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Why I became a Christian Transhumanist + Turing Church preaches tomorrow's religion - C C - Nov 27, 2017
Also: https://www.scivillage.com/thread-4551-post-16044.html#pid16044
Why I Became a Christian Transhumanist
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9akxm3/why-i-became-a-christian-transhumanist
EXCERPT: [...] A lot of people think of Christianity as a backwards-looking religion, obsessed with protesting gays, being judgmental, and imposing its rules on everyone else. That doesn't sound like a group of people ready to embrace the cutting edge of technology or culture -- but Christianity has reinvented itself many times in the past, and when it does, it often ends up profoundly forward-looking and progressive.
I believe that this reinvention is happening now, and what is emerging is a new class of Christian transhumanists and singularitarians with radically disruptive views on the future. Of course, I'm hardly unbiased. I'm one of them: I grew up as a preacher's kid, saturated in the Bible and Christian thought; I've identified as a transhumanist since the mid-90s; and I'm currently the executive director of the Christian Transhumanist Association.
For those not familiar with transhumanism, it has been called "the world's most dangerous idea, [...] For the most part, the transhumanist movement has been defined by hard-core atheists, with a generally negative attitude towards religious people and religion in general. But this is where things get interesting: religious transhumanism is a growing phenomenon. The Mormon Transhumanist Association has existed for nine years, and has over 500 members. The Christian Transhumanist association is newer and smaller, but seems to represent a real and felt need among a growing number of Christians.
Florida pastor Christopher Benek is one of these Christian transhumanists. Lately, Benek has been making headlines (and even an appearance on The Daily Show) with his controversial take on robots, A.I. and the future. "I don't see Christ's redemption limited to human beings," he says. "It's redemption to all of creation, even AI. If AI is autonomous, then we should encourage it to participate in Christ's redemptive purposes in the world… AI can help spread the word of God. In fact, AI might help us understand God better."...
MORE: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9akxm3/why-i-became-a-christian-transhumanist
The Turing Church Preaches the Religion of the Future
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp3gbb/the-turing-church-preaches-the-religion-of-the-future
EXCERPT: [...] The Turing Church aims to attract like-minded support from researchers, programmers, and philosophers hoping to direct transhumanist progress within the framework of a broad "theology" of sorts. It's a position best summed up by the group's three core pillars:
(1) "We will go to the stars and find Gods, build Gods, become Gods, and resurrect the dead from the past with advanced science, space-time engineering and 'time magic.'"
(2) "God is emerging from the community of advanced forms of life and civilizations in the universe, and able to influence space-time events anywhere, anytime, including here and now."
(3) "God elevates love and compassion to the status of fundamental forces, key drivers for the evolution of the universe."
Based in part on the philosophy of early 20th century Russian cosmists like Nikolai Fedorov, Prisco and his supporters believe that, one day, we may, among other things, actually reach back into time through quantum weirdness and reconstitute our "information," thus providing, for all intents and purposes, a resurrection. Once reconstituted, we should be able to evolve into higher forms of consciousness currently incomprehensible to mortal minds and indistinguishable to our current conceptions of gods....
MORE: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp3gbb/the-turing-church-preaches-the-religion-of-the-future
RE: Why I became a Christian Transhumanist + Turing Church preaches tomorrow's religion - Zinjanthropos - Nov 27, 2017
Jeezuz, I just watched Jupiter Ascending. Who would have thought that lousy flick was transhumanistic in some ways.
RE: Why I became a Christian Transhumanist + Turing Church preaches tomorrow's religion - RainbowUnicorn - Nov 28, 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Quote:This article is about the futurist ideology and movement. For the critique of humanism and related term, see posthumanism.
Quote:Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology.[1][2]
Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations as well as ethical[3] limitations of using such technologies.[4] The most common transhumanist thesis is that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into different beings with abilities so greatly expanded from the natural condition as to merit the label of posthuman beings.[2]
The contemporary meaning of the term "transhumanism" was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School in the 1960s, when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and worldviews "transitional" to posthumanity as "transhuman".[5] The assertion would lay the intellectual groundwork for the British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist philosophy in 1990 and organizing in California an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.[5][6][7]
Influenced by seminal works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives, including philosophy and religion.[5]