Mormonism and Transhumanism
I just realized that I did do something that relates to
Transhumanism over my summer vacation. I
went to Palmyra , NY
How does this relate to Transhumanism? Because Mormonism is another example of a Gnostic religion, which is what Transhumanism is. There are many aspects to Gnosticism, but the main ones that relate to Mormonism and Transhumanism is that a secret Knowledge (or Gnosis) will liberate you from your body and you will become a God or you will create God. In the case of Transhumanism the Gnosis is modern science with its dense jargon; indecipherable except to a chosen few. Whether through de Grey’s SENS ideology, or Kurzweil’s brain uploading or Drexler’s nanobots, supposedly we will soon transcend our flesh and the thousand natural shocks it is heir to, to become immortal omniscient Gods. Indeed, Kurzweil openly states that the Singularity is the creation of God. Thus, the standard Christian theology is flip-flopped: instead of God creating us, we create God.
How does this relate to Transhumanism? Because Mormonism is another example of a Gnostic religion, which is what Transhumanism is. There are many aspects to Gnosticism, but the main ones that relate to Mormonism and Transhumanism is that a secret Knowledge (or Gnosis) will liberate you from your body and you will become a God or you will create God. In the case of Transhumanism the Gnosis is modern science with its dense jargon; indecipherable except to a chosen few. Whether through de Grey’s SENS ideology, or Kurzweil’s brain uploading or Drexler’s nanobots, supposedly we will soon transcend our flesh and the thousand natural shocks it is heir to, to become immortal omniscient Gods. Indeed, Kurzweil openly states that the Singularity is the creation of God. Thus, the standard Christian theology is flip-flopped: instead of God creating us, we create God.
You may be interested to know that there is a Mormon Transhumanist Association:
http://transfigurism.org
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Transhumanism should more appropriately called a philosophy, or perhaps an ideology. It's too grounded in reason (or rationality, if you prefer) and engineering-orientation to be a "cult" or even "religion", at least as these latter terms tend actually to be *used* (to be terribly Austinian/Wittgensteinian). Transhumanists, as I see them, simply advocate advancing technology to satisfy some (most...all?) of humankind's deepest aspirations...what's wrong with that...
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