science challenges faith to seek fuller understanding, and faith challenges science to be socially and ethically responsible. This book begins with faith in God the Creator of the world, and then expands our understanding of creation in light of Big Bang cosmology and new discoveries in physics. Examining the expanding frontier of genetic research, Ted Peters draws out implications for theological understandings of human nature and human freedom. Issues discussed include: methodology in science and theology; eschatology in cosmology and theology; freedom and responsibility in evolution and theology; and genetic determinism, genetic engineering, and cloning in relation to freedom, the comodification of human life, and equitable distribution of the fruits of genetic technology. The dialogue model of relationship between science and religion, proposed in this book, provides a common ground for the disparate voices among theologians, scientists, and world religions. This common ground has the potential to breathe new life into current debates about the world in which we live, move, and have our being.

Science, Theology, and Ethics

Brian Patrick Green

Arvin M. Gouw

Why do representatives of different religious traditions find the transhumanist vision of the future not only theologically compatible but even inspiring? Transhumanism is a global movement seeking radical human enhancement. The trans in transhumanism marks the transition from the present stage in human evolution into the future, namely, post-human existence. Containing chapters written by adherents to a variety of religious traditions, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics provides first-hand testimony to the value of the transhumanist vision perceived by the religious mind. In addition, the contributors critique both secular and religious transhumanism in light of realistic science and commitment to social justice.

Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics

"Will advances in AI (Artificial Intelligence) or IA (Intelligence Amplification) lead to the extinction of the human race as we know it? Or, will superintelligence lead to utopia? In this collection of thoughtful essays, we must first get clear on the question: is artificial intelligence actually intelligent or not? Only with an affirmative answer could our techies proceed toward their goal: the creation of a superintelligence that leads through transhumanism to a posthuman entity that would replace today's human. Should today's moderately intelligent human species voluntarily go extinct to make way for a more intelligent species to succeed us in evolutionary history? These scientific questions are addressed in this volume in light of their theological, ethical, and social implications."--Publisher description.

Utopia Or Extinction?

AI and IA

Perhaps inadvertently, historians have often eliminated the religious chapters--those episodes in history during which human insights into transcendence and divinity have shaped human consciousness--from our planet's story. This book tells the story of cosmic history as big historians tell it, beginning with the big bang, and explores the question of God hidden beneath this story. The book pauses on the Axial Age of human history: a moment during the first millennium BCE in which questions of transcendence first simultaneously arose in distinct locations around the world. By exploring this threshold in cosmic history, the author demonstrates the way the arrival of the God question marked a radical new human consciousness, one that ultimately laid the groundwork for the modern age.--

Where Science & History Meet Religion

God in Cosmic History

Can faith as trusting God make a difference? Absolutelyby relieving our anxiety over self-justification and the need to scapegoat others. Sin Boldly! provides an experiential analysis of the contrast between self-justification and justification by God. We must pose the question: how can the gospel of grace provide transformation for both fragile and broken souls? This book proposes the following answer: trusting in the God of grace relieves anxiety and provides a divine vocation that transcends our moral universe with the promise of forgiveness, renewal, and resurrection.

Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls

Sin Boldly!

Martinez Hewlett

You decide: Can you believe in God and Evolution?

A Guide for the Perplexed

Can You Believe in God and Evolution?

Will advances in AI (Artificial Intelligence) or IA (Intelligence Amplification) lead to the extinction of the human race as we know it? Or, will superintelligence lead to utopia? In this collection of thoughtful essays, we must first get clear on the question: is artificial intelligence actually intelligent or not? Only with an affirmative answer could our techies proceed toward their goal: the creation of a superintelligence that leads through transhumanism to a posthuman entity that would replace today's human. Should today's moderately intelligent human species voluntarily go extinct to make way for a more intelligent species to succeed us in evolutionary history? These scientific questions are addressed in this volume in light of their theological, ethical, and social implications.

Utopia or Extinction?

Flying Saucers in Politics, Science, and Religion

UFOs--God's Chariots?

Michael Welker

Robert J. Russell

A team of scientists and theologians from both sides of the Atlantic explore the Christian concept of bodily resurrection in light of the views of contemporary science. Whether it be the Easter resurrection of Jesus or the promised new life of individual believers, the authors argue that resurrection must be conceived as "embodied" and that our bodies cannot exist apart from their worldly environment. Yet nothing in today's scientific disciplines supports the possibility of either bodily resurrection or the new creation of the universe at large. Bridging such disciplines as physics, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, biblical studies, and theology, Resurrection offers fascinating reading to anyone interested in this vital Christian belief or in the intersection of faith and scientific thought.

Theological and Scientific Assessments

Resurrection

Peters examines the works of Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Eberhard Jungel, Jurgen Moltmann, Catherine Mowry LaCugna, and other theologians, as he highlights talk about the becoming of God by process theologians, sexism in trinitarian language by feminists, and divine and human community by liberation theologians.

Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life

God as Trinity

Leona Foxx leads a tense double life. She is unwillingly pulled back into being a CIA black op trained killer, while serving her new calling to God as a parish pastor on the South Side of Chicago. Haunted by a terrifying past, Leona's skills as a defender of America against threats both foreign and domestic conflict with her conscience, which is shaped by her faith and her compassion for both friends and enemies. Leona uncovers a terrorist plot hatched by American mercenaries who plan to blame Iran, thus threatening a war that will make them rich. She divests her clerical collar to pack her .45 Kimber Super Match II and rallies a counter-terrorist alliance of professional crime fighters and black gang members. The story climaxes with a drone helicopter attack on the 85th floor of the John Hancock Building, intended to assassinate the president. Only Leona Foxx, her ragtag team of die-hards, her finely honed killer instincts, her arsenal of high-tech weapons and her faith in God can avert the devastation that could result in the death of millions of innocents and manifest in hell on earth. [David Baldacci and Michael Crichton meet Lillian Jackson Braun.]

A Leona Foxx Suspense Thriller

For God and Country

Ted Peters asks how the eschatological vision of God's ultimate future (omega) fits on a map of reality along with physics, evolutionary biology, genetics, and technical prognostications for a post-human future.

Science, Faith, and Our Ultimate Future

Anticipating Omega

Joseph Seckbach

Richard Gordon

Octavio A. Chon Torres

Astrobiology is an exploding discipline in which not only the natural sciences, but also the social sciences and humanities converge. Astrobiology: Science, Ethics and Public Policy is a multidisciplinary book that presents different perspectives and points of view by its contributing specialists. Epistemological, moral and political issues arising from astrobiology, convey the complexity of challenges posed by the search for life elsewhere in the universe. We ask: if a convoy of colonists from Earth make the trip to Mars, should their genomes be edited to adapt to the Red Planet’s environment? If scientists discover a biosphere with microbial life within our solar system, will it possess intrinsic value or merely utilitarian value? If astronomers discover an intelligent civilization on an exoplanet elsewhere in the Milky Way, what would be humanity’s moral responsibility: to protect Earth from an existential threat? To treat other intelligences with dignity? To exploit through interstellar commerce? To conquer?

Science, Ethics, and Public Policy

Astrobiology

Since the original publication of Playing God? in 1996, three developments in genetic technology have moved to the center of the public conversation about the ethics of human bioengineering. Cloning, the completion of the human genome project, and, most recently, the controversy over stem cell research have all sparked lively debates among religious thinkers and the makers of public policy. In this updated edition, Ted Peters illuminates the key issues in these debates and continues to make deft connections between our questions about God and our efforts to manage technological innovations with wisdom.

Genetic Determinism and Human Freedon

Playing God?

Syed Nomanul Haq

Muzaffar Iqbal

God, Life, and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives is the first book in which Christian and Muslim scholars explore the frontiers of science-religion discourse. Leading international scholars present new work on key issues in science and religion from Christian and Islamic perspectives. Following an introduction by the editors, the book is divided into three sections: the first explores the philosophical issues in science-religion discourse; the second examines cosmology; the third analyses the issues surrounding bioethics. One of the first books to explore aspects of science-religion discourse from the perspective of two religious traditions, God, Life, and the Cosmos opens up new vistas to all interested in science and religion, and those exploring contemporary issues in Christianity and Islam.

Christian and Islamic Perspectives

God, Life, and the Cosmos

Nathan Hallanger

In 1981 Robert John Russell founded what would become the leading center of research at the interface of science and religion, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Focusing on three areas of Russell's work - methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics - God's Action in Nature's World assesses and celebrates Robert Russell's impact on the discipline of science and religion.

Essays in Honour of Robert John Russell

God's Action in Nature's World

Peters revisits the dark side of human nature and the perennial categories of sin that have been glossed over by our pluralistic culture. Peters examines the kinds of evil that we confront on a daily basis and reminds us of the availability of grace.

Radical Evil in Soul and Society

Are UFOs celestial saviors, coming to save Earth from self-destruction? Are UFOnauts advancing human evolution by birthing hybrid children? Is it time for a new “astrotheology” that enshrines the UFO phenomenon at the same level as the space sciences at NASA and SETI? UFOs: God’s Chariots? uncovers and exposes the clandestine spiritual dimensions within the UFO phenomenon. UFOs vibrate with transcendence, omniscience, perfection, and redemption. UFOs: God’s Chariots? delves deeply into government conspiracies, analyzes the newest models of close encounter interpretation, and reveals the results of The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey, in which self-identified believers were asked if making contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization would undermine our historic religious traditions. They said no. Does this mean we’re ready to share our pews with aliens?

Ted Peters

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