[ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers

[spike]

>...On Behalf Of hkhenson
...
> 
> We could make a case they might accept that Transhumanism is 
> Sacerdotal machine religion, that is a religion based on the 
> belief that machines are the way for humans to experience God.
> 
> Keith

I commend you Keith.  The notion itself is sheer brilliance.

Really I think what this organization is looking for is a way to map
transhumanism onto religious thought-space.  They want to determine if there
is any essential contribution that can shed light on their own religious
notions.  

Before this makes any sense, first consider that religion professors are
extremely sophisticated in their analysis, all based on an assumption which
cannot be proven but which must be accepted by faith: that the bible is the
revealed word of god (if christian or jew).  When pressed, they will freely
admit that if this assumption is incorrect, then all the notions built
thereupon are mere tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.

If presented with transhumanism for instance, they would map the memeset
onto religious thought space as taking an extreme form of reductionism of
the human, whereas most religious thought views humans in a holistic way.
Religion incorporated thinks of humans as more than the sum of the parts,
transhumanism thinks of humans as exactly equal to the sum of the parts.  If
equal to the sum of the parts, then new parts can be substituted, making the
sum greater than before.

Cryonicists also must view humans as reductionist, a machine that can be
preserved and later simulated, or theoretically possible to create an exact
copy given sufficient technology.  Otherwise cryonics makes no sense, for
the religionist would argue there is a separate soul that has fled during
the freezing process.

Parting shot: the transhumanist memeset when mapped onto religious thought
space would have a puzzling next-door neighbor: Seventh Day Adventists.
These also see the human from the point of view of a reductionist.  The
human is a machine with no separate parts, no ethereal spirit or soul,
rather a machine that can be completely destroyed by fire or by time, then
later rebuilt as an exact copy, with all the same ideas, memories,
attitudes, etc.  This was a remarkable insight for the 1850s, ja?

spike