Mormon Transhumanist Association

I'm sitting in the Houston airport, returning from a family vacation -- you know, relaxing from all that hard work on the New God Argument. Just a moment ago, a recorded voice stated: "We would like to remind you that any jokes or inappropriate remarks about security may result in your arrest." The persons that recorded this message should be focusing on mitigating greater risks to our future than persons vocalizing inappropriate remarks (whatever those may be). We have just experienced a revolution...

Sunstone has announced that Dan Wotherspoon, executive director and editor of Sunstone magazine and symposiums, will be stepping down to pursue a new opportunity. On behalf of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, I would like to thank Dan for the many ways that he has assisted us with sharing our message in the Mormon community. He gave us our first opportunity to present parallels between Mormonism and Transhumanism at the Sunstone 2006 symposium. Subsequently, he worked with us to publish the...

We presented the New God Argument to an audience of approximately 60 persons at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City earlier this morning. The presentation was well received, and many of the attendees asked for access to an electronic copy of the argument outline to provide to friends. We've now made available an electronic copy of the handout, with an outline of the argument, as well as the slides and a transcript of the presentation, at the following location on the MTA web site:...

I am sometimes disturbed by the observation that our religious tradition, Mormonism, is not unified in faith that we can and should become God. Too many of us have capitulated to the violent dogmatism of traditional Christianity, particularly in its evangelical forms. Too many of us only hear whisperings of the doctrine. Too many of us, even, while giving lip service to this core idea on which Mormonism originally relied, yet only talk the talk without walking the walk. Many of us can still quote...

The New God Argument begins with the assumption that we, our human civilization here on Earth, probably will not go extinct before becoming an advanced civilization. This is the faith position, and we will refer back to it a few times as we proceed with the argument. The faith position does not require any particular perspective regarding the amount of time it might take for us to become an advanced civilization. It could happen within coming decades or across the span of eons. Either possibility,...

The technology division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a program whose purpose is to publicly and formally celebrate the technical achievements of those who are sharing their skills with the Church. They want to ensure that those individuals who use their technical talents as a tremendous expression of their faith are acknowledged and encouraged.  Learn more and nominate someone who you think has made a significant contribution to the LDS technical community...

We received the following email from a site visitor today: "Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced." Soren Aabye Kierkegaard The return address on the email did not work, so I'll respond here in my blog. While I agree heartily that life overall is not a problem and that it is a reality to be experienced, I imagine that the sender of the email doesn't think a Transhumanist could sincerely agree. Of course, I do see problems in life, both present and foreboding,...

If you haven't already, I recommend that you check out and subscribe to the Mormon Transhumanist Association External Blogs feed. We aggregate a great lineup of blogs that present Mormon perspectives on science and technology, as well as Transhumanist perspectives on religion and spirituality. You can see the latest posts aggregated to the feed by going here: http://transfigurism.org/community/roller/default.aspx . . . and you can subscribe to this feed by copying the following link into your feed...

The Mormon Transhumanist Association will sponsor a presentation of "The New God Argument" at the Sunstone Symposium on Saturday 9 August 8:45AM at the Sheraton Hotel in Salt Lake City. LINCOLN CANNON, M.B.A., founding member, director, and president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association; information technology specialist, primarily working in systems management JOSEPH WEST JR., founding member, director, and secretary of the Mormon Transhumanist Association; begins graduate study in sociology...

Recently, a Mormon blogger, R Gary, claimed that "Science [is] not always a good bet" when considering the feasibility of futures anticipated by prophetic vision. However, science does enable us to predict how futures similar to those he described may be possible, particularly given long-standing trends in technology. Lambs and lions laying down together, if you want to interpret that literally, may be achieved through genetic manipulation of lambs and lions. Transformation of the Earth into...