Transhumanism, religion and Raelians
A blogger calls the attention of his readers upon an ”infamous excerpt from a prominent transhumanist’s [yours truly] evangelistic speech about transhumanism”, and concludes that ”the actions of some transhumanists are pseudo-religious”. The source of such wisdom is the very illuminated Wesley J. Smith, in a post of January 1, 2007 titled Give Me That New Transhumanist Religion.
Smith quoted me as:
”I want our ideas to reach as many people as possible, in a clear and understandable way. Why? Because our worldview can give a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. This has been the historic function of the world’s great religions and monolithic ideologies that, on the other hand, are now finally beginning to show some fatigue and soon will be completely unable to persuade people more and more culturally sophisticated and used to the scientific worldview. We should not forget that these are still a minority, but the trend is clear....
We cannot deny that the great world’s religions have managed, and quite well, to reach the masses. Religions’ success is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very* powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking religion seriously. But is it really so? Perhaps not. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to create ‘transhumanist religions’, based on science, but still able to offer hope in ‘another life’ even for those who are already dead”.
I wrote these words in my Considerations on the development of the transhumanist movement, posted on December 31, 2006. After a year full of vicious flame wars on all transhumanist lists and technoprogressive blogs, I would still write each and every word in the passage quoted.
By the way, thanks to Mike and Natasha for having supported me on Smith’s blog. In his own comments Smith said ”*Of course* you believe in religion. That is what transhumanism is. It seeks to find transcendence and Truth through scientific means. As such, it isn’t really about science. It is about the very human desire to find meaning and purpose. In this regard, transhumanism is a denomination of Scientism, which is merely religion masking as science”.
And I replied ”if religion is defined as “seeking to find transcendence and truth, meaning and purpose”, then I am ready and willing to accept the label “religious”. And as you say, I want to find it through scientific means, or at least through means compatible with the scientific method and worldview. If I don’t *find* it, I want to *build* it following the best examples in the history of our species and our civilization. Science and engineering have taken us from caves to where we are now, and there is no reason to think that this process should stop here”.
I have spent a lot of time in 2007 defending this radical, cosmic interpretation of transhumanism against its opponents. Sometimes transhumanism looks like religion. So what the fuck? Religion is not always bad, it can be good. Actually it can be _very_ good. Take a look for example at the websites of the Society for Universal Immortalism, or the Mormon Transhumanist Association. I think in 2008 I will spend much less time debating with often intolerant opponents, and much more time exploring the interface between transhumanism and religion with like-minded friends.
Ah yes, the Raelians. Smith & friends attacked me for saying that ”the Raelian message is very similar to the transhumanist one”. Actually after my original post I received many hate letters not only from outraged ultra-rationalist atheists, but also from outraged Raelians, so perhaps it was not so Rael-friendly. But, the Raelian message _is_ very similar to the transhumanist one. I subscribe to the technology news list rael-science. The signature on list message includes: ”“Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism, through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and new technologies. There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history, it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations. On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease, death and the sweat of labour”. This _is_ transhumanism, even if uncaveated and worded in a form too triumphantly propagandistic for my taste. Of course the “UFO layer” of Raelianism has nothing to do with transhumanism, and actually not much to do with the rest of the Raelian message either, so I have always wondered why it is there and suspect it is some kind of clever marketing technique.
Posted by G.P. on 01/15 at 06:15 PM