If you could become something more than human, if you could merge your mind and body with technology that would give you superhuman powers, allowing you eternal life, would you do it?
Transhumanists would!. They envision a day of Singularity when artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence and a massive technological chain reaction will be triggered forever transforming mankind.
Welcome to the utopian age of immortal, hyper-orgasmic super-beings, where war, poverty, and diseases have been eradicated, and your genetically modified children are gestating in artificial wombs.
The fundamental ideas of transhumanism were first pushed in 1923 by British geneticist Haldane in his essay Daedalus: Science and the Future. Dr. Haldane, an atheist and staunch Marxist, was interested in the development of eugenics, creating and sustaining life in an artificial environment (ectogenesis) and the application of genetics to improve humans. His article inspired British communist J.D. Bernal to write The World, the Flesh and the Devil in 1929 where he speculated on the prospects of space colonization and radical changes to humans through bionic implants and cognitive enhancement. While these themes are common to transhumanist, the term itself was not coined until 1957 by Julian Huxley, a British evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and proponent of natural selection. Huxley, as a member of the British Eugenics Society, felt it necessary to remove undesirable variants from the human gene pool, believing as Margaret Sanger, that the lowest class in society were genetically inferior.
Transhumanism is a form of Utopianism, the belief that humans are completely sovereign and capable of self-directed change without the need for God. Like other cultural movements there are subsets and sub-genres of thought under the umbrella. For some the movement is to reduce suffering or improve the quality of life but for the vast extreme members, it is a pursuit of immortality, an escape from moral boundaries, or a form of religion in and of itself.
Today we have technology unimaginable only fifty years ago yet experience has proved that mankind is just as immoral with technology as without it. Aldous Huxley noted that “what science has actually done is to introduce us to improved means in order to obtain hitherto unimproved or rather deteriorated ends.” In other words, Huxley is reminding us that science doesn’t make humanity less sinful, or more moral; it just makes our sin more sophisticated.
The most famous transhumanist on the planet is Ray Kurzwell, a computer scientist and director of engineering at Google, who believes that evolution and technology are systematically moving us in the direction of becoming more like God. Mark Pesce, an engineer and lecturer at the University of Sydney, is slightly more extreme in that he believes that evolution and technology will allow us to become as gods.
Using evolution principles to “improve” mankind is founded on the understanding that man has evolved over millions of years and therefore we were in the past “subhuman” therefore, logically we will evolve into something better or “post human” in the future through science. It is an entirely logical premise if one thinks that man is the ultimate authority. After all, why not give evolution a hand if it’s headed onwards and upwards anyway. Such help could be regarded as part of the evolutionary process itself. That is until one realizes that this concept being applied to enhance societies has been tried before. Nazi Germany comes to mind!
A quick overview of a 2003 report from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce, entitled “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” reveals that this is not just a fringe movement. The 405 page document explains its indiscernibly transhumanistic goal of preventing an inevitable societal catastrophe rather than the improvement of human lives. As a matter of fact, to assist in “educating” those not on board with ET, the report suggests “unifying science and education to meet the coming challenges from elementary school through postgraduate training…the ’emergence’ of new kinds of people who understand multiple fields in depth and can intelligently work to integrate them. New curricula, new concepts. . .new forms of educational institutions will be necessary.”
So what will Christianity look like in a transhuman world? Max More, the “father” of contemporary transhumanism, and co-founder of the Extropy Institute, says that modern transhumanism is rooted in Humanism and the Age of Enlightenment, and most Transhumanists are atheistic or agnostic. Although an atheist himself, at least in the sense of the Christian God, he says he could see the importance of finding compatibility between the neo-human program and religion. However, he feels that the notion of godhood is “too limited of an idea in the sense traditionally conceived” and our limited concept of God will advance as we “progress.”
Dorothy Deasy believes that “it is vital for spiritual transhumanists to have a voice, to be the Third Way” between Christian fundamentalism and creation without God [atheism]. “We are living in times when giving into either-or-thinking, either science or spirituality, can have dangerous social consequences.” She believes as a “Christian” transhumanist that faith communities must evolve their perception of God….” To “Christian” tranhumanist, this evolved spiritually means putting the “Wisdom Teachings” forward while breaking away from religious exclusivity and embracing a diversity of beliefs.
Transhumanism embraces Darwinism, Intelligent Design, spirituality, science, belief in ET, etc. all wrapped up in a self-guided salvation message pushed by atheists, socialist, communist and Marxists. What a concept! It is the ultimate goal of technocracy, the idea that the works of man can save humanity.
“We are going to become gods. Period. If you don’t like it, get off. You don’t have to contribute; you don’t have to participate. But if you’re going to interfere with me becoming god, we’re going to have big trouble. Then we’ll have warfare.” Richard Seed, Human Clone Researcher
