Over at the National Review Online, Wesley J. Smith has an interesting short piece in which he says Transhumanism is a kind of religion:
Transhumanism is a collective of (mostly) naked materialists who hope science and technology will replace the deeper meaning they lost by rejecting metaphysical beliefs. Transhumanists harbor futuristic dreams of making themselves immortal and possessing what would now be thought of as superpowers through technological recreation. Toward those ends, they spend a lot of time and energy discussing and debating arcane issues such as the ethics of uploading consciousness into computers and living forever.
I find it all rather sad. And worrying. Transhumanism harbors blatantly eugenic ambitions and as part of its theology (more on that in a moment) it angrily rejects human exceptionalism. For example, one of the movement’s high priests, J. Hughes, has yearned to enhance a chimp into human attributes to prove we are not special.
I used the word “theological” above because in many ways transhumanism is a quasi religion. It has dogma, eschatology, and yearns for a material New Jerusalem of immortal life. And if Belinda Silbert is to be believed, they want to be gods. Literally.From, “Transhumanism as a Bridge to Divinity:” …
