We live in a genuinely unique period of human history, one in which the alarmist's hackneyed warning that “The end is near!” could actually come true. The world is cluttered with increasingly powerful advanced technologies. Global warming and biodiversity loss are unchecked catastrophes that will likely push society to the brink of collapse. How are we to respond to this situation? What can we do to maximize the probability of a positive outcome for our species? The End surveys the expanding wilderness of big-picture hazards before us. It offers a comprehensive and detailed analysis of our evolving existential predicament, which includes risks from synthetic biology, nanotechnology, nuclear weaponry, and (possibly, soon) superintelligence. But understanding the science of risks isn't enough to effectively mitigate them: one must also understand the social, political, and especially religious contexts in which advanced technologies are being developed. The End provides this knowledge by showing how faith-based belief in religious eschatologies (or end-times narratives) is inching us ever closer to a secular apocalypse. Action needs to be taken immediately to avert a disaster. The question is whether humanity will choose reason over faith, observation over revelation, and science over religion.

The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Apocalypse

Religion & Spirituality

Torres, Phil

Christian Books & Bibles

Pitchstone Publishing

Existential risk studies is a growing field that attempts to understand the greatest dangers to humanity from a scientific perspective. This book offers the most comprehensive scholarly survey of existential risks to date, from asteroid impacts and climate change to molecular nanotechnology and machine superintelligence. It argues that avoiding an existential catastrophe should be among our highest priorities and explores a number of high-level strategies for reducing the probability of a worst-case outcome. The dangers facing humanity this century are real and unprecedented, but the future course of civilization is not beyond our control.

Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

A Crisis of Faith puts forth one of the most comprehensive and accessible arguments for the claim that theism is false and faith-based belief is foolish. Drawing from many disparate fields, including epistemology, evolutionary biology, textual criticism, the philosophy of mind and (what the author refers to as) secular eschatology, Crisis attacks the theistic position from multiple angles. In doing so, this book not only delineates established arguments against God's existence, but explores topics that no other atheists have yet considered - for instance, how might cognitive enhancements foment the further secularization of society? Phil Torres puts together an overwhelmingly convincing case that religion ought to become a thing of the past: it's bad epistemology and, in a world marked by radical advances in genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, it greatly increases the likelihood of disaster. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophical foundations of atheism and the many practical reasons it ought to be accepted.

A Crisis of Faith: Atheism, Emerging Technologies and the Future of Humanity

Dangerous Little Books

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Books by Torres, Phil