[ExI] Other thoughts on transhumanism and religion

[Jeff Davis]

Bravo! Samantha.  Spoken (written, actually) with power and passion.

Like a good American, I learned to believe, and embraced the belief,
that this country was the model of the good life for all of humanity.
The problems of the past would soon be solved by the productivity
emerging in modernity.  But dreams outpace reality, and the old cling
to the old ways, slowing the race to the rainbows end.  Still, filled
with the vitality of wonder we move ever forward, the young leap
eagerly to the fore, the mouldering corpses trail away behind,
reuniting with the dust.

When society strays into the minefield of its dark side, assaulting my
optimism, I withdraw to my "happy place ", commune with my inner geek,
and revisit the wonders to come, or simply remember the night I stood
beneath the stars and realized that ultra-low temperature storage was
my ticket to the next stage of the adventure.  Such was my geekiness
that the moment arrived as a simple gentle epiphany without bombshell
or blaring of trumpets.

And yes, I agree, tell the world.  It's damn fine news.  Especially
now, when we need a hopeful message to bring us all back to the path
of our better angels.

No tears but tears of joy.
-- 
Best, Jeff Davis

               "Everything's hard till you
                     know how to do it."
                              Ray Charles


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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