[ExI] "general repudiation of Transhumanism"

[Damien Broderick]

At 07:36 AM 4/26/2008 -0700, John Grigg wrote:

>Last Monday night I attended a Templeton Foundation Research Lecture 
>that was part of their ongoing series on Transhumanism.

That is, a series sponsored by an avowedly religious foundation 
dedicated to finding links between religion and science.

>The speaker was ASU professor Dan Sarewitz

Did he declare his own religious affiliations, if any?

>After the lecture he mingled with the crowd over refreshments and 
>then the real venom against Transhumanism came pouring 
>out.  Sarewitz very mockingly referred to the Singularity as a crazy 
>essentially religious obsession Transhumanists had.

It is very striking how often it is the religious in particular who 
mock and assail others because their ideas are "crazy" and 
"religious." Presumably it isn't *just* that such ideas are 
"religious" but that they are also "crazy," unlike their own entirely 
sane religious ideas (sticks turned into snakes, seas parted at 
command, rotation of the earth halted for a day, virgin births, 
magical revival from the dead, wine turned into water, bread turned 
into god, golden plates revealed by angels, gods with elephant's 
heads, all that completely sensible stuff).

Damien Broderick