[ExI] Other thoughts on transhumanism and religion

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Samantha, this is a GREAT post!

On 5/31/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> I remember in 1988 or so when I first read Engines of Creation.  I read
> it with tears streaming down my face.  Though I was an avowed atheist
> and at that time had no spiritual practice at all, I found it profoundly
> spiritually moving.  For the first time in my life I believed that all
> the highest hopes and dreams of humanity could become real, could be
> made flesh.   I saw that it was possible, on this earth, that the end of
> death from aging and disease, the end of physical want, the advent of
> tremendous abundance could all come to pass in my own lifetime.  I saw
> that great abundance, knowledge, peace and good will could come to this
> world.  I cried because it was a message of such pure hope from so
> unexpected an angle that it got past all my defenses.  I looked at the
> cover many times to see if it was marked "New Age" or "Fiction" or
> anything but Science and Non-Fiction.  Never has any book so blown my
> mind and blasted open the doors of my heart.
>
> Should we be afraid to give a message of great hope to humanity?  Should
> we be afraid that we will be taken to be just more pie in the sky
> glad-hand dreamers?   Should we not dare to say that the science and the
> technology combined with a bit (well perhaps more than a bit) of a shift
> of consciousness could make all the best dreams of all the religions and
> all the generations a reality?   Will we not have failed to grasp this
> great opportunity if we do not say it and dare to think it and to live
> it?   Shall we be so afraid of being considered "like a religion" that
> we do not offer any real hope to speak of and are oh so careful in all
> we do and say and dismissive of more unrestrained and open dreamers?
> Or will we embrace them, embrace our own deepest longings and admit our
> kinship with those religious as with all the longing of all the
> generations that came before us.  Will we turn our backs on them or even
> disdain their dreams - we who are in a position to begin at long last to
> make most of those dreams real?   How can we help but be a bit giddy
> with excitement?   How can we say no to such an utterly amazing
> mind-blowing opportunity?
>
> - samantha
>
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