[ExI] Atheism again

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 25/04/2020 06:45, Jason Resch wrote:
> I'm curious what you make of the Mormon Transhumanist Association: 
> https://transfigurism.org/

Sorry, I seem to have missed a couple of digests. My spam filter is a 
bit slow to learn!

The MTA suffers from confusion, in my opinion.

The very first thing you see on their website is this:

"As disciples of Jesus Christ, we believe in using technology to serve, 
lift, and love."

So, they're disciples of a character that, as far as anyone knows, is a 
mythological composite, rather like Robin Hood or King Arthur, they hold 
a belief (presumably in the 'blind faith' sense), and they see their 
goals as to 'serve, lift, and love'. Who or what they intend to serve 
and love, is not stated here, I suspect it's not the human race.

Further down:

"We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among 
the means ordained of God ..."

This is clearly a religion. They call themselves transhumanists, but 
they take as a given the existence of a supernatural deity, and then 
assume the role of willing slaves to it. One of the principles of 
transhumanism is autonomy. That seems to be missing here. Another is 
rationality. Ditto.

It looks to me that they are a religion that has selected, adopted and 
adapted some of the principles of transhumanism, leaving behind what are 
arguably the most significant ones, and take that as justification for 
calling themselves 'transhumanist'. This is a bit like a meat-eater who 
adds salad to their diet and starts calling themselves a vegetarian.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc