Will the machine deity require you to accept Christ as your savior before letting you become a transhuman? No? Then why the hell is that written in the bronze age book that you claim knowingly predicted this outcome?
The classic idea of heaven looks like a post-scarcity, post-death society because that’s what we’ve always imagined would be nice. It’s not divine prophecy, just something common to humanity, and we’ve done a lot of ignoring religious “answers” to get there. 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.”
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?
Will the machine deity require you to accept Christ as your savior before letting you become a transhuman? No? Then why the hell is that written in the bronze age book that you claim knowingly predicted this outcome?
The classic idea of heaven looks like a post-scarcity, post-death society because that’s what we’ve always imagined would be nice. It’s not divine prophecy, just something common to humanity, and we’ve done a lot of ignoring religious “answers” to get there. 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?
This is a good point. It’s hardly surprising that the utopia we fantasise about is the same as the one we try to create.
The New Testament is not really a bronze age book. Wikipedia states that the bronze age ended in the near east region around 1200 BC.