I'm sorry if this is duplicate information, I didn't have time to read through the entire thread before class.
Dr. Tipler is in my humble opinion one of the greatest scientists of our time. Check out some of his books and read his articles. I just finished The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, probably the most extensively researched religious text ever. No, I'm not Dr. Tipler, just a fan. Although you may never know for sure.
http://www.math.tulane.edu/~tipler/