I resent that religious people would try to co-opt all this work and at this late date contemplate the idea of a digital entity with a “soul.”
At the risk of being rude, this sounds more like your problems than theirs. I’m not sure religious transhumanists are even that late to the party: we happen to be part of a community that got there very early and has been slowly prepping the party so it’ll be ready when folks arrive. Maybe religious folks want to dance to different music than we do and you might find that annoying, but is that better than no one showing up to the party at all? And if we don’t like it we can always go hang out in a room upstairs for a while without leaving, because the music will eventually change. It always does.
My perspective is that religious folk have not been prepping the party. Scientists have been trying to get some instruments together to make some music, but the religious people keep grabbing guitars, smashing them, and calling it music. Then, when the music finally starts up despite all the smashed instruments, religious folks say “oh hey, that’s what we were trying to do, you’re welcome everybody.”
As soon as something conveniently fits the religious narrative (appropriately tortured beyond its original construction), it gets incorporated. I find that frustrating, as it should instead shatter the narrative and reveal it for the useless pile of dogma that it is.
Most scientists are not extropian in any sense—so if they have been “prepping the party” it was not deliberate. Are you considering scientists and religious folk as disjoint sets?
At the risk of being rude, this sounds more like your problems than theirs. I’m not sure religious transhumanists are even that late to the party: we happen to be part of a community that got there very early and has been slowly prepping the party so it’ll be ready when folks arrive. Maybe religious folks want to dance to different music than we do and you might find that annoying, but is that better than no one showing up to the party at all? And if we don’t like it we can always go hang out in a room upstairs for a while without leaving, because the music will eventually change. It always does.
My perspective is that religious folk have not been prepping the party. Scientists have been trying to get some instruments together to make some music, but the religious people keep grabbing guitars, smashing them, and calling it music. Then, when the music finally starts up despite all the smashed instruments, religious folks say “oh hey, that’s what we were trying to do, you’re welcome everybody.”
As soon as something conveniently fits the religious narrative (appropriately tortured beyond its original construction), it gets incorporated. I find that frustrating, as it should instead shatter the narrative and reveal it for the useless pile of dogma that it is.
Most scientists are not extropian in any sense—so if they have been “prepping the party” it was not deliberate. Are you considering scientists and religious folk as disjoint sets?