[ExI] my first response to Ted Peter's piece

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Tue Jul 8 14:42:39 UTC 2008


On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Peters states "In the process I would like to correct one mistake made by transhumanist theorists. They presume that religion will attempt to place roadblocks in their way on the grounds that the religious mind is old fashioned, out of date, Luddite, and dedicated to resisting change. When this image is applied to Christian theology or even Jewish theology, it is mistaken." He goes on to make the point that there's no theological reason why Judaism or Christianity would oppose biological research.

Frankly, while I welcome the existence of Christians and Jews who
happen not to oppose biological research, I must admit for
intellectual honesty's sake that plenty of theological reasons would
exist, and that such positive attitude comes at the price of
fundamental philosophical inconsistencies from their side.

In other words, while I can trump up a few ad personam arguments in
debating transhumanism with monotheists for rhetorical purposes, e.g.,
of a "humanitarian" nature, ultimately I think that they are perfectly
right to fight H+ from their point of view; and even that they
sometimes understand or explain better than many transhumanists
engaged in watering down their "revolutionary" ideas what really is at
stake.

SV



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