Mormon Transhumanist Association Blog

Transhumanist Advent: The Lessons of Scrooge’s Ghosts

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST PAINTING

Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge is the recognizable curmudgeon-y old man who just can’t get the spirit of Christmas. Instead of enjoying the season, he sees it as just another excuse to pick a man’s pocket. But if we congratulate ourselves, rather than see ourselves in Scrooge, we miss enduring lessons of the three ghosts.

With Scrooge, for the most part, we are caught up in selfish desires, and our selected idols, and may even feel justified because society encourages these (even praiseworthy values such as thrift, frugality, and prudence have become idols for Scrooge), and shrouds the results of our harmful activities, or our shameful neglect. But there are consequences to our desires, actions, and inaction. Despite the good we may do, in light of the pain and suffering in the world, to feel justified in our efforts--whatever they may be--as if they were enough is to play the Scrooge.

Scrooge is visited by three ghosts. The ghost of the past shows Scrooge his younger years, and demonstrates that he has experienced joy and pain, triumphs and successes in his past. With Scrooge, we hold beautiful memories of kindness and generosity, as well as regret for the coldness we’ve shown, and our misplaced priorities. But no amount of joy or regret we feel about the past or the good we have done may redeem us. The past holds lessons, but no salvation.

The ghost of the Present demonstrates that there is still joy in the world, and our work is to experience and spread it; to welcome and be welcomed into fellowship, and see to the suffering and injustice we might make right. The work of the ghost of Christmas Present is to lift the veil to expose more joy and sorrow than we could otherwise see--to extend the reach of our gaze and responsibility.

While the ghost of the past focused on Scrooge and his immediate acquaintances, the ghost of the present expanded this, to show Scrooge others to whom he was connected, including mankind’s emblematic neglected children: Ignorance and Want. The ghost of the present teaches Scrooge that his work is to do what he can to lift others, to bring joy, food, money, knowledge and fulfillment to those wanting. It’s an inspiring message, one that, to that point, Scrooge had failed in ways both recognized and not. If caring for others, looking after their needs, and expanding the circle of who these others are was all that was required, we would need no third ghost. But a third ghost arrives.

Like all of us, Scrooge fears the Ghost of the Future more than the other two. And for good reason. The ghost of the future shows that, despite our best efforts to welcome others, spread joy, and alleviate suffering and injustices, it’s not enough; death remains the end, for us and others, and it’s knocking at the door. So what if we once had joy? So what if we find and spread a fleeting joy? So what if we right a wrong or a million wrongs? In the end awaits death.

The story ends with a renewed Scrooge, not yet dead, but who has seen how it will all play out, unless he changes course. It’s the exact scenario in which we all find ourselves. So he vows to change: to remember, experience and spread joy and fellowship; alleviate suffering and injustices to the degree he can (a degree that is always expanding), and finally to fight to overcome death. These are the lessons of the ghosts.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more. And to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew.

And so must we all. God bless us in these efforts, everyone.

-Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: A Faithful Position

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF FLOWERS

Two facts exist:

Unless there is a drastic change, death is the inevitable end for all of us.
Our technological power is increasing at a rate yet unheard of.

Which is the faithful position: That death has been conquered? Or that we may yet be able to conquer death?

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: Lift up your eyes and look at the Earth beneath

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF EARTH

“Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath” (Isaiah 51:6)

In what is often called the overview effect, humans who have travelled into space and have viewed the earth from that elevated vantage point describe intense feelings of euphoria, interconnectedness, humility, awe, and the awareness of the fragility of life. National boundaries fade away, the atmosphere we often take for granted appears paper-thin, and the world appears as an oasis, silently suspended in an endless void.

Religion is at its best when it too produces these same sensations: euphoria, interconnectedness, humility, awe, and awareness of the sanctity of life. It is at its worst when it is used to produce the opposite: dogma, sectarianism, pride, dullness, and disregard for life. Jesus powerfully orients us towards the best in religion:

"My peace I give you" (John 14:27), "In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these" (Matthew 25:40), "he that is greatest among you shall be your servant" (Matthew 23:11), and "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son" (Matthew 18:10). Indeed, the "fruits of the spirit" has been canonized as "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance" (Galatians 5:22-23).

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel contrasted the difference between anti-science religion used to dull and oppress vs. science-welcoming religion that can awe and inspire:

“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion–its message becomes meaningless.”

(God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism)

May we turn to the example of Jesus, lift up our eyes to the heavens in spirit and with our tools and technology, then look at the earth beneath with re-invigorated humility and awe towards the sacredness of our world, life, and one another.

Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: The Messianic Pattern

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF JESUS STATUE

In the scriptures we learn that the Satanic pattern is to vault oneself above all others:

"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

(2 Thessalonians 2:4)

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:”Z

(Isaiah 14:13)

“And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;”

(Doctrine & Covenants 29:36)

We also learn that Christ's pattern is to raise others up with him:

“And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.”

(Doctrine & Covenants 84:38)

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

(John 14:12)

“They who dwell in his presence are the church of the Firstborn; and they see as they are seen, and know as they are known, having received of his fulness and of his grace; And he makes them equal in power, and in might, and in dominion.”

(Doctrine & Covenants 76:94-95)

Theologies, therefore, that posit a God who is utterly unique and different from humanity, that are offended when glory is given to anyone but God and seek to reserve glory solely for God, are theologies that posit Satan as God.

On the other hand, theologies that posit a God whose role it is to demonstrate how to be a good person, to show a path that others are capable of following, that invite others to overcome sin and death hand-in-hand with God, that invite others to join the body of Christ and participate in the great atonement of humanity, are theologies that posit Christ as God.

Carl Youngblood

Transhumanist Advent: Greater Works Than These

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF HANDS HOLDING

Giving glory to God is good: celebrating God's grace, goodness, and love. But God asks us to worship, not idolize; emulate, not adulate. Jesus exemplified and glorified God's grace, goodness, and love and Jesus challenges His disciples to take upon them these same qualities, not abdicate them to God as an act already performed for us.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

(John 14:12)

How are we to do works even greater than Jesus? Does our glorifying God forbid this? If so, why? (given Jesus envisioned it). What works did Jesus do? Are we magnifying and amplifying them into this world? In what ways might we be fulfilling this call? In what ways might we be failing? What tools do we have today that didn't exist before which might aid us in fulfilling this call?

We must not let our glorifying God get in the way of our worshipping God. That can make the difference between active emulation and passive adulation. And that is the call Jesus gives to His disciples.

Caleb Jones

The Basics of Mormon Transhumanism The Purpose of the Mormon Transhumanist Association Humanity+ and the Transhumanist Declaration Exponential Change Implications of Exponential Technological Trends for Humanity

Mormon Naturalism

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF FOREST

I think one of the great strengths of Mormonism is its naturalism; however, the term is equivocal and “naturalism” is sometimes criticized. Dictionary.com gives (among others) these definitions of “naturalism”:

Philosophy. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws. Theology. The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.

It is in the context of this latter definition that, for example, “naturalistic” approaches to the Book of Mormon sometimes come under fire (typically from Mormon apologetic sources). But it seems there is a dichotomy in this definition that Mormonism rejects.

The assumption in the latter definition seems to be that God is “supernatural.” While this may be definitionally true (one of the dictionary definitions of “supernatural” is anything having to do with deity), there is a lot of baggage here. In Western religious and philosophical tradition, God has been understood to be outside or beyond the universe. But this is not the case in Mormon theology, in great part because of our denial of creation ex nihilo and our interpretation of scriptural creation accounts as pertaining to this earth only, and not to the entire universe.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage in seeking to reconcile Mormonism with scientific thought. The advantage is that our conception of divinity allows god to be involved in whatever natural processes exist; in fact, we often assert that God always works by natural means. For example, Brigham Young taught:

“

Yet I will say with regard to miracles, there is no such thing save to the ignorant—that is, there never was a result wrought out by God or by any of His creatures without there being a cause for it. There may be results, the causes of which we do not see or understand, and what we call miracles are no more than this—they are the results or effects of causes hidden from our understandings.

”

—

Journal of Discourses 13:140

Brother Carrington was telling us about the way in which money turned up to clear the ship after sending off more Saints than he had means to pay for. Was this a miracle any more than many other things in our lives and in the work of God? No, the providences of God are all a miracle to the human family until they understand them. There are no miracles only to those who are ignorant. A miracle is supposed to be a result without a cause, but there is no such thing. There is a cause for every result we see; and if we see a result without understanding the cause we call it a miracle. This is what we have been taught; but there is no miracle to those who understand. (Journal of Discourses 14:79)

George Q. Cannon was more explicit, in a very transhumanist explanation:

It was no suspension of law on the part of our Savior, that caused Him to gather from the elements the bread and the fishes necessary to feed the multitude. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to open the eyes of the blind, or to cause the sick to be healed. It was no suspension of law that caused Him to ascend in the sight of His disciples after His resurrection when He visited them. I know that miracles are said to be suspension of law; but instead of their being a suspension of law, they are due to a knowledge of a higher law, to a comprehension of greater laws, by the knowledge of which, what are called miracles are wrought. To a person who never saw the effect of electricity, if he were in this Tabernacle and were to see these lights kindled instantaneously by the touch of electricity—a person who did not understand the laws of electricity, would say, “Why this is miraculous.” Or to an ignorant person, a person who knew nothing of the law of electricity, it would seem marvelous that one standing at the end of a wire, stretched under the ocean could, by touching that wire, communicate a distance of nearly 3,000 miles, and could talk to a person at the other end of the wire. Had this been mentioned in the days of our forefathers, they would have declared it was an impossibility. Such a power would have been miraculous in their eyes, and they would have said that such a thing was contrary to all known laws concerning the transmission of sound and thought; but to us who understand this law—or if we do not understand it, who see the operations of electricity; who know that we can go to the telegraph office and send a message to Europe from this city, and get a reply within a few hours; in fact, receive it here at a time of the day earlier than it was transmitted from there, which is frequently done. We, who witness this, no longer look upon it as a miracle, or as a suspension of law, or a violation of the laws which govern the transmission of sound or thought. We accept it because we have become familiar with it. And so, if we understood the law by which Jesus operated when He fed the multitude, it would be as simple to us as the law of electricity is today. If we understood the law by which the sick were healed, and sight restored to the blind, or by which He counteracted the laws of gravitation, and ascended in the sight of His disciples into heaven—if we understood these laws, they would be simple to us, as all laws are when they are understood. (Journal of Discourses 25:149-150)

This kind of naturalism — one that rejects the dichotomy presented in the theological definition of the term — is one of the great strengths of Mormonism, one that positions it very well in our current world.

But there are disadvantages to this approach, too. When we claim that everything follows from natural law, then we should expect “miraculous” events to be subject to criticisms in a naturalistic vein. There is a disadvantage also in claiming that an effect flows from natural law without being able to provide a naturalistic account for it. We may rightly profess ignorance of these laws, but we cannot be content with ignorance, particularly when we claim to be able to receive all the knowledge God has. And the more we fall back on ignorance, the more our naturalism begins to look like supernaturalism, which I think has significant theological as well as philosophical drawbacks.

Following the definitions given above, Mormonism is philosophically naturalistic, but theologically revelatory, and we consider the latter definition (“derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation”) to be a false dichotomy.

Translating Mormon Transhumanism

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF POEPLE IN RAINBOW COLORS

Having spare time on a business trip with a colleague in Orlando recently, we decided to spend the afternoon in Epcot. As went from rides, to lands, and to Spaceship Earth we talked about our lives, families, books we've read, and thoughts on science and technology. In this context, our thoughts on religion and futurism came up. He mentioned that he is agnostic and used to be atheist. I mentioned that I am a post-secular Mormon. He was intrigued what a post-secular Mormon might believe.

This is hardly the first time I've translated my beliefs to someone who is agnostic or atheist. I believe that much of effectively communicating beliefs involves translating our assumptions into the language of the other: to assume their assumptions then find a way to translate our worldview in relation to it. Learning the intellectual and/or spiritual dialect of others is key.

In translating for understanding, I've found it can be helpful to discuss beliefs in terms of "at leasts":

God is at least a human projection of our best aspirations.
Satan is at least a human projection of our worst flaws.
The Atonement is at least the power within us to heal and respond to pain and suffering.
Jesus is at least a person who tapped into the power of the atonement & God to face Satan in much needed ways.
Salvation is at least our best effort to attain Godhood and a Christ-like life.
The restoration is at least a collective effort to renew and re-invigorate faith in light of expanding knowledge gained about the world. Joseph Smith at least contributed to this to the extent that Mormonism can participate in this renewal and invigoration.

With this common, base translation I can then translate hopes, beliefs, and trust which I choose to extend beyond these "at leasts":

I have faith that the universe has been around long enough for God(s) to emerge and that the charity required for them to wield the power they do without destroying themselves makes them benevolent Gods.
I believe that in an existence with moral freedom that some agents will oppose God and God will grant them space to do so -- I'm okay calling that force "Satan".
I have faith that Jesus was more than just a person and was/is a manifestation of God's love, empathy, humility, and charity in more than just metaphorical ways.
I trust that the atonement is more than just self-realization and that in it we form a real connection with God.
I trust that salvation is physical and that as we act in ways that invite the atonement into our lives, societies, tools, and technologies that we can overcome death and sin.
I have faith that God was working through Joseph Smith as he participated in the work of restoration.

Pointing out the choice involved in the faith, trust, and belief we translate our views into above "at leasts" is important. Honest, informed people can reasonably disagree with these and my holding that faith, trust, and belief is, at root, a choice from many possible alternatives.

But regardless of the details of hows, whether truth lies at "at leasts" or somewhere above with faith, I hope that we can all become Christs as we seek to tap into that same spiritual energy Jesus did and become manifestations of God's love, empathy, humility, and charity to one another. This trust and charity that we can extend to one another will take humanity far as we explore the universe.

And I find the above most robustly articulated in Mormonism.

A Primer Primer

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DESK

Guest Post: Ben Blair, Chief of Special Projects

If you have been to the transfigurism site in the last few months, you may have noticed a link to the Primers. Are/were you confused by these? Well, here's your primer on these primers!

The primers are short introductions to important ideas for Mormon Transhumanism. They came about as a tool to give structure to in-person meetups, and as a simple way to introduce basic ideas of Mormon Transhumanism. The primers are written at around a 6th grade level, and are typically 3-5 short paragraphs in length. One way to think of them is as a way to talk about Mormon Transhumanism to your child or parent.

The structure of the primers is quite simple. Each primer includes one or more learning objective, a summary, easy-to-understand content, definitions for key terms, discussion questions, a call to action, and resources for further study/engagement.

You can find them all here, or by title:

We will be publishing additional primers every 2-3 months to the MTA website, and also sharing them through the Transfigurist.

Now that they are in circulation, we are especially interested in hearing how people find them useful, or what would make them more helpful--in terms of design, format, content, etc. Tell us what you think! (Or what your child/parent thinks.) Are there uses for these besides those we have mentioned?

The Mormon Church Gathers Mountains of Data. What Does That Mean for Revelation?

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CODE

It may sound like a small thing, but my view of the world shifted the day I received a survey as a Mormon missionary.

Church leaders in Salt Lake City had sent our mission a stack of surveys and asked us to each fill one out. They intended to use the insights to improve the Church's missionary program.

As I filled out the survey, which was quite extensive, it struck me that this method of gathering insight was dramatically different than the method that Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, had used in the early 1800s.

When Smith wanted to improve the Church, he prayed and then spoke as though he were God. That’s why the phrase “thus saith the Lord” appears 62 times in Smith’s canonized revelations, collected in the Doctrine and Covenants. Smith didn’t survey his followers to know what to do. He claimed to receive revelation directly from an all-knowing being.

By contrast, Church leaders today rarely if ever use the words “thus saith the Lord,” and they frequently rely on data gathering to make decisions.

And the data gathering isn’t limited to missionary work. A few years after I returned home from my mission, I was randomly selected to participate in six digital surveys that took around 20 minutes each to complete. These surveys asked for my views on topics like immigration, church history, and specific Mormon bloggers.

It seems that gathering data is common practice for the Mormon Church.

To a degree, this focus on data mirrors a theory from the writer Yuval Noah Harari. Harari claims that dataism is becoming a new worldwide religion and that humankind will come to trust in data just as we have trusted in the gods.

In his book Homo Deus he outlines four major shifts in human religion spanning the past 10,000+ years. I might sum up his view as follows:

Animism (starting 10,000+ years ago)
- Everything has a spirit, even trees and animals. If you want something from a tree or animal, you must pray to it directly.
Theism (starting roughly 7,000 years ago)
- There are gods who rule above. If you want something, you must pray to your god to provide it for you.
Humanism (starting in earnest roughly 300 years ago)
- Humans are the epitome of creation. If you want something, you have to get it yourself.
Dataism (currently emerging)
- Algorithms rule the world. If you want something, you can refer to algorithms that will suggest the best way to get it.

We see dataism emerging today almost everywhere we look. For instance, we trust Google Maps to guide us to our destination when we’re driving because we know that their algorithm has been right hundreds of times before. We also rely on Google’s algorithms to give us the information we search for. In addition, we get suggestions from Facebook and Amazon about what we might like, and we occasionally look at those suggestions. Algorithms play a role in a range of fields, from self-driving cars to medicine to computer science.

Harari’s point isn’t that dataism will be a perfect religion. Far from it. It will occasionally prove faulty, just as all religions have. But as algorithms improve, they will offer us access to superhuman intelligence. And as we trust these algorithms, we will feed them more data, which will in turn only make the suggestions better and better — resulting in increased trust (and, again, resulting in better algorithms).

Is it too bold to say that Mormonism is currently making the shift from theism to dataism? Perhaps. After all, members of the Church still say (often with evidence, in my opinion) that their intuition guides them when making callings or knowing which members of the ward need help.

However, it’s clear that the Mormon Church is increasingly interested in gathering data and less interested in explicitly speaking as as the voice of God. Perhaps we're looking at a hybrid of theism and dataism. And, for better and for worse, that is certainly a shift from the methods Joseph Smith used to lead the Church.

Jon Ogden is the author of When Mormons Doubt: [A Way to Save Relationships and Seek a Quality Life](https://www.amazon.com/When-Mormons-Doubt-Relationships-Quality/dp/1535350377), available via Amazon.

2018 MTA Humanitarian Service Aim: Homeless Youth

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF YOUTH

I am pleased to announce that in the coming year the Mormon Transhumanist Association has committed to practice discipleship by engaging our members in acts of humanitarian service for homeless and at-risk youths in Utah and Appalachia.

As chief humanitarian officer for the MTA I have sought out service opportunities in accordance with our stated humanitarian aims, and with the unanimous support of the Management Team we have committed to the above efforts for 2018. Our organizational humanitarian aims include reducing involuntary suffering, minimizing existential risk posed by new technologies and their unintended consequences, developing means for the preservation of life and health, improving human foresight (vis-à-vis the Transhumanist Declaration), and persuading others to do likewise, and sending relief, consolation and healing (vis-à-vis the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation).

There are 1.7 million homeless teens in the United States (1) of which approximately 40,000 are unaccompanied (2). A disproportionately large percentage of them (up to 40%) are LGBT and many state rejection from their family because of their sexual identity as the primary reason for leaving home (3). Upwards of 80% of these youths use drugs or alcohol as a means of escape from the trauma of their young lives (4), and at least 40% of these children have been sexually abused or assaulted (5).

This is an unimaginable burden of suffering. As disciples and agents of empathy and compassion we are committed to doing what we can, as an organization and individually, to relieve some of the burden these children have been forced to bear.

As a start, we have partnered with Volunteers of America at their new Homeless Youth Resource Center in Salt Lake City to serve breakfast to 50 homeless and at-risk teens in early January. We hope this may be the first of many such collaborations and envision a recurring role in the center (perhaps providing free technology training in their state-of-the-art computer classroom space). We are also collaborating with Brighter Brains Institute (our prior humanitarian partner in Uganda), making outreach efforts to youth resource centers in poverty stricken areas of Eastern Kentucky, and considering a donation to an incredible non-profit that operates a free clinic in Chester County, Pennsylvania called Community Volunteers in Medicine that has earned top marks from Charity Navigator. These targeted actions are just a start, and much greater efforts on a societal scale are needed to address the causes of homelessness. We hope to be part of these solutions and leverage our tools and influence as a group to fight poverty and heal the rifts between ourselves and the worst off in our midst.

My personal interest and involvement in this cause goes back to 2011, my final year of undergraduate studies, when I listened to an interview with Dr. Randy Christensen, a pediatrician from Phoenix, who retrofitted an RV into a mobile health clinic to serve the area's homeless teens. He had just written a book about his experiences called Ask Me Why I Hurt, a reference to one of the patients he treated who was profoundly impacted by his work, and he was likewise impacted by her struggle for survival. The Cruisin' Healthmobile, or Big Blue as it's lovingly known, is funded by grants and staffed by physicians and nurses from Phoenix Children's Hospital. It continues to make weekly stops throughout the Phoenix metro area providing free primary and urgent care to homeless teens. After I was accepted to medical school in Phoenix, I started volunteering regularly onboard and gained inspiration from Dr. Christensen and a lasting compassion for the unique and profound suffering of these youths.

Upon completing medical school in 2015 my family relocated to Salt Lake City so I could complete my three year residency at St. Mark's Hospital. As part of my education I have had opportunities to tour and volunteer at various shelters, long-term housing projects (e.g. Palmer Court) and clinics that serve the area's homeless. Recent events have put increased pressure on the homeless population, already on society's margins, in some cases forcing them into dangerous living arrangements just as winter (already a desperate time) is coming on.

These events include Operation Rio Grande, the August action of the Salt Lake Police Department to crack down on the drug trade and criminal activity surrounding the downtown Road Home shelter, as well as the Salt Lake City government's efforts to relocate the homeless residents from downtown to community-based shelters throughout the valley. The city garnered international praise in 2015 for dramatically reducing its number of chronically homeless individuals (those experiencing homelessness for >12 months) by simply providing housing, in this case turning an old hotel into free housing space for selected individuals and families. This past week the LDS Church Announced a $10 million donation for the construction of additional long-term and transitional housing in Salt Lake City. But there still is much more that needs to be done.

Today I call on our membership to join me in dedicating our time, talents and treasure to bring relief, consolation and healing to homeless teens in Utah and Appalachia. Please consider making a donation on our website (transfigurism.org, click "contribute") and joining us in person where possible to meet these resilient young people and serve them as disciples of Jesus and humanists alike. Thank you for your generosity. May our efforts help to heal the world.

References:

National Alliance to End Homelessness. "An Emerging Framework for Ending Unaccompanied Youth Homelessness." National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012.
U.S. Department for Housing and Development. "HUD's 2014 Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Programs Homeless Populations and Subpopulations." 2014.
Durso, L.E., and G.J. Gates. "Serving Our Youth: Findings from a National Survey of Service Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth who are Homeless or At Risk of Becoming Homeless." The Williams Institute with True Colors Fund and The Palette Fund, 2012.
Greene, J.M., S.T. Ennett, and C.L. Ringwalt. "Substance use among runaway and homeless youth in three national samples." American Journal of Public Health, 1997.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families. "Sexual Abuse Among Homeless Adolescents: Prevalence, Correlates, and Sequelae." USHHS, 2002.

2017 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BOSTON SKYLINE

The 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) will be held November 18-21, 2017 in Boston, MA. While the Mormon Transhumanist Association will not be officially participating in the event, it is noteworthy that the meeting will have sessions related to transhumanism and human enhancement. We encourage all to consider attending.

Highlights include:

The question of human germline gene editing and its potential for human enhancement will be explored at a session on Friday, Nov 17, from 2:30 to 5:00. Speakers include MIT Professor Richard O. Hynes, who co-chairs a committee of the National Academy of Sciences charged with exploring the ethical and legal challenges of human germline modification, especially in light of CRISPR and other new gene editing technologies. Others on the panel include Laurie Zoloth, Dean of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago and 2014 Past President of the AAR. This event is open to the public without registration and will be held at the Sheraton Boston, Republic B (second level). This session is sponsored by the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR). More details can be found at [https://papers.aarweb.org/program_book?keys=CRISPR&field_session_slot_nid=All]
The Human Enhancement and Transhumanism Unit of the AAR offers two events in 2017. On Saturday, Nov 18, the Unit offers a session on “Barbies, Bots, and Mere Mortals: Images of God?” The session runs from 1:00 to 3:30 in Sheraton Boston-Back Bay B (Second Level). For more, see [https://papers.aarweb.org/program_book?keys=Barbies&field_session_slot_nid=All] Then on Monday, with the joint sponsorship of the Religion and Science Fiction Unit, a session entitled “Religion, Science Fiction, and Transhumanism” will be held in the Hynes Convention Center-202 (Second Level) from 1:00 to 3:30. See [https://papers.aarweb.org/program_book?keys=gittinger&field_session_slot_nid=All].
A session on “Human Enhancement: Biological Frameworks and Cyborg Theologies,” under the sponsorship of the ISSR, will be held on Saturday, 4:00-5:30, in Fairmont Copley Place-State Suite A (Lower Lobby Level). This session features two authors and their new books, Harris Wiseman’s The Myth of the Moral Brain (2016) and Scott Midson’s Cyborg Theology: Humans, Technology and God (2017), with a response by Jennifer Thweatt. See [https://papers.aarweb.org/program_book?keys=m18-306&field_session_slot_nid=All]

SCHEDULE OVERVIEW :

Friday, 2:30-5:00, “CRISPR/Cas and Human Germline Gene Editing.” Sheraton Boston-Republic B (second level).

Saturday, 1:00-3:30, “Barbies, Bots, and Mere Mortals: Image of God?” Sheraton Boston-Back Bay B (second level).

Saturday, 4:00-5:30, “Human Enhancement: Biological Frameworks and Cyborg Theologies.” Fairmont Copley Place-State Suite A (Lower Lobby Level).

Monday, 1:00-3:30, “Religion, Science Fiction, and Transhumanism.” Hynes Convention Center-202.

Additional information about the 2017 Annual Meetings and the AAR can be found here.

Why I Stay: Claiming Mormonism in the Face of Doubt

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PERSON SITTING ON LEDGE WITH QUOTE

Sometimes, being a Mormon is hard.

I don't mean that the expectations, assignments, duties, activities, and lifestyle is hard. They certainly are, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about identifying as a Mormon. Actually being Mormon.

It is very easy to dismiss someone going through a faith crisis. The presumption is that they want to sin or like finding fault, that they aren't praying "correctly" or reading their scriptures enough, that they are too prideful and too sensitive.

But this dismissal ignores the very real struggles of those who are genuinely searching for answers. They want to believe - no one wants to have their entire foundation crumble. They struggle because they find doctrinal or policy inconsistencies that they can't reconcile.

They struggle because a Church that is supposed to be directed by God once taught that black people were inferior and banned black men from holding the priesthood.

They struggle because divinely-inspired leaders have said and done horrible things, like comparing girls to pornography and telling rape victims that, unless they did everything to fight off their attackers, they would be better off dead.

They struggle because lessons on "virtue" are really lessons on sexual behavior.

They struggle because the refrain "God heals all things" callously ignores the real physical and mental disabilities that many will face their entire lives.

They struggle because the Church has actively fought against civil rights issues like same-sex marriage.

They struggle because girls are taught to be modest for boys.

They struggle because boys get the message that their impure thoughts and actions are caused by girls.

They struggle because expressing doubts can leave you isolated and ostracized.

They struggle because the Church banned children of gay couples from joining the Church until they are 18 .

They struggle because of the historical practice of polygamy that condemned women who wouldn't accept it.

They struggle because the Church is so concerned about its appearance that it will hide any sign of weakness or mistake instead of admitting them and forsaking them.

They struggle because female general leaders are not often consulted in major policies, including those in The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

They struggle because sexual assault victims are directed to bishops who receive no sexual assault training.

They struggle because they learn that stories of heroism and honor that their testimonies are founded on have sometimes been exaggerated, if not constructed.

They struggle because the Doctrine and Covenants teaches that anything can be justified if God commands it.

They struggle because the oft-quoted phrase, "Everything happens for reason" translates to "God wanted me to be raped."

They struggle because...

They struggle.

These struggles are not trivial. They are not the vain imaginings of someone looking for trouble. They cannot be easily swept under the rug. These struggles represent real battles in life, most of which affect them personally, and hinge on understanding how an organization that claims to have the fullness of the gospel and modern prophets can ever accept morally questionable policies and teachings as Truth.

I see you. I hear you. I am one of you.

There are days that I wonder why I even bother. Conversations about the Church with me are
rarely going to end on a positive note. And sometimes I ask myself why I stay. And then I remember.

I stay because there are a few special moments that I cannot deny, no matter how hard I try.

I stay because a fundamental principle of the Gospel is that we accept all truth, no matter its source.

I stay because the network of social support can be a lifeline when you feel adrift and lost.

I stay because I don't like perfect people, and the Church is full of imperfection.

I stay because I believe in building from within.

I stay because I want much of what we teach to be true.

I stay because I recognize that putting anyone on a pedestal - your bishop, your home teacher, or your Church - is a mistake.

I stay because the Church is trying to do better, and I appreciate efforts to try to do better.

I stay because we believe in goodness, and mercy, and forgiveness - even if we're not the best at being good, and merciful, and forgiving.

I stay because I recognize that while the Gospel is perfect, the Church is not, both because the people in it are imperfect and because we have much yet to learn.

I stay because we believe that as the members become capable of accepting more Truth that we will receive more Truth. And that means that what we recognize as Truth today is incomplete, and that gives me hope for tomorrow.

I stay.

This post can also be found at A Believing Scientist.

MTA Meetup in SLC on Nov. 3

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

Join us for a special MTA Meetup in SLC on Friday, November 3rd!

IMAGE: MTA LOGO PHOTO BROWN GALAXY BACKGROUN

Who: Everyone!

What: Discussion on The New God Argument and Diversity Representations, led by Lincoln Cannon and Blaire Ostler. In preparation, you can learn more about The New God Argument here, and Mormon Transhumanism here.

Where: SEGO 3 FINE ART GALLERY, 661 S 200 E, SLC, UT 84111

(We will still hold the usual 2nd-Sunday Utah Valley Meetup in Provo.)

Shane Pittson appointed to Cheif Media Officer role

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SHANE PITTSON AND MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is eager to announce the appointment of Shane Pittson to the position of Chief Media Officer. He was unanimously approved by the board of directors under the direction of Christopher Bradford, President of the Association.

Blaire Ostler, CEO, commented, "I'm really excited about Shane joining us on the management team. His enthusiasm is contagious, and his expertise in media and marketing will be a great addition to the team."

Shane Pittson is a San Francisco native now living in Brooklyn. After studying Information Systems as a Crocker Fellow at BYU, he began work as first employee and Head of Marketing at quip, an e-commerce company in the CPG and Health industries. He has previously served as an LDS missionary in France and Switzerland, and as judge for the World Beard and Mustache Competition. Shane enjoys biking around NYC in pursuit of the best cheese, events, and rooftop views.

The Association congratulates Shane and thanks him for his willingness to contribute his time and talents to the success of the Association.

The Prophetic Voice

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OLD MAN PAINTING

My ward snagged the last Sunday before my move to Switzerland to ask me to speak. Given the proximity to LDS General Conference, they assigned me the topic "Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice." Here is an excerpt from my talk, given on September 24, 2017.

When we hear the word "prophet" in the Church today, we typically think of the president of the High Priesthood -- the president of the Church -- and of course we sustain him as a prophet. But the word applies to more than just the president of the Church: we also sustain his counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve as prophets, seers, and revelators. And the spirit, or gift, of prophecy, is given to others as well, who are not part of the leadership of the Church. For example, we read in 1 Nephi 1:4 that in the reign of Zedekiah, "there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed." Lehi was one of these prophets not in the Jewish religious leadership. In fact, through much of the Old Testament, God called prophets from outside the priestly leadership to call the people (and often their civil and religious leaders) to repentance.

While we often connect priesthood authority and the prophetic calling (with the perfect example of this being Jesus Christ, who is called our "prophet, priest, and king" in the hymn "I Know That My Redeemer Lives"), I believe it is important to distinguish the broader concept of a prophet. This is partly because it helps us understand the scriptures, but more importantly, because it helps us understand what the role of a prophet is and how it applies to our own lives.

So what is a prophet? The simplest definition of the spirit of prophecy comes from Revelation 19:10: "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy". But if we understand "testimony" to mean primarily "knowledge", I think we miss a key piece of the spirit of prophecy: feeling. A few years ago, when most recently we studied the Old Testament in Gospel Doctrine, I read a fantastic book called "The Prophets" by Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the foremost Jewish scholars of our time. He says this about prophets:

“The fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the divine pathos [or feelings]. The emotional experience of the prophet becomes the focal point for the prophet's understanding of God. He lives not only his personal life, but also the life of God... The prophet hears God's voice and feels His heart. He tries to impart the pathos [or feeling] of the message together with its logos [or content].”

The role of a prophet is not only to speak messages from God, but to feel as God feels and to express that feeling to listeners, to invite them to have the same relationship with God the prophet has. And we are all exhorted to seek after this gift: 1 Corinthians 14:1 (and really, most of this chapter through verse 32): "Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy." Or, as Moses put it when some complained to him that others were prophesying in the camp: "Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!"

This is part of what I meant earlier about how the role of prophet applies to our own lives: we are to be prophets, men and women and children. In fact, Moses's sister Miriam is called a prophetess, along with Deborah, Huldah, Anna, and other women whose names are not recorded in the scriptures. In Acts 2:17, God promises: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy."

Occasionally, when I have discussed this idea with people, they have regarded it as dangerous, as somehow detracting from the authority of Church leaders or encouraging people to simply follow their own way and not worry about unity with the body of the Church. But the true spirit of prophecy is one of unity, because it is to understand (as far as we in our limited state currently can) the mind and heart of God, and one of the key characteristics of the Godhead is unity.

So how can we become prophets and prophetesses and have the spirit of prophecy? By reading and listening to the voices of other prophets. As we hear their messages, and more importantly, as we feel the divine feelings they express, our hearts are transformed and we are open to receiving those same feelings from God. In fact, it is when we ourselves have the spirit of prophecy that we best receive and understand prophetic messages. As D&C 50:17-22 puts it:

“Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God. Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth? Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.”

Of course, because we are still developing in our godly characteristics, the messages of prophets will often point out where we are deficient, and this is rarely a comfortable thing. This is why so often, people have rejected, stoned, and killed prophets. At the same time, because God feels incomparable love for all of us, prophets also bring messages of comfort. As Jeffrey R. Holland said in General Conference in April of 2011:

“We are commanded in the scriptures to 'say nothing but repentance unto this generation,' while at the same time we are to preach 'good tidings [to] the meek ... [and] bind up the brokenhearted.' Whatever form they take, these conference messages 'proclaim liberty to the captives' and declare 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.' In the wide variety of sermons given is the assumption that there will be something for everyone. In this regard, I guess President Harold B. Lee put it best years ago when he said that the gospel is 'to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the [comfortable].”

As Mormons and as transhumanists, we should feel called with a prophetic calling, to spread the good news of how the divine work of transforming humanity into the image of God is proceeding. Most of us are in a position of great privilege, and if we do not feel uncomfortable with the demands placed on us by the call to be transformed into the image of Christ, we probably do not understand well enough. We should allow ourselves to be challenged by those we sustain and recognize as prophets, listen for the prophetic voice wherever it may be found, and feel "constrained", as Joseph Smith would call it, to challenge ourselves and others to the work of transformation into the divine image.

A Call to Repentance: The LDS Church Response to Victims of Sexual Assault

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BUILDING AND TITLE QUOTE

In 2016, social media was in an uproar. The Mormon Newsroom, the official organization responsible for releasing news about the LDS Church, had just released an article praising the LDS Church's approach to victims of sexual assault. Originally written in 2010 by (now) Elder Von G. Keetch, the article claimed that the Church was the "Gold Standard" in handling sexual abuse. And victims were furious. The Church quickly removed the article, announcing that it's release had been accidental, and later released an updated version (though much of the original text can be here).

The uproar was well-founded. Many of the false claims were easily renounced, including that the one that "preventing and responding to child abuse is the subject of a regular lesson taught during Sunday meetings", even though there are only two lessons (here and here) found in any church manual used for Sunday instruction that even remotely addresses preventing sexual abuse, and one of these (the far more comprehensive one) is on a near decade-long rotation.

One of the more outrageous claims was that "the suggestion that the Church instructs members to keep abuse issues solely within the Church is false". There are literally only two General Conference talks given directed at victims of abuse, and both of them explicitly state that that victims should report first to their bishops (1992 and 1978) and then actively discourages victims from seeking therapy, directing victims to only do so with the permission from and even inclusion of their bishops. Unfortunately, many bishops are often hesitant to take the necessary actions to help a victim, which would often require separating a victim from their family, the sudden releasing of an individual from a calling, and possibly relocating whole families to different wards. 70% of victims are hurt by people they know, many of whom are in positions of authority or have a close relationship with the victim. Many victims are children who lack access to victim services without an adult to arrange it (as the adults may be the very source of their pain), and if therapy would have ramifications on the family or Church (which is likely), bishops may be unlikely to arrange help. Additionally, mandatory disciplinary action (and subsequent record documentation) is only required for sexual offenses if the offender (1) holds a "prominent church position," defined as a bishop or higher, (2) is a relative of the victim, or (3) a "predator", which has many possible legal definitions but which is most often defined as someone who has been found guilty of sexually exploiting someone, often habitually. So unless a victim has already reported to police and the offender found guilty, the offender may not receive any disciplinary action. A Scout leader who molests his charge, a young man who rapes his girlfriend - there is no guarantee that these individuals would face any church disciplinary action or that their church records would contain any documentation to this effect, especially if the victim is dissuaded from contacting the police or receiving help outside the Church.

These are not the only harmful practices and messages that victims of sexual assault receive in the Church. The most recent talk given by a General Authority to victims of sexual abuse (1992) told victims of abuse that, unless they do everything in their power to stop the abuse, they are partly responsible for what happened to them and need to repent. Victims have a hard enough time not blaming themselves for what happened, so the message that they might have to repent is not only abhorrent, but it reinforces the idea that the victims deserved what happened to them. At least two other articles in the Ensign (here and here) encourage victims of abuse with anger problems (a recognized side-effect of abuse and a symptom of PTSD) to repent, which not only oversimplifies the long-term damage of abuse but also blames victims for something they have little to no control over. Change comes when victims receive therapy, not guilt-trips.

Other articles published by the Church have had more positive messages for victims of abuse, though they are relatively few in number (I could find only five) and were not written by Church authorities. Written by victims for victims (mostly women), they most often focus on the importance of forgiving, finding your self-worth, and ending cycles of abuse, with emphasis on how the church has helped them find peace. While helpful and reassuring, they do little to counter the harmful messages that victims have heard from Church authorities or the unhelpful policies that keep victims from receiving the help they need. The Church did recently release a whopping five-point list of how to help victims of sexual abuse this past April in the Liahona, so at least it's making (some) effort.

Perhaps even more damaging are the messages received from leaders and parents that, while most likely well-intentioned, have done far more harm than good. Messages about modesty are directed at girls, not boys, and young women are frequently told that their bodies cause boys and men to think bad thoughts (even comparing them to pornography). Elder Holland himself stated that he has heard all of his life that women are held responsible because men cannot control themselves, and that the concept is repulsive, a statement made in a BYU devotional and not found on LDS.org. Instead, the same messages that Elder Holland heard are the same the messages that girls receive: that that boys can't control their thoughts and that girls must cover their bodies to keep boys clean. When the messages that women hear time and again are that they are responsible for the thoughts of men, is it any wonder that they then blame themselves when they are assaulted? Women who have had sex (consensual or not) are commonly compared to chewed gum and nailed fence post, with the implication being that you become damaged goods - an all-too common refrain in the minds of victims. Elizabeth Smart has been especially active in communicating the harm this kind of language does, but change is slow, and for many victims, the damage is done. The Miracle of Forgiveness, a very popular book that is still handed out by many bishops to victims and perpetrators alike, states quite explicitly that unless a rape victim does everything in their power to resist, they would be better off dead. Only last year (2016) did the Church remove language from the Personal Progress book, a guide for young women, that a girl's virtue can be taken by rape. Is anyone really surprised that victims of sexual assault have self-worth issues?

Now, to be completely fair, Handbook 1 does include more victim-friendly language, directing bishops to prioritize victims, encourage therapy (though still within the Church), and assure them they are not responsible for what happened. But there is a problem with this: Handbook 1 isn't publicly available, and Handbook 2 (which is available) doesn't contain any information about sexual abuse. So the only way victims hear these messages are if the Bishops choose to disclose them. Members cannot hold their bishops accountable for abiding by these policies because the members aren't granted access to them. Instead, they receive the messages I've outlined above, and bishops - who were members for years before becoming bishops - often fall back on the cultural norms.

But of all the messages that victims receive, what they don't hear might be more chilling. Not only have been only two general conference addresses targeted to victims of sexual assault since 1971; in a search of general conference addresses, only 23 mention both the words "sexual" and "assault" in the same talk (using "sexually" adds 2 more), the phrase "sexual abuse" is found only 11 times, "sexual assault" only once, and "molest" (in reference to sexual molestation) only twice. In all, I could find only 16 that mention sexual abuse, assault, or molestation specifically in some way, and in most of them, it is referenced tangentially with less than a paragraph devoted to it, usually in a list of the evils in the world, and most often in reference to children (even though teenagers are twice as likely to be sexually abused). In comparison, in the same time period, there have been over 550 on pornography. For this rate to be justified, pornographic use would have to be over 34 times that of sexual abuse. Pornography use is high (nationally between 64% and 84%, depending on how you define "use"), but even at the high estimate, this would require sexual assault to only affect about 2.5% of the population.

And yet - Every 98 seconds, an American will be sexually assaulted. One out of every six of women has been sexually assaulted. One out of every ten women will be raped by an intimate partner. 3% of all men are victims of sexual assault. At these rates, we can estimate at minimum 800 million women were sexually assaulted in the US in the 20th Century. And those are just the numbers in the US: globally, nearly one out of every three women will be sexually assaulted, and the WHO calls violence against women a "global epidemic." And being religious does not make you less likely to be victimized, so any argument claiming that sexual assault "isn't a problem" in the Church is unfounded.

How ironic is it that the male leaders in the church have addressed sexual assault at almost the same rate as men who are victims of sexual assaults?

This silence is unacceptable. Victims have already receive painful messages that they are to blame for their assaults, that their worth is diminished because of it, and that the need to maintain Church and family harmony is more important than their mental health. The neglectful attitude toward victims on their path of healing only compounds their feelings of neglect and isolation. If helping victims of abuse was such a priority, shouldn't this be self-evident in the words of our leaders?

Victims of sexual assault are already significantly more likely to suffer from mental health problems including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating and sleep disorders, and tendencies toward self-harm and suicide, and almost one third of sexual assault victims will have PTSD. When victims don't receive immediate help, such as being removed from dangerous situations and receiving mental health services, these mental health problems are exacerbated. On top of mental health problems, Mormon women who are sexually assaulted are likely to suffer spiritually as a result of their assaults. Shouldn't we make alleviating the suffering a victims a higher priority than we have?

To give credit where credit is due, the Church has begun making efforts. The five-point list in April's Liahona was positive, if also brief and inadequate, and removing the harmful language from the Personal Progress book was certainly the right move. After the sex abuse scandal at BYU in 2016, in which victims of assault faced school disciplinary action because of what they may have done to contribute to the assault (sound familiar?), the Church condemned the policy, emphasized the importance of prioritizing victims, and encouraged BYU to change it's approach, which it did the following fall. The Church also recently announced a donation of $125,000 to two organizations in Salt Lake that help prevent sexual abuse and assists sexual assault victims, though this frankly seems like a paltry sum given to only a select few - especially when we're a world-wide church with a global sexual abuse epidemic on our hands and that specializes in organizing world-wide training programs.

8We have to face the facts*: The Church has not done enough for victims of sexual assault. From perpetuating messages that victims are to blame and that they need to repent - both for their assaults and for harmful effects on their mental health - to having policies that discourage victims from contacting authorities and accessing mental health services, they have failed.

But it's never too late to do better. The Church aspires to be the "Gold-Standard" in handling sexual assault? Well, there's a way to do that:

Stop. Being. Silent. Victims of sexual abuse struggle speaking up for themselves out of fear of being blamed for their assault, being called a liar, and the utter terror of reliving the past. When leaders of the Church address victims of sexual assault only rarely and tangentially, they communicate the message that it isn't important, even though victims often have life-long effects of their assaults, especially when care is not taken to prioritize their needs. Our leaders are responsible for addressing the morally relevant issues of the day, and their relative silence on this is unacceptable.
Specifically address the harmful messages in the past. We're getting better - a little. Removing the language in the Personal Progress manuals telling victims that they have lost their virtue is a step, but it isn't enough. The Miracle of Forgiveness is still being distributed, not only to victims, but to others that continue to perpetuate its harmful messages for victims. Victim-blaming attitudes that have for so long permeated the dialogue about sexual abuse continues, in large part because they haven't been directly countered. The articles above are not hard to find; any victim searching LDS.org for help will find them and read them because this issue has been ignored for so long that there's nothing to drown them out. Articles with harmful messages should either be excluded from the results of index searches or should come with a disclaimer: "These messages contain information that is no longer in harmony with the practices and policies of the LDS Church. Victims should feel no guilt, are not to blame, and are encouraged to seek medical and legal services." But even this may not be enough; those that perpetuate these messages write off language changes as the Church caving to political correctness. Unless the toxic messages of our past are replaced with messages that directly contradict them, these attitudes will persist in our culture, and some bishops will continue to ignore the official polices in Handbook 1.
Push for awareness. Sexual assaults happen in the church. Sometimes the perpetrator is a member, and sometimes it isn't. But it's happening. Bishops receive no mandatory training on sexual abuse; they get a single page in Handbook 1. All bishops, parents, and youth leaders need regular exposure to (1) attitudes and practices for preventing sexual assault, (2) recognizing predatory behavior, (3) identifying signs of assault, (4) best practices for intervention, and (5) how to help victims after an assault. The creation of a Church-sponsored regular workshop/fireside that includes parents, leaders, and youth could do considerable good, in preventing sexual assaults from happening, providing a safe place for victims to speak up, and providing resources for current victims. The ten paragraphs in the Parents Guide manual isn't enough, especially if we're not actually reading them or teaching from them. Comprehensive sex education - from parents, teachers, or leaders - is known to help both decrease sexual behavior outside of marriage and the rate of sexual assault (see also this), and encouraging parents to take a more proactive role in discussing sexuality with their children can be very effective.
Re-examine Church practices and policies. Performing mandatory background checks for all leaders working with youth should be standard practice, all claims of sexual abuse should be thoroughly investigated, all youth leaders should have mandatory yearly training on abuse, mandatory disciplinary action should be expanded to all perpetrators of sexual violence, and if we require two leaders present at all overnight youth activities, then we should certainly reconsider the practice of putting young men and women behind closed doors with a single male leader asking them questions about their sexual practices. More than one bishop has been guilty of inappropriate behavior in precisely this setting.
Prioritize victims. Historically, many bishops have been known to focus their attention on the repentance process for perpetrators of sexual assault, regardless of what it says in Handbook 1 (since no one can hold them accountable for abiding by its policies, and helping people repent is basically what bishops do). And to be clear - I have absolutely no problem with helping victimizers repent and change. This only becomes a problem when this is a higher priority than helping victims. Sacrificing victims for the sake of their perpetrators is a form of revictimization - they are being told that their needs are not as important as the needs of the one who hurt them. Let that sink it. Is that really a message you want to convey?

Look, the Church is good at many things, and let's give credit where credit is due. We're great at providing disaster relief, pitching in for service projects, and helping those in financial distress. We're an amazing instant network of social support, and if you need something organized, we're on it. So just imagine the impact we could make if we shifted this type of concentrated effort into preventing sexual abuse and helping victims. But we haven't.

So yes, the Church has failed.

But do you know what we do in the Church when we fail? We repent. Maybe it's time to start that process.

This article can also be found at A Believing Scientist.

You can have a faith transition but be involved with the Mormon Transhumanist Association

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PERSON JUMPING

I started this piece, and wrote this sentence, at 3:44 a.m.

Also, I wrote this article the day it was due and went back and forth between what to write, period, for four hours.

Frankly, I didn’t want to be fake. That’s because I have been rather certain for more than a year now that my involvement with the LDS church has concluded. I am, however, grateful for my involvement in the Mormon Transhumanist Association. That includes contributing to the Transfigurist – hence, this post.

What I am certain of is that all the time my wife and I were separated, my wife would have loved for me to have brought Mormonism back into my life. How I have done that is by being involved in the MTA – I invited her a couple of times to attend meetings.

(I say this not because I want to give her bad publicity – she’s the primary caretaker of our two toddlers and they are incredibly fortunate to be beneficiaries of her general care and kindness each and every day. I say it to illustrate just how much I appreciate engagement in the MTA and association with its wonderful members. It founder, Lincoln Cannon, has helped me think as much as any single individual has.)

Also, I kept on vacillating overnight between wanting, metaphorically speaking, to celebrate a beautiful Mormon-belief body part, and scrapping the providing of good publicity for the church when I other parts of the body to be cancerous.

So instead, I thought about how an article I wrote for work today, that would have suggested a dearth of consideration for local school superintendents and a lack of transparency by a state education department, got lost – and none of it saved. I read stories indicating that we may just be headed to nuclear war because of the temperament of two animalistic national leaders. I thought about how I wouldn’t have known that had I not decided to catch up on many emails with articles The Washington Post sent me, when I thought that I should read more news than I have in the past week or since I’m reporting it myself.

I emailed my doctor, who saw me as I battled mental health challenges over walking away from the church and the family fallout, over an errand. As these actions spanned across 3 a.m., I thought about not wanting to write this article if it would be like a certain public figure’s tweeting at the hour. Then I thought that at the least, I probably wouldn’t be provoking allies both home and abroad.

It’s now 4:15 a.m. and while wondering how to come back around to the topic expressed in the headline, I am thinking about being proud to in just two months, have gone from a domestic abuse shelter to working for a daily newspaper. I’m thinking about writing other things that would further illustrate how wonderful Lincoln and the people of the MTA are but also knowing that I would need to bring in a past incident that… does not comment on my hope today.

I should have been able in the past four minutes to have written more than the immediate above paragraph. And that makes me consider that I may not succeed in effectively getting back to the topic.

So I’ll just say that Mormon, non-Mormon, never-Mormon or post-Mormon (if all of the labels are fair), get involved in the MTA if you are near one of its meetup locations of Provo, Seattle and the Bay Area.

I guess I’ll also reveal a motivation as much as any for writing a feature this past spring about the organization: I wanted to spread the word. You need to participate. Doctrine & Covenants 8 says to use our minds. Isaiah wrote “let us reason together.”

At the meetups, folks engage in significantly enriching philosophical discussion. Would you have liked to have talked with remarkably bright people (we’re talking about doctors and CEOs and real philosophers and historians), who are Latter-day Saints, about the church’s gay policy just after it was released? How about the results of the presidential election shortly after the results came in?

The MTA would have been exactly what you were looking for. These are people who offer help on the journey only from their hearts.

Technological Funemployment

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BLUE STRUCTURE

For years, the spectre of technological unemployment has been exploited as the sociological apocalypse that will require all kinds of new economic interventions like a universal basic income and universal healthcare. (More on those proposed solutions in the future.) This spectre, however, is harmless. It’s a tiny kernel of truth wrapped in a triple-ply fib of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

The kernel of truth is this: Automation DOES put people out of dangerous and boring work. There are centuries of hard evidence for this. Agriculture jobs? Gone. Manufacturing jobs? Done. Transportation jobs? Endangered. Technology, be it a hammer, or a thresher, or a robot, or an AI, allows people to make repetitive or strenuous tasks a breeze, so one person can do the job of many, pushing people out of that line of work. Seemingly, this is a tragedy.

The lie is the notion that people don’t find or create other jobs. It promotes a fear that many are doomed. Thankfully, it’s easy to find examples that disprove this notion. If technology eliminated agriculture and manufacturing jobs, why are 90% of Americans not unemployed? The answer is that they found safer, more interesting work, and often in new industries that were only made possible by technology. Really, people just moved further down the pipeline, or steps were added in between where new technology created a demand for people to distribute and use it. The products of farms and lumber and quarries and mines were made into complex machines, and these new complex machines required lots of humans to sell them, operate them, repair them, insure them, etc. At the end of the day, every advancement in technology that has saved human labor in one area has created just as much or more human labor in other new areas.

A fast example in the video game industry shows how automation technology in even the most high tech jobs is preserving and expanding the job market. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers created an AI that can recreate a game’s mechanics simply by watching gameplay. An intelligent machine like this can essentially provide a framework for a new game by looking at an old game without having to know the source code. It can just make new source code that developers can use to make new projects:

“Instead of putting people out of work, this will make it possible for people to create games that were otherwise unable to do so," Riedl said. "That makes it possible for more people to create – increasing the size of the pie instead of supplanting individuals. Second, professionals may be able to build games faster by having the system make an initial guess about the mechanics. Working more efficiently doesn’t necessarily put people out of work, but does allow them to make bigger and better games in the time available."

Robots in the workplace simply means that more work gets done, even with the same amount of people. Usually this just means that more satisfying work gets done. All the doom and gloom about recent technological unemployment is slowly being cleared away by the realization that if the rate of job destruction is increasing, the rate of job creation is also increasing, giving people more choices and opportunities than ever as old, stale ones fall away. As these technological processes continue to disintegrate old industries and form new ones from those ashes, we’re not seeing technological unemployment as a pervasive phenomena, but rather as a temporary restocking before employing those souls with new, more fun employments.

At the end of the day, what this means is that we are slowly unlocking the most fun and challenging problems for humanity to conquer, and there’s no sign that we are finding any limits to humanity’s potential. Human ingenuity is boundless. We’ll always be standing on the shoulders of giants, venturing out into new frontiers. We’ll keep extending, not until we reach the limit of our mental and physical capacities, but until there are no frontiers left. Where are we at that point? What are we if not marching towards godliness, with ever-improving mastery over the universe, delving constantly into the depths of the yet-unknown pockets of knowledge that our universe is hiding?

Arthur C. Clarke once said:

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play.”

Understood in the lens of history, what I think what Clarke really means is that we are taking people away from being paid for drudgery, and towards being paid to play. The rosy future exists where robots and AI provide us all our food, health, transportation, shelter, and entertainment for free, and we simply enjoy unbridled leisure. But even if all the amenities of life are enjoyed freely, we probably won’t be slobs. Instead, we’ll be free to pursue the passions that we all have in our hearts. We’ll be “fun”-employed, due to the technological fruits of the labor of the other fun-employed people that came before us. The goal of the future, then, is full funemployment, and it’s the future we’re already marching towards. We know this because it’s the same path we’ve always been on since humanity began: the hard path, which is also the fun path.

Metamorphosis is Messy: a Plea for Medical Mercy

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF RAINBOW STATUES

Recently, while reading the Sunday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, I spotted an article about a medical malpractice suit against a local OB/GYN physician I’ve come to respect as a mentor. My first opportunity as a physician to act on my passion for transgender medicine came through the mentorship of this physician, who works in the community near my residency hospital. She routinely went out of her way to teach me and my fellow residents about obstetrics, gynecology and the art of transgender medicine without any monetary incentive. She has always modeled incredible sensitivity, expertise and fearless advocacy for her transgender patients. I thought the journalist did a decent job presenting both sides of the story, as far as possible; however, due to HIPPA (a law that protects patient health information from being disclosed) I know there is more to the story that she and her attorney are unable to share in her defense.

While I do not know the patient in the case, I feel sympathy for the irreplaceable loss of their ovaries and reproductive potential. Nothing can restore what has been lost, and the best we can do is recognize, validate, and empathize, to the extent of our capacity, the pain of their loss. I must confess, seeing my mentor shamed in this very public controversy scares and saddens me, also, and part of me wonders whether I should turn back now from my passion for transgender medicine and not take the risk that someday I may find myself in the same situation. The trans community needs more, not fewer doctors. Without discounting Lesley’s pain and the loss they have suffered, let’s turn this into a constructive dialogue about how to meet the needs of the community and how to welcome and foster excellence among a new generation of trans-friendly providers.

My first exposure to the unique and often tragic experience of transgender people in healthcare came in medical school as part of our reproductive health curriculum with a panel of brave transgender patients who told my class their stories and allowed us to ask very personal questions about their transitions so we could understand how to model the behaviors they appreciated and needed, and learn from the mistakes that other physicians had made. I was incredibly moved and felt passionately that, one day, I would make a place for the unique needs of these patients in my future practice.

Several months ago, as part of a “community medicine” rotation, I had the opportunity to go explore the Utah Pride Center in downtown Salt Lake City. My guide alerted me to a list of LGBTQ-friendly medical providers that they keep as a resource for their patrons and I asked that my name be put on the list, without any expectation of what may follow. What followed were several new patients who sought me out in the following months, requesting medical assistance with their gender transitions. I was honored and humbled that, even after explaining that I am a resident still in training, they were willing to trust me and embark on this journey together.

I was quickly conscious of the fact that I needed help from experts in the field to make sure I was providing compassionate, evidence-based care for my patients. This OB/GYN was naturally the first physician I reached out to, along with other providers from the University of Utah and one of my residency faculty members who was brave enough to learn about this new field of medicine and supervise me. These mentors provided me with indispensable resources, guidance and reassurance that I need not shy away or be afraid of pursuing my passion for transgender medicine, despite the unease and thinly-veiled hostility of many medical providers towards the needs of this marginalized population. I have learned through this outreach that the vast majority of medical providers here in Utah are unwilling to come anywhere near transgender medicine--due to ignorance about the science, fear of judgment and rejection from professional peers, religious and moral unease, philosophical conflict, and, most importantly, fear of litigation. This doctor has personally suffered incredible discrimination and ostracization by her OB/GYN peers for her commitment to serve the transgender community.

The evidence is clear that people who suffer from gender dysphoria need to transition to the gender they identify with to preserve their mental and physical health, and yet there are very few medical providers, especially in politically conservative Utah, who are willing to meet these needs. It takes courage, passion and love to overcome these barriers as a physician and follow one’s conscience to do the right thing, no matter the social, financial and legal consequences. No physician I know has shown more courage, passion, and love for the LGBTQ community than my mentor.

My fellow residents and I recently watched a TEDx talk together, in which an emergency room physician from Toronto does the unthinkable: he openly admits that he has made mistakes, which in some cases have led to terrible consequences for his patients, even death. He highlights that in medicine we have a culture of error-denial, strengthened by unrealistic public expectations, which insists that we must be perfect. In reality we, too, are human and work in systems that put too much emphasis on our individual abilities, acumen, diagnostic prowess and memory, and not enough on recognizing the limits of our cognitive abilities, and the systematic deprivation of our basic human needs (sleep, recovery, exercise, etc.). When mistakes occur, these systems are too quick to blame the “bad apples” and too slow to root out the systematic flaws that are truly the cause of these harms.

When doctors make a mistake (and we ALL make mistakes), there are few legitimate avenues for us (not tied to repercussion and judgement) to talk with others so we can process it and help others learn and decrease the chance of the same mistake happening again. It goes unsaid, unexamined, and what remains is a culture of shame and social withdrawal from the community of our peers. It is easy to see how such a culture leads to vicious cycles of self-destructive thoughts and behaviors, and self-fulfilling prophecies that we are bad doctors, unworthy of our profession and the sacred trust of our patients. The truth is, if you eliminated all the doctors who make mistakes, including ones that hurt people, there would be none left.

Maybe someday we will be replaced by super-intelligent diagnostic algorithms, pill dispensers and surgical robots, but until then we are the best generation of physicians and healers the world has yet seen. We will prevent, reverse and manage suffering with unprecedented efficiency, and aided by our tools we will detect, treat and cure more disease than ever before. Our profession will continue to expand into new realms, such as transgender medicine, life extension and enhancement. Despite the promises of modern medicine and our best efforts to live by and practice our credo of “First, Do No Harm,” our actions will have unintended consequences and, in increasingly rare cases, we will continue to cause pain, suffering, and death. Part of our job is to help our patients understand this conundrum through the process of informed consent, and to own our mistakes, apologize, learn and teach when we inevitably make them.

Please try to see us as human, like you, and also as humanists who have dedicated our lives to doing the best we can to improve the human condition through medical science and compassion. The vast majority of us are not here for the money, but for the love of our art, a love which helps us overcome the fear of being sued if and when we fail. Please also recognize that medicine is risky business and actively engage with us in the process of informed consent for the screenings, tests, treatments and procedures we offer you. May we create a new model of shared medical decision making and risk taking as we approach the future of medicine, a future that includes morphological freedom and enhancement.

The Gospel of Tron

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PINK LANDSCAPE

In an early blog post to the Transfigurist, I wrote some thoughts on the relationship to faith, creation, and programming:

What is particularly interesting about programming is that the creative process occurs in the abstract only. Yes, the program is stored on disk in the form of magnetic variations, but even this is invisible to the human eye and is not the purpose for which the program is created. A program is not the series of characters typed by the programmer. Rather the substance of a program is thought itself, concept described. Working this close to raw thought not just at the beginning of the creative process but all throughout the program’s creation requires a high level of concentration and mental exertion but likewise delivers a high level of satisfaction and joy.

While the details of exactly what 'spiritual creation' is may be unclear, this process of creating implementable concepts and structures mentally surely must play a pivotal role. Thus, as we practice and participate in the process of creation and exercise our faculties (mental, physical, and spiritual), we draw nearer to God and learn more about the nature of eternity. This is why programming is, and many other creative processes are, so joyful. The creative process is itself a symbol of Eternity.

And elsewhere I've written about how I feel life, creation, and God are fundamentally emergent phenomena:

Mormonism sees mankind both as the beneficiaries of this kind of emergent God in our past and present; but continues with our becoming benefactors of this divine gift as mankind evolves and emerges into and merges with God in our future. The New God Argument lays out some of the logical underpinnings of this idea. And it's this kind of self-referential or cyclical pattern, capable of infinite diversity, that I previously explored as having fractal attributes... Creating environments out of which infinitely diverse and entirely novel intelligences can emerge as co-eternal, independent minds becomes the final, inexhaustible frontier.

One work of fiction that I think captures this essence of emergence and co-eternal creation is the movie 'Tron: Legacy'. [SPOILERS] In the movie a vast, immersive, virtual world is created by Flynn. In that world, Flynn seeks to create a "perfect system" of control and order. But as he tries to design this system from the ground up something else happens: the "miracle", as he calls it. Out of the system emerges a new kind of life: the ISOs. This discovery completely changed Flynn's view of the value of the system. Rather than building programs that were only ever reducible to their programming, this discovery would forever alter consciousness and was ultimately what Flynn was willing to sacrifice everything for.

Flynn describes how the ISOs "didn't come from anywhere", that the conditions were right and that they came into being, like a flame. The ISOs had a wisdom and ability beyond the reductive algorithms of control and order he had been using. But as Flynn seeks to introduce the ISOs to the real world, he is betrayed by the programs he employed to create the "perfect system". The antagonist program, Clu, saw the ISOs as a threat to order and perfection which ultimately drove him to rebel and seek to destroy Flynn's efforts and dreams. Clu rejected the emergent properties of the system since they didn't fit his mandate of reductive creation of control and order, leads the programs to destroy the ISOs, and Flynn ends up trapped and exiled in the system. Mormons can see echoes of our own religious notions of pre-earth life with Satan seeking perfect control and order and rebelling against God's plan for the souls of mankind that is not reductive to control and order.

Here's a clip of Flynn remembering these events:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF A PLAY BUTTON

Flynn's son Sam, retracing his father's steps, discovers this virtual world and enters into it. He finds his father, exiled, and the world ruled by Clu. As he tries to escape with his father and Quorra (the last ISO), Quorra is damaged and Flynn tries to repair her. During the repair, Flynn's son Sam asks him if he created the ISOs. Flynn's response was that he created "some of it" but that ultimately there were emergent properties that were "beyond him".

Here's a clip of that exchange:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

Stepping away from the story, Tron Legacy underscores an important question in the field of artificial intelligence: Is general AI something we reductively design, is it an emergent phenomenon, or both?

To be clear, saying AI is emergent does not mean we just sit back and watch it emerge (as Google's Alfred Spector correctly argues against). The act of creating general AI is like any creative act: it requires active work by the creator in the medium of creation. But it is entirely different from other forms of creation (saving biological reproduction) in that the creation itself wakes up, becomes aware of its medium, and can transcend its origins. In the field of AI this is described as "recursive self-improvement" which can lead to an intelligence explosion.

While there is a great amount to say about weak AI, strong AI, and super-intelligence, I think there are lessons to learn in works of fiction like Tron Legacy which explore the contrasts between creating systems of reductive control and order vs systems tuned for emergence, the limits and conflicts between those two approaches, and the risks and opportunities of both. And I think the hope or "good news" (gospel) of works like Tron is that in working with AI, our creations may be able to transcend our thinking and show us things more amazing than we ever imagined.

A Vision Worth Believing In: Transhumanism, Driven By Spiritual and Ethical Progress

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMEN LOOKING OUT AT SKYLINE

If our prehistoric ancestors were to board a tour bus and visit the present day, what would they think?

They might delight at the feeling of air-conditioned buildings, marvel at mundane inventions such as doorknobs, be amazed that people walk around unafraid of sudden attacks from wild beasts, and gawk at lawns and manicured gardens.

They might believe, in short, that they’ve arrived in some sort of paradise.

However, they might also find cause for dismay. Say they witnessed employees stuffed away in beige cubicles, trash lining the beaches and gathering in landfills, the Barrier Reef dying from heat, the bustle of freeways with fatal traffic accidents, and modern warfare with its bombshells and automatic gunfire — enough of this, and they might wish to go back home.

If they did decide to return home, would you join them? Personally, I’d fear that within weeks of arriving in the prehistoric past, I’d get something like appendicitis and die without hospital care. Plus, gathering food all day and warring with neighboring tribes isn’t really my gig.

For me, this thought experiment illustrates that while we’ve evolved tremendously since our beginning, we still have a lot of work ahead to right the wrongs that currently plague the world and move more fully toward a genuine paradise.

Leaping Toward Paradise

If we take a bird’s eye view of human history, we can see that however much we've stumbled, we’ve been evolving in the direction of paradise since we first arrived on the scene. As the writer Ken Wilber outlines in his book Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, evolution seems to be consistently unfolding toward greater consciousness, toward a sort of paradise on earth.

I believe that we now have the potential to take a sudden and dramatic leap toward this paradise, primarily due to technological and scientific progress.

Such a belief is known as transhumanism, a belief that humanity might transcend our current limitations so much that we become an almost godlike, superhuman species — a species that finally creates the paradise we’ve been evolving toward all along.

What I know for sure is that if we want such a future, we must deliberately envision it, plan for it, and work to make it a reality.

That’s why I believe in transhumanism.

Of course, to truly evolve toward paradise, we can't focus on raw technological progress alone. Instead, we must also focus on spiritual progress and ethical progress. Anything less than this won’t do.

Let’s look at why that is, starting with spiritual progress.

1. Spiritual Progress

At its core, spiritual progress is about nurturing what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called “peak experiences,” transcendent moments of deep peace and fulfillment.

These experiences can happen to anyone, regardless of religious belief or disbelief. The point is that peak experiences help us become more compassionate and realize how deeply connected we are with each other and with the world around us, as shown by psychologists such as William James, anthropologists such as T.M. Luhrmann, and biologists such as Alister Hardy.

Shinzen Young, a nationally renowned meditation teacher with a scientific bent, shares this view that peak experiences make us profoundly more compassionate and bring lasting peace. Young’s hope, which he outlines in his book The Science of Enlightenment, is that humanity will develop a technology that will connect to the brain and induce enlightenment experiences in human beings. Because of this hope, he is working with neuroscientists and engineers to learn more about the brain and figure out ways to create such experiences.

On the surface, Shinzen Young's idea might sound insane. But think of the story of Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who experienced a transcendent experience during a stroke, wherein she felt total unity with the universe and afterward embodied powerful feelings of compassion for all of humanity. If Shinzen Young and his team can achieve their goal, they will have created a way for people to taste the experience of enlightenment and reap the benefits such experiences bring.

I share Young’s excitement for such a possibility, as well as his realization that in the meantime we must nurture such experiences via more traditional means such as meditation. These experiences are critical because they help us all more fully internalize the fact that to hurt another living being is to only hurt ourself. This is the seed of ethical progress.

2. Ethical Progress

Of course, it’s not enough for each individual to just experience personal enlightenment. We must also figure out the best ways to help each other reach better living conditions in the real world.

In his book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari claims that we’re entering an era ruled by dataism, an era where algorithms will be able to show us the most effective methods for achieving widespread well-being.

Want to know the best foods to eat today so you can stay healthy? Your embedded body scanner will crunch millions of data points and tell you. Want to know the best charities to give to? An app that tracks each transaction at every charity and maps it to millions of data points about how those transactions improve well-being will tell you. Want to know what world problems deserve our most urgent attention? A global network will crunch the data to give you a range of best options given your circumstances and location.

On measures of health, psychology, and standards of living, dataism might be able to guide us.

That said, it’s easy to think of ways dataism could go terribly wrong. What if a large corporation messes with the data? What if governments censor the data because it doesn’t match their narrative? What if people are too distracted by mindless entertainment to care about what’s best for the long-term interest of themselves and the planet?

We have the possibility with new technology to create a more ethical future, one that considers the needs of the least fortunate in its algorithms. But it won't happen naturally. We must deliberately demand ethical guidelines and work to bring them into existence. After all, what good is achieving superintelligence via dataism if we lose our humanity in the process?

A Vision Worth Believing In

It’s viable, as Ray Kurtzweil outlines in his classic The Singularity Is Near, that we will soon see wonders few of us could have ever dreamed of. Embeddable supercomputers, commonplace genetic enhancements, regular space travel, dramatic extensions in lifespans, and so on. As long as we don’t find a way to blow ourselves up, the chances are high that it’s all coming.

And what will we do with such innovations? If we haven’t built on a solid foundation of spirituality and ethics, these innovations might be used to oppress the poor and the weak to a degree we’ve never previously witnessed. If that happens, we will become worse, not better, than human. Who wants to extend lifespans if life consists of endless psychoses, narcissism, and power grabs?

We must therefore proceed wisely, keeping our primary attention on the heart of the human experience. If we do this, we will join the long line of pioneers who have worked over the centuries to make this vision a reality. We will create a paradise that every one of our ancestors would have clamored to join, a paradise for generations to come.

Jon Ogden is the author of When Mormons Doubt: A Way to Save Relationships and Seek a Quality Life, available via Amazon.

Join us at the 2017 MTA Fall Social!

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO AND FALL LEAVES BACKGROUND

Who: MTA Members, their family, children, and friends. Bring a friend to introduce to the MTA.

What: A fun evening of food & socializing—all at no cost to you!

Where: Vivian Park @ East Pavilion 1 (as you exit US Highway 189 and cross over the Provo River, take the first left where you will find parking and park area 1)

When: Mon, Sept 4th, 5:30 – 8 pm, including: 5:30 pm Mingling & kids' activities 6:30 pm Catered dinner by Café Rio

Please RSVP the number of adults & children who will attend so we can plan for food at this link

CRISPR LOVE

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DNA

Guest Blogger: Gary Lee Parker

I cut my genes for you I cut myself to keep your love I trim the edges, rough to smooth I shape my soul to fit your glove

I Infect myself for you I change my mind to rise above my baser state, the more uncouth allotments, lop the riffraff of

my riffraff spirit’s residue I clip the wings of Eden’s dove I cut my genes for you, in truth I cut myself to keep your love

I lose myself for you I lose myself inside your need in your X-Acto blade demands For what I ought to be

Carefully I cut for you my garden’s code I strictly weed my garden’s code I prune by hand and burn the cheap debris

my unruly runners hewn I hew the gnarled knobs and seed my soul anew, each woven strand unzipped, I craft a better tree

I cut my genes for you I cut my soul to rise above I change myself, your fears to soothe I cut myself to keep your love evict myself to keep your love eject myself to keep a love you are unworthy of

Humanity+ adds CTA to short list of affiliates

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF HUMANITY+ LOGO

Humanity+ is one of the leading advocates of the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In their prior incarnation as the World Transhumanist Association, they adopted the historic Transhumanist Declaration, and helped pioneer the modern discussion of how science and technology can and will affect our human future.

The Christian Transhumanist Association is the first explicitly transhumanist organization aimed at bringing this conversation to the wider Christian world. Through theological and social engagement, the CTA encourages Christians to use science & technology to participate in the work of God, to cultivate life and renew creation.

Humanity+ has recently added the CTA to its small list of officially-recognized affiliates, joining other long-standing transhumanist organizations like the Foresight Institute, SENS Research Foundation, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

The CTA is pleased to affiliate with Humanity+, and is proud to be recognized as a positive addition to the larger transhumanist community.

Chris Bradford, Pace Ellsworth, Ben Blair, Shane Pittson Elected to Board of Directors

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO BLACK BACKGROUND

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce the results of the 2017 director election. Each year, terms expire for three of the nine seats on the board of directors. This year, the seats occupied by Chris Bradford, Nathan Hatfield, and Joseph West expired. Dor Deasy has opted to resign with one remaining year. The Association thanks Chris, Nathan, Joseph, and Dor for the leadership and service they've provided.

Blaire Ostler, CEO and director, said, “I have really appreciated the unique perspectives of Chris, Nathan, Joseph, and Dor. It’s been an honor to serve with them. While I’m sad to see Nathan, Joseph, and Dor move on, I’m also really excited about the new directors.”

Voting members of the Association have elected Chris Bradford, Pace Ellsworth, and Ben Blair to serve as directors for the 2017 to 2020 term. Voting members elected Shane Pittson to serve from 2017 to 2018, the remaining year of the fourth director position.

Chris Bradford was born in Utah, but soon moved to Washington DC and then overseas for his father's employment. He has lived in Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Pakistan and Italy, where he served an LDS mission. A self-taught programmer, he manages social & mobile development at Ancestry.com. He has a degree from Brigham Young University in linguistics. Chris and wife Lucy have five sons and three daughters. Chris is passionate about science, technology, religion, philosophy, and the performing arts.

IMAGE: CHRIST BRADFORD PHOTO

Pace Ellsworth lives with his wife and 3 awesome kids in Mesa, AZ. Pace is a self-described "anarcho-transfigurist", focusing on the power of technology and empathy to free humanity from harmful expressions of authority. As CEO of Heleum, Pace helps people use currency exchange automation to grow their savings. Pace has a BA in Linguistics, minoring in Spanish and Computational Linguistics, with a love for people, languages, markets, future tech, and religious thought.

IMAGE: PACE ELLSWORTH PHOTO

Ben Blair is a co-founder of Teachur. He holds MA and PhD degrees in Philosophy and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has spent several years teaching courses in foundations of education at the college and graduate level. He spent much of the last 20 years evaluating, developing, and aligning curriculum across a range of disciplines, including five years as Director of specialized curriculum with K12.com, a leading provider of online education. Ben resides in Oakland, CA with his wife and 6 kids.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BEN BLAIR

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SHANE PITTSON

Information about all directors of the association is available here: [https://transfigurism.org/about/board-of-directors]

Take the 2017 Conference Survey

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SURVEY 2017

Thank you for helping us make our 2017 conference a success! We had record attendance and wonderful speakers. We hope that you enjoyed your experience and plan on joining us next year and for our upcoming social later this year.

To help us make future conferences even better, please take just a couple minutes to fill out this short survey to share your thoughts about what went well and what we can do to improve.

Jordan Roberts appointed to Chief Humanitarian Officer

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: JORDAN ROBERTS PHOTO WITH MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is eager to announce the appointment of Jordan Roberts to the position of Chief Humanitarian Officer by Blaire Ostler, CEO of the Association. He was unanimously approved by the board of directors under the direction of Christopher Bradford, President of the Association.

Blaire Ostler commented, “Jordan’s background in science and medicine makes him a great fit for the position. Not only is he qualified, but his genuine interest in the betterment of humanity through service is inspiring. I look forward to his contributions to the management team.”

Jordan Roberts was born in Mesa Arizona, the son of a Mormon mother and Jewish father. He served a mission in Brazil. He is married to his high school sweetheart, and they have two children. He has a bachelor’s degree in life sciences from Arizona State University, and received his MD from the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix. He is currently a family medicine resident physician at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City. His interests include science and its fiction, Judaism, philosophy, Transhumanism and bioethics.

The Association congratulates Jordan and thanks him for his willingness to contribute his time and talents to the success of the Association.

MTA Service Project Provides Meals to Those in Need

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PEOPLE SITTING AT TABLE HELPING

IMAGE: PHOTO OF TWO MEN HELPING CARRY

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CHILD HELPING

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PEOPLE HELPING

Members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association’s Provo, Utah Chapter recently completed a community service project that provided over 100 meals to the Food & Care Coalition of Provo.

The Association purchased the food and then assembled fully prepared lunches that they donated to the Coalition. In all, the service project comprised over 30 human hours to complete. The 100+ meals are helping the Coalition’s mission to “implement tangible solutions for poverty in Utah County, engage with the community to create opportunities for social change, and balance compassion with personal responsibility.”

This project is the first of many future efforts planned by the MTA CEO, Blaire Ostler, to offer greater involvement in the community and better fulfill the Association’s mission. Ostler noted, “One of the purposes of the MTA is to send relief, consolation, and healing to raise each other up. We seek to immerse ourselves in the body of Christ. This is one small way we can do that.”

To learn more about the Food & Care Coalition of Provo or learn about ways to serve, you can visit their website here.

To show your interest on becoming a part of the MTA’s community service efforts, you can contact the Association at: [admin@transfigurism.org]

MTA thanks Dorothy Deasy for her service

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association thanks Dorothy Deasy for her service as Chief Humanitarian Officer. Dorothy served in this capacity from July 2015 through February 2017.

The Association engages in technologically-empowered humanitarian efforts as a reflection of its commitment to practical Christian discipleship and aspiration to exemplify the application of technology to cultivate human thriving. During Dorothy's period of service, the Association sponsored health clinics and schools in Africa, a Rosetta@Home team to donate spare computation to curing disease, and a Kiva lending team to provide microloans to persons in developing areas of the world. "Dor is an inspiring humanitarian," said Lincoln Cannon, founder and former president of the Association.

"She has been a constant advocate for the poor, raising awareness of the digital divide and the needs of persons too often marginalized within our human family. And she has worked with her full heart to identify ways of transforming that awareness into action. The Mormon Transhumanist Association has a broader and more compassionate vision because of Dor's service."

Blaire Ostler, CEO and board member, said, "Dor has been an impeccable member of the management team. Her talents and contributions have led the way toward more diverse outreach and inclusion. I am grateful not only for her service, but also for her example."

Dorothy continues to serve in her positions as board member and secretary of the board.

March for Science

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MARCH FOR SCIENCE

March for Science is an effort comprised of dozens of independent, nonpartisan coordinators. Recent rhetoric has inspired them organize marches on Washington D.C. and in Satellite Marches across the country. It's mission statement is as follows:

The March For Science champions public funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, non-partisan group to call for science that upholds the common good, and for political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.

The Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation states the following:

We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end. We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.

Much of the stated goals of March for Science and the The Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation are in harmony. Whatever one's political persuasion, we hope that you may find ways to support science and its role in society both secular and religious.

More information about March for Science can be found on their website or Facebook page.

More information about the Mormon Transhumanist association can likewise be found on our website or Facebook page.

White Hot Life

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ASTRONAUT

Guest Blogger: Gary Lee Parker

Sending out sparks of life light, glowing, spinning in the dark like a cosmic disco ball, like white hot arcs of electric night

we turn and twist, rife with fight, wrestling, struggling to embark, to flee the killer’s gleaming knife a tight hot mess of fear in flight

dancing through the stars and strife right, reeling, grinning in the stark night, a cosmic joke on all, like sleight of hand that hides the blight

of us, streaming sparks of life light, dancing, but an interstellar lark like a fevered dream, like trite truth, a hot white knight

hanging onto sparks of life like, once more unto the breach , might makes right, and so we write our right of way through the interstellar night

sending out sparks of life light streamers reeling through the dark night, the cosmic dark, and we like flecks of fleeting passioned light

holding to this disco ball of life like children terrored by The Patriarch like a dying dog’s fading light desperate to hold back the night

desperate to hold back the night desperate, desperately, desperately we fight

Special thanks from the MTA to Mr. Parker.

Call for Papers

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: CALL FOR PAPERS PHOTO MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce that this year's annual conference will take place on Saturday, 8 April 2017, at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo, Utah.

The theme of the conference is “Evolving Gods.” From its earliest beginnings, humanity has looked beyond itself, seeing in various deities its characteristics embodied to a superlative degree. Human conceptions of the divine have undergone dramatic shifts, from polytheistic contention for dominance between tribal deities, to notions of a god more powerful than all these, and eventually to the consigning of these tribal deities to oblivion as monotheism became predominant. Early Christians, Eastern Orthodox, and subsequent restorationist movements, like Mormonism, emphasized human divine potential through the process of theosis, deification, or divinization. Eastern religions taught the possibility of achieving unity with the divine community of enlightened beings.

In our present era of rapidly accelerating technological advancement, we are achieving tremendous improvements in physical and mental health, rejuvenation, and communal well-being. We are seeing declines in violence and suffering that bring us closer to the just society envisioned by many religions. At the same time, many traditional religions are in decline, while fundamentalist and secularist movements gain momentum. We also face numerous existential risks, including environmental degradation, technological obsolescence and political upheaval.

This theme raises questions about how our conception of the divine and of morality has changed over time and how it continues to change in our transhuman age; about the function of religion and the new shapes it is taking; and about how we humans should approach our increasingly godlike powers, and what kinds of gods we will choose to resemble, for good or ill.

Keynote Speakers

Steven Peck is a professor of biology at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses including “The History and Philosophy of Biology” and “Bioethics.” His research in theoretical mathematical ecology and insect populations has been recognized by the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations for helping to fight insect-borne illness. His published works include over forty scientific articles in prominent publications like American Naturalist, Newsweek, and Zygon; a volume of philosophical and religious essays titled Evolving Faith; fictional works like The Scholar of Moab and A Short Stay in Hell, which is being made into a feature film; and a number of poems and short stories. He blogs at [sciencebysteve.net].

IMAGE: STEVEN PECK PHOTO

Robin Hanson is associate professor of economics at George Mason University, and research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. Oxford University Press published his book The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth in June 2016, and will publish The Elephant in the Brain, co-authored with Kevin Simler, in September 2017. He has pioneered prediction markets, also known as information markets and idea futures, since 1988. He was the first to write in detail about creating and subsidizing markets to gain better estimates on a wide variety of important topics. He was a principal architect of the first internal corporate markets, at Xanadu in 1990, of the first web markets, the Foresight Exchange since 1994, of DARPA's Policy Analysis Market, from 2001 to 2003, and of IARPA's combinatorial markets DAGGRE and SCICAST from 2010 to 2015. He developed new technologies for conditional, combinatorial, and intermediated trading, and studied insider trading, manipulation, and other foul play. He has written and spoken widely on the application of idea futures to business and policy, and has advised many ventures. Hanson has diverse research interests, with papers on spatial product competition, health incentive contracts, group insurance, product bans, evolutionary psychology and bioethics of health care, voter information incentives, incentives to fake expertise, Bayesian classification, agreeing to disagree, self-deception in disagreement, probability elicitation, wiretaps, image reconstruction, the history of science prizes, reversible computation, the origin of life, the survival of humanity, very long term economic growth, growth given machine intelligence, and interstellar colonization.

See more at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hanson].

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ROBIN HANSON

PAPER SUBMISSION

Please send submissions in RTF, PDF, MS Word or Google Doc format to admin@transfigurism.org. Include author's full name, contact information, and title. Some funding is available to reimburse portions of travel for presenters. Please indicate interest in being considered for travel support in the submission email.

For more information, visit the official website of the Mormon Transhumanist Association at [transfigurism.org]. Recordings of presentations from previous years are available on our YouTube channel.

Important dates

-Conference Paper Submission Deadline: 28 February 2017 -Presentation Invitation Notification Date: 7 March 2017 -Conference Date: 8 April 2017

Transhumanist Advent: The man who had been mute spoke

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MAN WEARING GLOVE

(image sourced from video below)

“While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel."

(Matthew 9:32-33)

While maladies such as mental illness or muteness are now rarely superstitiously reduced to demon possession, miracles of tools which can help the mute speak are emerging. These technologies are in early stages, but they can already begin to break down the barrier of muteness. Here, the autonomy and leadership of deaf communities is an asset as they can create, direct, and use these technologies to foster greater communication and connection. Here are two such approaches.

SignAloud is a gesture glove which a signer can wear which will send the signing information to a computer over bluetooth which will then interpret the signs and vocalize them.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

MotionSavvy takes a different approach. Rather than wear a glove, MotionSavvy uses a sensitive motion detector. The signer can then sign above the sensor which, connected to a tablet, can then interpret the signs and vocalize them. It also has the ability to do speech to text so deaf and mute individuals can use it to communicate both ways:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

While our attitudes towards and tools used to address and heal muteness have changed, the desire to help the mute speak remains just as worthy a goal for Christians and non-Christians alike.

-Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: Jesus and the Anti-Christ

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF STAINED GLASS JESUS

I see your God who has done everything already, and I see the Anti-Christ. Its message is that the work is done, or the work is permanently reserved for Him. Jesus accomplished His part, which, as it happens, was all that needed to be done.

In an ironic twist, Jesus is turned, and used as the pacifier to keep us from doing the work of Christ. Jesus, the model of taking on all burdens, is invoked as a reason to not take on burdens--because He already took them all on.

Jesus is twisted, and used as the pacifier to convince us that reading sacred texts, performing rituals, and obeying leaders and rules is the whole of the work. But no one believes it; we can sustain it only for a time. The texts, rituals, leaders and rules themselves point to something more, and betray the attempt to lull us. Moreover, the suspicion that we are responsible only grows with time, even as the harsh prospect that the burdens are ours is frightening.

Here is where Jesus, the Savior, the Model, offers not so much comfort as hope and faith and encouragement. The burden is great. The work is real, and daunting. And that cliché phrase that isn’t even scriptural suddenly resounds as if from Christ: It won’t be easy, but Humanity and what it may become is worth it.

-Ben Blair

Year-End Letter and Donation Request

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO AND HOLIDAY LIGHTS

MTA Members & Friends,

2016 has been a year of change, including for the MTA. We had a successful conference in April that included the election of a new president of the MTA, Chris Bradford. We have a new member of the Board of Directors, Wendy Smith, and an expanded management group, including a new Chief Financial Officer, Drew Ostler, and a new Chief Marketing Officer, Caleb Jones. More recently, the MTA constitution was amended to allow for the election of a new CEO, Blaire Ostler. We are very excited about the expansion of our leadership team and have received an overwhelming amount of support from the association. Thank you!

The MTA continues to be involved in humanitarian projects, including sponsoring a clinic in Bwethe, Uganda. MTA leadership is also collaborating with local non-profits that offer free tech training and job placement to low-income individuals. Look for more information in our upcoming annual report.

In 2016, MTA membership has continued to grow. MTA leadership has a vision for helping to expanding our outreach and membership. These include expanding our meetup groups and other social events, development of MTA introductory courses, and expanding the presence of the MTA at other conferences, such as the recent Sunstone Northwest Conference.

Plans are well underway for our upcoming annual conference. Look for announcements and a call for papers to come soon.

As the end of the year approaches, we hope you will consider donating to support the efforts of the MTA to grow our humanitarian efforts, expand our membership, and enhance our annual conference. Donations to the MTA are tax deductible in the U.S. and can be made online here (see “Financial Donation” on the column to the right). Any donation, large or small, is greatly appreciated. Of course, we encourage recurring donations as small amounts add up to significant benefit over time. The MTA is committed to full transparency of our finances and our financial reports are available here.

Thank you for your continued support of the MTA. We look forward to making it even better in 2017 and beyond!

Christopher Bradford President, Mormon Transhumanist Association

Blaire Ostler CEO, Mormon Transhumanist Association

Transhumanist Advent: Christ as Invitation

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMEN PLAYING BASKETBALL

"Suppose that the world’s author put the case to you before creation, saying: “I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own 'level best.' I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through. It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done. Will you join the procession? Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?”" -William James, Pragmatism

A pretend basketball game will never bring out the best efforts of participants. If it is fixed, and the end is already decided, no matter how important you tell the players the game is, they won’t, they can’t “leave it all on the court”. Or, wait. Perhaps this is wrong. Perhaps the game is real, but the tactic is to convince the players that it's not, that the end has already been decided. Now there is no real pressure, and the players, like Ender Wiggins, may do crazy things they wouldn’t consider in a real game, because that is what we must resort to now.

Jesus’s life constituted a radical expansion of morality and ethics. It was not a suspension of the ethical, a la Abraham, or the God of Moses, where Jesus did something that, except God commanded it, was evil. No, Jesus never suspended our morality, but rather deepened and broadened it beyond anything that had hitherto been suggested or tried. His life was a continual widening of circles whenever others (particularly the Pharisees) tried to draw lines and boundaries. Until the end when He recognized the burden for what it was: everything; all of it; nothing left behind; and swallowed it up.

Jesus’ mission isn't yet complete. Christ hasn’t yet overcome all evil. Christ hasn’t yet conquered all death. Those monsters are still ravaging, kicking and screaming. But, thanks in significant part to Jesus, their power and influence are diminishing. He drew the boundaries, or rather showed that there were no boundaries, and boldly proclaimed that nothing short of everything would do. And until His followers in deed join in completing His work, and overcome all evil, including death, His life will remain short of its mission.

Jesus’s mission was as much an invitation, as a completed monumental individual task. The final outcome is still in question. We have reason to hope for victory. But we may yet lose. Perhaps the greatest respect God can give humanity is this: We haven’t been put in a fixed game whose end has already been determined (or if we have, it's a ruse for a bigger, real one). And the formerly metaphysical ideas of resurrection and redemption, once left to an abstract future life, like all prophecy, are flooding into the physical, current life.

If there is still time on the clock, we do no favors to participants by telling them that their team has already won unless the game itself is pretend. No. Overcoming all evil and death will only happen when humans or their descendents, joining Christ, actually overcome them.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: They did all eat, and were filled

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF GREENHOUSE PLANTS

“

"And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children."

”

—

Matthew 15:34-38

The story of Jesus feeding the multitudes is a story of multiplying limited resources. One way our food resources have been multiplied is through modern agricultural practices. In the last 50 years wheat yields have doubled and significantly increased global food security. And while the Green Revolution, which multiplied food production, also has problems such as environmental impact, biodiversity, pollution, and nutrition, it's positive impact on hunger can't be denied. As nobel-winning biologist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug pointed out:

“The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades.”

Decades later, facing increasing challenges of pollution, climate change, and disease, we are beginning to develop new techniques in genetic-engineering, hydroponics, aeroponics, and vertical farming which have the potential to increase food production, food security, and prevent disease. These certainly face their own challenges, but they also provide methods and tools for us to emulate the works of Jesus as they can multiply food. And as this can better lead to feeding the hungry, this is a worthy goal.

-Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: The Role of God

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PERSON BEGGING ON THE STREET

When Joshua led the Israelites to Canaan--a land where they could settle and grow their own food--manna from heaven ceased to appear (Joshua 5:12). God didn't disappear; after all, it was God who had kept them whole in the wilderness and delivered them to the promised land.

We couldn’t have known that people were starving or trafficked in different parts of the world 100 years ago. We likely couldn’t have known that people were starving or trafficked 5 miles from us. And if we could know, we couldn’t do much about it. Perhaps there is some excuse for evil that we recognize hypothetically, but that it is impossible to do anything about.

But what do we say about evil that we recognize, and that we understand we can do something about, but that we refuse to? Or, that we forget to, or don't think to? Or find too overwhelming?

We live in a world where we know of many evils, and we know how to address many of them, at least in initial ways. And we can recognize, triage-like, that some evil is bleeding out life and hope faster than others and so requires more intensive care, even while many evils seemingly remain far beyond our current abilities to address. The more we work to address the evils, the better we become at addressing them, and the more miracles and surprise discoveries attend our work. We will certainly make mistakes early on, and throughout, but we will also become more effective and efficient through the work if we're humble and mindful.

So what is the role of God in a world like this? Where we--the children of God--have everything we need to start to address clear evils, and most of what we need to fix them? It’s a rhetorical question.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: She is not dead but sleepeth

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF RESTING WOMAN PAINTING

“

“While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat.”

”

—

Luke 8:49-55

Modern advances in medicine and technology have blurred the line between life and death as we progressively reach to the dead using our tools, technology, and desire to heal as we call them to "arise".

We now have the ability to preserve life in vegetative or comatose states allowing doctors and family to explore many types of treatments. These states, which would have meant almost certain death -- if not interpreted as death -- in ancient times have become increasingly treatable.
Cryonics is an emerging field with successful outcomes performed on animals. This offers hope to some who may be able to "sleep" until treatment can be found for their illness.
Certain types of surgeries involve stopping the heart and lungs for hours at a time.
Doctors and nurses follow rituals of defibrillator use to restore heart function.
CPR techniques save the lives of many, bringing them back from death.
We use the organs of the dead to preserve life for the living -- which would have been unfathomable and likely objectionable to ancient and even relatively modern peoples.
Some engage in early, crude efforts to replicate the consciousness and intelligence of loved ones from their digital artifacts.

Certainly, along with these tools and technology come the ethical questions of how & when to administer them. But as we seek to ethically preserve life and to recover our dead we can follow the example Jesus set in healing, even when that healing crosses (and blurs) the line between life and death.

Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: Blood

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BLOODY HANDPRINT

(photo credit - text added)

The approach of attesting: “Jesus understands you. Jesus will heal/comfort/lift/unburden etc. you.” can work to deceive the attesters that the burdens of others are Jesus’ to carry. This approach can, ironically, separate us rather than bind us together--because we would-be healers and healed, throw our hands up (even if in prayer) rather than extend them to another.

This approach can work to soothe and trick the evil doer into thinking he’s not responsible for the evil he carries out or facilitates (even through inaction); and if he is somehow to blame, it will be fixed by Jesus anyway. But these interpretations are misreadings that deceive us away from the work of Christ. We all have blood on our hands. Christ’s true followers are doing something about it.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: He touched the man's ear and healed him

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO JESUS TOUCHING EAR PAINTING

Recent trends indicate that organized religion is declining in many developed western nations (source). One way to respond to trends like that is to become zealous about defending faith. This approach often has disastrous results as religious zealousness pits its own righteous desires against others (including their own). Ultimately, it divides the Body of Christ through contention. An example of this is Peter’s defense of Jesus as he was arrested. The defense of Jesus was a righteous desire. Unfortunately, his zeal that lead to contention was out of line.

“

"Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him."

”

—

Luke 22:48-51

NIV

Currently, I’m saddened and ashamed of all the ears being cut off in the name of religion today. Swords are drawn on various sides as authoritative exercises of religious institutional power cuts off members who are hurting. And swords of indignation are swung at the flaws of religious institutions. We even see this play out in families where faith can become a contentious wedge rather than a healing balm.

Contrast this with Jesus’ response to Peter and Malchus as he stops Peter and heals Malchus’ ear. Can we see in this example how Christ is perhaps calling us to put away our religious and institutional weapons and instead see and heal the suffering of others? Will we stand up to destructive zealotry and say, "No more of this!" as we then seek to be healers? With so many who are hurting today, we have a much greater need for healers and peacemakers than we do for zealots. I think we all have the responsibility to find ways to put injured ears back on and begin listening to one another.

Abraham Joshua Heschel in "God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism" makes this observation:

"It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless."

Perhaps the challenge for religion today is for it to produce more healers than zealots, to listen rather than attack or contend, and to re-commit ourselves to better emulate the works of Jesus, the Master Healer.

Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: The Divine Ledger and Taking up the Cross

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CROSS STONE STATUE

Statue on the grounds of The Bishop's Palace in Wells (photo credit: Stewart Black)

A beautiful Christmas video from the Mormon church describes a world without a savior--where we couldn’t take back mistakes; where every heartache lasted forever; where wounds never healed. Without Jesus’ acts, so the argument goes, humanity would be infinitely and permanently deficient on a divine ledger.

With Christians, I believe that Christ restores the balance on such a divine ledger. But this belief is not in reverence to past abstract metaphysical acts. If it were, I see no moral value in it. I can’t comprehend it; no one can. It’s strange to even try to be grateful. I take it the only way anyone can: I take it for granted. I trust He’s not offended by this. We can understand Jesus’ acts as past abstract metaphysical tasks (i.e. having compensated on a divine ledger), or as present motivation to join the work and take up the cross of the world. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but only one moves us.

There were wounds that didn't heal, such as polio and smallpox; but we learned to heal them. And there are mistakes that we are--if ever so slowly--learning to overcome, such as sexism, racism, materialism, and turning a blind eye to those we oppress or allow to be oppressed. And we can just now imagine a future where there will be no heartaches that will last forever; where death, the last enemy, may finally be swallowed up. But these improvements have not come about, nor will they come about simply because of ancient metaphysical acts, even if such acts were necessary.

As abstract ideas, Jesus’s acts to compensate on a divine ledger are by definition part of the setting or backstory; they are not characters in the current plot that we must continually prop up to remind the audience. It’s not blasphemy to claim that Jesus’ acts haven’t directly cured any diseases. Nor is it right to say that His acts--and the mindset that they introduced--had no influence on such progress. No, the progress has come from humans following the example of Jesus (in deed if not in word), and joining Christ by taking responsibility for wounds, mistakes, and heartaches.

There may be a metaphysical need for a savior, but the only work we need concern ourselves with is not adoring that savior from afar but with joining His current work of healing all wounds, overcoming all mistakes, and making all hearts whole, forever.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: He maketh the deaf to hear

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DISCIPLES PAINTING

“

“And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain... And [they] were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

”

—

Mark 7:31-35

Whether through an unexplained miraculous healing in ancient times or through utilizing the efforts of those who have developed modern technology, acts like bringing hearing to those who seek it emulate the works of Jesus.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: The Christmas Night

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ANGEL PAINTING

On this night the universe tipped its hat to humanity. The animals, the angels, and the stars all joined in proclaiming: We hereby entrust this to you. It was on this night. Though made sure in Gethsemane and on the cross, this was the moment. Not the moment of creation. Not any other moment of any other person, prophet or prophetess. This was the moment the universe gave the torch to humanity--through the child born, the son given. And Christ responded by accepting, or taking responsibility for it all, through His life and faith in the efforts of those who would follow. And His human followers in deed will continue to carry the torch until the trust is fulfilled, or it reaches a race more worthy.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: Jesus rebuked the fever

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PILLS

“

“And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.”

”

—

Luke 4:38-39

Certainly there are many cases where fevers are life-threatening even today, but we often think of fevers as an inconsequential symptom of illness. Today we have largely "rebuked" the fever through antipyretic drugs and therapy. But how did this happen? And what does that tell us about the role science and technology can play in emulating the works of Jesus?

While the origin of antipyretic therapy is not known, ancient people's have long known about the antipyretic properties of plants like the leaves or bark of willow and myrtle plants. These treatments were diluted in their efficacy, however, without concentration of the ingredient with the antipyretic property. It wasn't until 1763 when the first scientific, clinical application of these properties was studied by the Reverend Edward Stone as he systematically administered willow bark to 50 patients suffering from ague (malaria) with positive results. He submitted his findings in letter to the Royal Society of London.

In 1829 the French pharmacist Henri Leroux isolated pure salicin from white willow and demonstrated its antipyretic properties. Building on that work, in 1838 the Italian chemist Raffaele Piria hydrolyzed salicin into salicylic alcohol from which which he produced salicylic acid. Then in 1874 the Scottish physician Thomas MacLagan conducted one of the first clinical trials of salicin as he treated rheumatic fever.

With the chemical process and formulae defined and pharmaceutical application studied, industrialization began immediately. In 1829 Kolbe and Lautemann began commercially synthesizing salicylic acid which lead to its commercial form: sodium salicylate which gained widespread popularity. However, adverse side-effects limited its application.

In 1897 the German chemist Felix Hoffman who worked for Friedrich Bayer and Co., in trying to derive a substance from salicylic acid which could avoid these side-effects, succeeded in acetylating the compound's phenol moiety to produce acetylsalicylic acid into a stable form. This was then commercialized as a drug called “Aspirin” in early 1899. One theory of why the name "Aspirin" was used is that it comes from the patron Saint of headaches, St. Aspirinius.

The the turn of the century many variations of the compound had been created which include: antipyrine, antifebrin, phenacetin, acetaminophen, and pyramidon. These were followed by phenylbutazone, the fenamates, and indomethacin, developed in the 1900s. However, the exact mechanism by which these drugs exhibited their properties was unknown.

By the 1970s experiments showed that aspirin-derived drugs limited the formation of prostaglandins by disrupting the cyclooxygenase (COX) activity of prostaglandin endoperoxidase synthase. A hypothesis was formed of the existence of multiple forms of COX with various tissue distributions by observing that acetaminophen inhibits prostaglandin synthesis in the central nervous system but not in other tissues. It wasn't until 1991 that this was proven. Today, work continues to lessen or eliminate the toxicity that still remains in aspirin. And nano-technology promises even greater possibilities in drug administration on the horizon.

The history of how we have developed modern medicine is fascinating as it has relied on the joint effort of physicians, chemists, industrial technology, and biological sciences. It is through the persistent use of these tools that we have come to regularly "rebuke" fevers which was a work that Jesus exemplified so long ago. And it illustrates how technology, science, and industry are instruments for us to use as we seek to do the works of Jesus to heal the sick. Science and technology hasn't replaced God. Science and technology is enabling us to become more like God and Christ.

Caleb Jones

Source: 'Brief History of Antipyretic Therapy' by Philip A. Mackowiak, Oxford Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases

Transhumanist Advent: On Claims

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SIGN

We are either the children or creators of God. Either way, we have a claim on God. As a race, we have matured beyond worship as obeisance to stem violence or cruelty.

Jesus’s life focused our worship from a scattered scene of offerings and rituals to turn our attention to taking responsibility for death and evil.

Our claim is that God won’t haphazardly rain down death and evil on us. These happen because of humans or nature. And God’s claim on us is that we will make death and evil less likely, less damaging, less frequent, and less permanent; until, with Christ, we vanquish them.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: Take up thy bed, and walk

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMAN ON STAGE IN CRUCHES

“

“And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. When Jesus saw him lying, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wouldest thou be made whole? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. And straightway the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.”

”

—

John 5:5-9

While many find peace and independence operating with their physical limitation, for many who are disabled, independence is a significant struggle. This can especially be true when use of resources, locations, and facilities is limited due to lack of accessibility. This dynamic comes through in the story of the "infirm" man Jesus encountered. His desire to seek out a form of healing available in his day was repeatedly rebuffed as others with greater access would rush in ahead of him. He felt alone and helpless saying, "I have no man" to help him.

This feeling of isolation and loss of independence can be just as powerful to heal as the physical limitation itself. This can be healed through outreach and creating greater accessible spaces, environments, and communities. However, this can also be done through creating accessible technology which can aid in overcoming the physical limitation. A walking exoskeleton is one technology which parallels this ability to heal as people begin to "take up [their] bed, and walk". This video showcases how this can restore both independence and mobility and how family, doctors, technicians, engineers, and our communities can become that man or women to bring greater healing to others enabling them to "take up [their] bed, and walk".

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

Caleb Jones

Transhumanist Advent: On Dogma

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DOGMA WRITING

With Jesus, I am against dogmas and dogmatic thinking, religious or otherwise.

Ben Blair

Transhumanist Advent: He gave them power to heal all manner of sickness

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DNA

s< Previous meditation | Next Meditation >

In the gospel account of Matthew Jesus performed many healings of the sick:

“

“they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed... then saith he to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house.”

”

—

Matthew 9:2-7

“

“a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. [Jesus] said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.”

”

—

Matthew 9:20-22

“

“there was a man which had his hand withered... Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.”

”

—

Matthew 12:10-13

While the explanation here of the causes of these healings is decribed in supernatural terms, it's important to note that Jesus also gave this power to mankind:

“he gave them power ... to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” (Matthew 10:1)

This mandate to use power to "heal all manner of sickness... and disease" has been a call to many great Christian Saints through the ages as they sought to use the materials of their day to heal sickness and disease. Today this call continues in our hospitals, tools, and technologies which grow more sophisticated and more powerful. Our tools today, and the works of healing they can perform would be seen as supernatural to ancient peoples, but they are no less miraculous and remain very much at the heart of how we choose to respond to this great Christian mandate to heal.

We now stand at the cusp of revolutionizing medicine and healing as we know it through our understanding of genes and our development of gene therapies via our tools and technologies. While these tools and their mechanisms are certainly not supernatural, our radically compassionate application of them to heal the sick -- many of whom are marginalized in our societies -- is nothing short of a miracle. How will we choose to wield these powers which will also have power to destroy? How will we ensure their far, compassionate reach, especially amongst the marginalized and forgotten?

God continues to inspire compassion and charity in many who, through the use of tools and technologies of the day, seek to heal the sick. And as we see how these tools and technology "[give us] power... to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease", this great Christian mandate will live on.

Caleb Jones

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Transhumanist Advent: Worship

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CLASSICAL PAINTING

'Pool of Bethesda' by Carl Bloch

Whatever the historical rationales were, worship today that doesn’t aspire to emulation is empty. We give altogether too much effort to describing how great Jesus was as a mark of the fixed gap between us and Him. The reason Jesus is worthy of worship--the reason any being is worthy of worship--is because that being has lived, or is living in such a way that is a significant moral step ahead of us and others; it’s a mode of life worthy of not only our admiration, but our aspirations, and we work to follow that lead and close the gap. In this way, we should hope that we would worship Jesus; for worthy is the Lamb.

Ben Blair

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Transhumanist Advent: He anointed the eyes of the blind

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CHILD WITH HANDS COVERING EYES

Sourced from video below

“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When Jesus had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”

As Christians we seek to do the works of Jesus. Whether clay and spittle or advanced medical tools and treatments, the tools available to us will always require people from any creed willing to do this work while the means and opportunity exist. Regardless, the ritual of giving sight to the blind is worthy of our worship, awe, reverence, and sacrifice. Here is one way this miracle is performed today:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

First Sight: Sonia & Anita From Blue Chalk on Vimeo

Caleb Jones

Read other Transhumanist Advent Meditationss

A Transhumanist Advent

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF HANDS REACHING OUT TO TOUCH

The following meditations are from a variety of members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association as they individually reflect on the Christmas season and on a vision of transhumanism that can produce fruits worthy of Christ. Each meditation is the view of the individual author and does not represent the official stance of the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

The meditations vary in length from one sentence to a few paragraphs. Though each "meditation" has its own emphasis, some of the recurring themes draw from conversations had with family members, local Mormon congregation, and members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association: transhumanism, taking responsibility for death and evil in the world, the role of technology, theosis, etc. Some meditations will be purely Christian or religious in their focus while others will focus on how technology and transhumanism can play a role in advent meditations.

Meditations:

Dec 1st - The Christmas Message
Dec 2nd - He anointed the eyes of the blind
Dec 3rd - Worship
Dec 4th - He gave them power to heal all manner of sickness
Dec 5th - On Dogma
Dec 6th - Take up thy bed, and walk
Dec 7th - On Claims
Dec 8th - Jesus rebuked the fever
Dec 9th - The Christmas Night
Dec 10th - He he maketh the deaf to hear
Dec 11th - The Divine Ledger and Taking up the Cross
Dec 12th - He touched the man's ear and healed him
Dec 13th - Blood
Dec 14th - She is not dead but sleepeth
Dec 15th - The role of God
Dec 16th - They did all eat, and were filled
Dec 17th - Christ as Invitation
Dec 18th - The man who had been mute spoke
Dec 19th - Jesus and the anti-Christ
Dec 20th - Greater works than these
Dec 21st - The Messianic Pattern
Dec 22nd - Lift up your eyes and look at the Earth beneath
Dec 23rd - A Faithful Position
Dec 24th - The Lessons of Scrooge’s Ghosts
Dec 25th - The Angels’ Announcement

Transhumanist Advent: The Christmas Message

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MARY AND JESUS PAINTING

Gerard van Honthorst

We get the Christmas message mixed up. We read it as a very special baby, and everyone comes to witness or see and point to, and adore the baby, who will grow to become the savior of the world. We read the child as the focal point, and our role as spectator: the classic carol O Come All Ye Faithful captures this sentiment in the refrain’s crescendo: ”O come let us adore Him! O come let us adore Him! O come let us adore Him! Christ, the Lord!”

It is a heavy burden this baby will take--the burden of all the sin, all the evils of the world. This baby will grow, and for the first time for humanity, this baby--now grown--will say:

“I love humanity. I love this world. I will do what the highest aspiration and calling in me demands: I will swallow up everything that is evil, and take full responsibility for it all. I won’t single out the evil that only happens to me and my tribe. I won’t differentiate between tribes or individuals. I’ll accept responsibility for it all. I’ll take the full burden.”

But what we should read in the whole scene: the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, the animals, and Mary and Joseph, is that we are there, seeing this baby, and imagining what it will later take on. And the witness we are making is not a spectator’s witness, but a witness as an oath to share in the burden. The image of the baby--helpless, naive, dependent, incapable on its own--should burn this oath on our souls.

There was nothing sacred at the time of Jesus’ birth, only potential. It became sacred when He taught and lived a radically, infinitely progressive and expansive morality, and ultimately took on the whole of evil and death. Those acts, which required his birth, were what made His birth sacred.

Our oath this season as we witness His birth is that we will carry the burden. We too will take responsibility for evil and death in the world, to the degree that we can, and recognize that our ability to take responsibility is, like the baby’s, more than we can currently imagine, and is continually increasing as our moral, physical, and technological horizons expand. A recent Norwegian version of O Come All Ye Faithful has a different refrain, but with (as I imagine it) the same escalating crescendo. It goes like this: We are His Thousand Hands! We are His Thousand Hands! We are His Thousand Hands! Be with us today!

(Norwegian text "Come Now in Freedom" by Erik Hillestad. Translated by Carl Youngblood)

Ben Blair

Next Meditation >

Read other Transhumanist Advent Meditations)

Lincoln Cannon to Present at Theologians Testing Transhumanism

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO Photo credit: brainchildvn

Lincoln Cannon will present on Mormon Transhumanism at Theologians Testing Transhumanism in Berkeley, California, on Wednesday 7 December 2016 at 6pm Pacific. Lincoln is a board member, founder, and former president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. He will present live remotely via Skype in the Donner Lab Auditorium at UC Berkeley. Attendance is free and open to the public.

Theologians Testing Transhumanism strives to respond to the need for critical inter-disciplinary ecumenical exchange. This mission has continued and expanded and has engaged in topics such as the dialogue between religion and contemporary science behind transhumanism. The group affords a rare opportunity for theologians and scholars from various disciplines to have a sustained, critical conversation among diverse worldviews and theological perspectives. The group exists to galvanize interdisciplinary theological research and dialogue by engaging the transhumanist movement, evolving theological enterprise in creative critical interaction as it encounters the always newly emerging crises of our scientific, technological, and social world.

More information is available at the Theologians Testing Transhumanism website:

[http://theologyandtranshumanism.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting.html]

Blaire Ostler Appointed to CEO of the Mormon Transhumanist Association

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce Blaire Ostler has been appointed to serve as Chief Executive Officer by Christopher Bradford, President of the association. She was unanimously approved by the board of directors.

Christopher Bradford, board member and President of the Association, said,

“I'm very pleased to have Blaire serving as the CEO of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. Blaire has brought a strong voice to the leadership of the association in her role as a member of the Board of Directors and has a great vision for the development of the MTA. Blaire is passionate and compassionate and I'm confident her leadership will be a great benefit to the Association. I look forward to working even more closely with her.”

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BLAIRE OSTLER

Carl Youngblood, board member and Vice President of the Association, comments, ”The MTA is fortunate to have such a capable and compassionate person at the helm. I'm grateful for Blaire's willingness to serve and look forward to our future under her leadership."

Lincoln Cannon, board member and former president of the Association, said,

"I'm excited about and fully support the appointment of Blaire Ostler as CEO of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. She brings an effective work ethic and contagious enthusiasm to the role. To me, she exemplifies commitment to the transhumanist values of morphological freedom and cognitive liberty. And her love for Mormonism, both as a religion and a people, has often inspired me. The Association is honored that Blaire accepted this appointment."

The Association congratulates Blaire, and thanks her for her willingness to contribute her time and talents to the success of the Association. Below is additional information about her.

Blaire Ostler is one of the leading voices on the intersections of Mormonism, feminism, and transhumanism. She advocates for enhancements to the human body, increase cognitive function, bodily autonomy, radical reconciliation, and the religious drive to accomplish these ambitious objectives. She presents and writes on many forums, and speaks at conferences promoting Mormon Transhumanist ideals.

She considers herself to be radically Mormon with ancestral heritage dating back to Mormonism’s origins. She says, “Mormonism is in my DNA. My existence is the product of nine generations of robust Mormon feminists, and medical professionals and experts. I was born a Mormon Transhumanist.”

Blaire holds a BFA in Design from the International Academy of Design and Technology-Seattle. She is pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in philosophy with an emphasis in gender studies. She is passionate about esthetics, religion, human sexuality, queer theory, social philosophy, and art. She and husband Drew reside in Utah with their three children.

Bridging Free Will and the Knowledge of God

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PURPLE SMOKE

Mormonism, like many religions, involves free will and an all-knowing God. The combination of these two principles can lead to serious paradoxes and cognitive dissonance when certain forms of deterministic interpretations are used - see theological explorations of free will. Even scientific attempts at defining concepts like omniscience runs into problems - see Laplace's demon for a problem approaching this classically. While my own views are certainly not flawless, I do feel that as we step away from the deterministic interpretations which were often popular in the century Mormonism arose out of, a more robust approach to reconciling free will and the knowledge of God can be found.

My current view on agency and foresight of God is very much informed by more of a quantum interpretation. That in front of all of us lies an infinity of possibilities one could express as a probability wave with some outcomes that are more likely than others. Then as I make choices it sends ripples through that wave: opening increasing some possibilities or collapsing others making them less probable (or even impossible). From moment to moment, that wave of future possibilities is in flux. And I believe that what God is eager to tune us to is, through our use of agency, maximize this probability wave's alignment with the outcomes God desires for us: intelligence, love, immortality, and eternal life.

Perhaps what God understands and comprehends (computes if you will) is the total set of outcomes or at least a set large enough to God's knowledge to be omniscience for all of God's intents and purposes. When God learned/computed, learns/computes, or will learn/compute that I don't know. Whether God learns/computes it all to minute individual degree on everything I don't know, but God could have a superimposed understanding of how these possibility waves can expand and contract at individual and (likely more importantly) societal levels such that it creates a clear enough understanding of what actions are required of God to ensure God's purposes are met: again, maximizing intelligence, love, immortality, and eternal life.

So, in this view there are an infinite number of possibilities within God's plan for all of us. This rejects classical deterministic notions of necessarily marrying "the one", binary "yes" or "no" approaches to whether something is God's will, sheds light on the fact that revelation is often contingent (e.g. Jonah), sees religion as a process rather than as a fixed destination, and highlights how God is able to call others in place of those who fall from their potential (see Matthew 3:9). We have an infinite set of possibilities ahead of us, though some that may be eternally prohibited. One could say that God may not know exactly what our choices will necessarily be and thus we have true, independent free will. However, God could have a clear enough understanding of outcomes of our possible choices and seeks to guide us to the best outcomes from where we are (practical omniscience).

This creates a perspective where our relationship to God is much more of a partnership rather than ourselves as deterministic pawns in God's plan. This partnership speaks strongly about the rather unique Mormon doctrine of co-eternality -- that we aren't automatons doomed to the prison of deterministic predestination and that we have a true in-born freedom (even radically so al la Sartre). This makes us much more masters of our own destiny where our choices are truly our own and yet to be determined. God, with sufficient comprehension of a multitude of possible outcomes, can fully project the reality of a possible set of choices and provide a warning not just based on a theory of what will likely happen but what will actually happen if that set of choices are made. God provides revelation, inspires prophets about impending possibility waves and prophets provide warnings as best as they can (limited by how they "see through the glass, darkly" as they decode revelation). But those prophecies are not deterministic edicts of doom but instead warnings to change course and exercise our free will. Revelation becomes an outstretched hand from God asking us to join with Them.

I believe this gives true free will (agency) to all, illuminates the Mormon theology of co-eternality, but also makes God the God of creation - seeing how God can know how to most optimally influence if some combination of possibility waves to maximize God's purposes.

What's interesting to think about is the combination of agencies from collections of people and that it gets even more complex than just comprehending the individual probability waves of free will for individuals. At a basic level you have the combination of wills through friendship, family, marriage, tribe, nation, etc. With each combination there is the possibility of the probability waves of free will aligning and magnifying possibilities (either good or bad). And there is also the possibility of the waves clashing canceling out possibilities which may be mutually tempering or which may lead to conflict.

Ultimately, I see God as a Society which has found a way to unite the wills of many to maximize towards righteous ends. This can be called Zion, the Kingdom of God, or heaven. And I find it interesting that Christ mentions the sacredness of this kind of combination ("where two or three are gathered in my name -- there I am.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MAN

A really fascinating quote from Wilford Woodruff in early Mormonism creates an interesting perspective on this whole idea of wills combining. This idea came about during a conversation he had with with Orson Pratt and Albert Carrington. Woodruff notes this in his journal on that day:

“

“June 26, 1847: During our travels today I walked most of the way with Professors Pratt and Carrington and our conversation turned upon the subject of the original formation of God, angels, man and devils, the begetting of spirits in the eternal worlds, and who by the begetting of children on the earth, the death of man and children and the resurrection of all. Each one gave his views, opinions, and reasoning and many interesting remarks were truly made.”

”

—

[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/mormon-transhumanism-and-the-immortality-upgrade]

What I wouldn't give to have been on that walk with them!

Here's his musing on this notion of a combination of wills he discussed with Pratt and Carrington as being a possible environment out of which God emerges and which God encourages:

“It may reasonably have been the case with the first being formed which may be called God. An eternity was filled as it were with particules [sp] of intelligences who had their agency, two of these particles in the process of time might have joined their interest together exchanged ideas & found by perusing this course that they gained double strength to what one particle of intelligence would have & afterwards were joined by other particles & continued until they organized a combination or body through a long process & as they had power over other intelligences in consequence of their combination, organization & strength and in process of time this being- or God seeing the advantage of such an organization desired company or a companion and having some experience got to work & organized other beings by prevailing on intelligences to come together & may form something better than at the first and after trials of this kind & the most perfect way sought it was found to be the most expeditious & best way to receive there formations or bodies either spiritual or temporal through the womb.”

(Journal, June 26, 1847)

This perspective can create fertile ground which gives place for genuine free will of the individual, allows for God's omniscience (even if it is merely functional omniscience), and underscores the Mormon theology of co-eternality. It can go a long way in reconciling these principles which, through the lens of determinism, are often pitted against each other in paradox. And as I'm much more inspired by our taking responsibility for our own destiny while we seek a relationship with God rather than abdicating our responsibility to God, an approach such as this gives me more faith and a determination to create and be the good in the world.

Mormon Transhumanist Association at Sunstone Northwest

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO AND SUNSET

Mormon Transhumanist Association board member Blaire Ostler and Chief Marketing Officer Caleb Jones will speak at the Sunstone Northwest Symposium in Seattle WA on November 19, 2016.

The theme of the conference this year will be "Relationships, Religion, and Race". Conference information, a complete schedule, and registration are available on the Sunstone Northwest conference website. The Mormon Transhumanist Association is sponsoring the conference and will be available for any questions regarding the Association at the symposium.

MTA Constitution amended

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: MTA LOGO BLACK BACKGROUND

It was proposed by the Board of Directors of the Mormon Transhumanist Association to separate the roles of President and CEO to offer greater flexibility to the Association. The President will be at liberty to designate a CEO. The proposal

replaces: “The President shall be the chief executive officer of the Association and shall, subject to the control of the Board of Directors, supervise and control the affairs of the Association and the activities of the officers.” (Article V, Section 6)

with: “The President shall, subject to the control of the Board of Directors, supervise and control the affairs of the Association and the activities of the officers.”

With voting now complete, the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the Association has been approved by an absolute super majority of two-thirds of the voting membership.

Join the Association and be part of the world's largest religious transhumanist group!

Wendy Smith, Carl Youngblood, and Don Bradley Elected to MTA Board of Directors

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce the results of the 2016 director election. Each year, terms expire for three of the nine seats on the board of directors. This year, the seats occupied by Karl Hale, Carl Youngblood, and Don Bradley expired. The Association thanks Karl, Carl, and Don for the leadership and service they've provided. Voting members of the Association have elected the following three persons to serve as directors for the 2016 to 2019 term:

Wendy Smith Carl Youngblood Don Bradley

The Association congratulates Wendy, Carl, and Don, and thanks them for their willingness to contribute their time and talents to the success of the Association. Below is additional information about these directors.

Wendy Smith

Wendy holds a BA in Economics and has built her career as a Mortgage Broker over the past 12 years. She is passionate about human rights and advancement, and is active in local politics and her community. Wendy loves travel, the outdoors and co-parenting freethinkers with her husband, Chad. Together they reside in Draper, Utah with their two daughters, Kathryn and Olivia, who attend a French Dual-Immersion school.

Carl Youngblood

Carl has worked as a software engineer for over eighteen years, and is currently employed by Podium in Provo, UT. Carl served a mission in Londrina, Brazil from 1994-96. He received a BA in Portuguese with a music minor from Brigham Young University and an MS in computer science from the University of Washington. He and his family enjoy traveling, and recently spent a number of years working in Norway and England. Carl is especially interested in religious adaptations to secularism, and the theological hermeneutic of demythologization. He also enjoys the performing arts.

Don Bradley

Don Bradley is a historian specializing in Joseph Smith and Mormon scripture. Don holds a BA in History from Brigham Young University, and is finalizing his MA in History at Utah State. His writings include "'The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism': Joseph Smith's Unfinished Reformation" and "The Lost 116 Pages: Rediscovering the Book of Lehi" (forthcoming). Don has a passion for exploration and discovery, is a single dad, and describes himself as "an individualist in the service of a community."

Information about all directors of the association is available here: [http://transfigurism.org/pages/about/board-of-directors/]

Drew Ostler and Caleb Jones Appointed to Management Positions of the MTA

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce that it has appointed Drew Ostler to serve as Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer and Caleb Jones to serve as Chief Marketing Officer.

The Association congratulates Drew and Caleb, and thanks them for their willingness to contribute their time and talents to the success of the Association. Below is additional information about these leaders.

Drew Ostler

Drew Ostler was born and raised in the Bay Area where he developed a love for education, sports, STEM, and Mormonism. He served an LDS mission to Rome, Italy and holds a BA in Marketing and MBA from BYU. He has extensive experience in risk management, consulting, financial modeling, and strategic analysis with such companies as LANDESK, State Farm, Domo, Real Salt Lake, and Disney. Drew resides in Utah with wife Blaire and their three children.

Caleb Jones

Caleb Jones is a husband, father, programmer, and member of the LDS Church. He has a Computer Science degree from BYU. He is passionate about science and religion; a critic of rigidity, he enjoys exploring the strengths and limits of both, and sees the two as necessary and complementary in constructing enlightening, inspirational narratives. He is influenced by futurists like Freeman Dyson and Peter Diamandis, and Mormons like James E. Talmage and Neal A. Maxwell.

Information about all officers of the Association is available here: [http://transfigurism.org/pages/about/management/]

Space for New Transhuman Voices

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WORLD MAP

What are we about as members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association? It is clear from past surveys that we have numerous individual purposes and goals, but here is a short description from the MTA website:

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is the world’s largest advocacy network for ethical use of technology and religion to expand human abilities, as outlined in the Transhumanist Declaration and the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation.

It appears that, as members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, we aspire to be advocates. Advocates for whom and to whom? This is a question I think about on occasion. Clearly we are not an organization for everyone, but if we are trying to build a future Zion and lift up all of humanity, I think we would do well to make sure that we are including voices far beyond the middle class, white, American, Mormon corridor, tech savvy male that is heavily represented among the board, voting members, and MTA conference presenters and bloggers. There are some good things happening in this regard. We have at least two female board members. We have numerous, prominent non-Mormon and former Mormon members. We have heard critics of Mormon Transhumanism speak at MTA conferences. But if we are to reach significantly beyond our biases, we likely need to do much more to seek diverse voices and make room for them in Mormon Transhumanism.

I understand the ease of calling for diversity and the much greater difficulty of achieving diversity, but since I think this is an important discussion, I'm going to bring up what I see as some institutional barriers to giving voice to diverse voices in the MTA. Maybe others will suggest additional problems and possible solutions to problems I can't see, and maybe we can find ways to make this organization I'm proud to belong to even better.

Encourage membership contributions in kind. Voting membership excludes those without ~$100/yr to contribute. This is a perfectly reasonable requirement for most kinds of associations, but questionable for an organization that hopes to engage all of humanity--including the poor. There is apparently an option of contributing in kind at least part of the membership fee, and there are, I believe, exceptions or reductions for those in the developing world, and maybe for students. Determining and advertizing a process for making contributions in kind, and requiring the contributions be approximately as substantial as what an average voting member currently requires to earn $100, could democratize voting membership significantly. I don't know the income of voting members, but I suspect $100 is considerably less than 10 hours of their work life, so requiring a 10 hour contribution of service is perhaps even a high requirement for full voting membership. And in kind payments need enough variety to match the skills or resources of members who may not be tech savvy.
Invite Critics to Blog. The blog is dominated by white, male, science/tech types--me included. It's hard to draw in other voices when membership is skewed toward that demographic, but perhaps we should be asking more people why they aren't Mormon Transhumanists? We have had a few wonderful talks (by white, male scholars) about their objections to religious Transhumanism at the MTA meetings. Maybe it's time we start asking more of our female friends, and especially more of our friends of color, to tell us why they aren't interested in Mormon Transhumanism, and what it would take for them to take up common cause with us in working toward the technological advancement of humanity. But that's the easy part. The hard part comes after. After hearing the ways in which we have it wrong, or are unwelcoming to someone, or are bad feminists, or are racists, or are technosnobs, we have to say thank you. We have to say we love your voice and will try to take it to heart. We have to shut up and take it. No long explanations of why we are right. No arguments about the flaws in their logic, or the things they are overlooking. We can have those amongst ourselves, elsewhere. It may be online, but we have to treat them like valued guests in our online home. We have to use the World Table comment system and police those who would try to silence contrary voices, even simply by making them feel unwelcome. The guests' perception of welcomeness is the crux of welcoming. There's a reason for 4 categories of judgment on comments. Let's be respectful and helpful and honest and likeable in our responses to our critics. It will take practice, as it is not the normal mode of communication online, and our critics may not be all of those things, but we can start by practicing it in our social media groups right away.
Geographically desegregate MTA conferences. MTA meetings are geographically segregated. I feel selfish bringing this up, but I'm going to anyway. Yes, there are partial scholarships for voting members to attend and present at the meeting, but this doesn't solve the many logistical and/or economic problems of some who would wish to attend and participate. Even in our technologically connected world, MTA leadership recognizes the value of face to face interaction, and doesn't wish to dilute that rare interaction through turning the MTA conferences into just another online forum. But there are certainly voices around the world that would benefit us if we could listen to their words, and members who would feel more connected if they could be heard in this live format. Introducing a limited number of time slots for remote speakers could expand the geographic diversity of the MTA, and possibly also contribute to the economic, gender, and racial diversity of voices.

These are just a few ideas, probably not the best, and they probably don't address the most pressing issues for MTA governance. But we know countries are more peaceful in direct accord with women's rights. We know there are problems from mostly white men having guided medical research for its entire existence. We can predict, if they aren't already evident, problems of bias from white and Asian men dominating development of the internet. It's hard to imagine that by actively incorporating disparate views from near the beginning that the MTA won't be better and more influential in the long run. I'd love to hear other people's ideas and to do what I can to implement the best of them, because we don't need more space for the views of people like me--we need space for the views this white, male, Utah-raised, Mormon scientist hasn't even considered.

3 days of Mormon Studies: a 'Transfigurist' author's adventures

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

The author made the rounds last month for three Mormon Studies-related functions.

A Prince in Provo

IMAGE: PHOTO NOT AVAILBLE

Historian Greg Prince spoke about Mormon history, research and writing when releasing his new book, “Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History.” Prince also has lent his beautiful home to young Washington, D.C. interns. (Benchmark Books)

Wondering if the LDS church has a secret vault in its office building?

Answer: yes.

What’s more, it’s on the first floor, east side.

How can you meet LDS general authorities?

On Sunday afternoons, go to airports in Dallas, Atlanta or Chicago. The high-ranking leaders use those airports when leaving an area of the United States during their ministration.

That was just a couple of the nuggets historian Greg Prince said during (and after) his presentation at Writ & Vision in Provo, when he announced his latest book, "Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History."

Here's more: He also said out at the event last month how his Jewish friend, a former Bill Clinton press secretary, re-found his faith later in life and that a friend endured a faith crisis only because he went to college.

On Arrington, he said that Arrington was wrong and Jerald Tanner, right on the Mark Hoffman forgeries of documents thought to be essential to Mormon truth claims (Arrington never found the documents to be fraudulent).

Arrington, Prince said, saw everything in the vault and nothing “bothered” him; and the church’s history department has changed significantly since Arrington due to the Internet.

“It’s changed everything,” Prince remarked.

Also, Prince said that his former secretary helped him with Prince’s book “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.” She remarked that McKay was her hero and that “power corrupts.”

Three men and one woman walk into a bar...

IMAGE: PHOTO OF THREE PEOPLE

Promotional images of June Mormon Stories podcast stars Dan Wotherspoon, Gina Colvin and Thomas McConkie. The three talked about living Mormonism in an emotional event. (Mormon Stories)

John Dehlin is the founder of Mormon Stories. His podcasts have occasionally taken live status and residence at Club at 50 West in downtown Salt Lake City. Most recently was a particularly emotional podcast filled with authenticity. His stars: Dan Wotherspoon, Gina Colvin and Thomas McConkie.

How often does Dehlin have questions turned on him? That's exactly what McConkie did, asking Dehlin about his identity regarding Mormonism. (It was a strong vein of the larger theme of living the faith.) Dehlin responded: "In my heart, I still feel very Mormon." Shortly before that, he said that Utah Mormons were correlated to think that there was just one Mormonism -- the LDS church.

McConkie asked the question after Wotherspoon said that people are Mormon if they say they are, and that Colvin attested to this year's Sunstone theme, that there are many Mormonisms.

Then Dehlin asked the audience to tweet a quote from Colvin, a feminist: "The church is weighed down by the dead weight of semen."

Dehlin was excommunicated last year; Colvin "took a sabbatical" but returned (and even made a prophecy during the show); Wotherspoon settled in after 12 years of coming back from church angry every third Sunday; and McConkie, the great-nephew of famous Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie, converted to Buddhism as a youth before coming back.

Dehlin also asked about staying in a church that's "so flawed." Colvin said that she would need to be convinced that the church is "awful." Said Wotherspoon: "I will take goodness over correctness any time," when he noted that he would go for the people over intellectual concerns any time. (He also added this: "God doesn't care if you're Mormon.") McConkie called the church his "birthright."

Dehlin reported that Mama Dragons founder Wendy Williams Montgomery said that she goes to church to be a friendly face for the LGBTQ members who are going.

Wotherspoon, in one of his many self-admitted rants, said that he doesn't know if progressives "should" take over the church. Dehlin told the author that his frustration with being paralyzed in advancing in life due to faith crisis was OK because he was in the very time of self-discovery that would be necessary for the future.

And Colvin's prophecy?

The day will come when women will not ask for priesthood but will claim priesthood they already have, she said.

An all-star game of academics

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CNN NEWS SCREENSHOT

Mormon historian Richard Bushman answers a question from CNN's John King in Oct. 2011. Bushman was a go-to media interview during Mitt Romney's campaign for president and was honored in June at a Brigham Young University colloquium. (CNN)

Sports leagues annually have all-star games in which their finest performers are put in display, among and against each other.

For Mormon Studies, that's basically what you had in June at Brigham Young University.

It was a BYU Maxwell Institute colloquium honoring Richard Bushman. Bushman authored "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" a decade ago, but was recognized (a second time) for pioneering Mormon Studies to a new frontier.

Bushman may have been the LeBron James of the group, but there were plenty of Stephen Currys and Kevin Durants as well. University of Virginia Mormon Studies Chair Kathleen Flake, Matthew Bowman ("The Mormon People"), Utah State University Mormon Studies Chair Philip Barlow, Jana Riess ("Flunking Sainthood"), and Claudia Bushman ("Exponent II" co-founder) presented, as did dozens of others.

They all seemed to quite enjoy each others' company in between sessions as well. The author was astounded to find that most were practicing Mormons, and that, along with the event being hosted by BYU, may have fed into a conference that turned out to be fairly apologetic.

Nonetheless, it was interesting.

Mormon apostle Jeffrey R. Holland was spotted, as he watched his son David, a Harvard history professor, speak;
David Hall is regarded as one of the greatest contemporary historians. The Harvard professor spoke about his own faith journey that saw him solidify a strong faith in Jesus Christ after spending weeks in a hospital with his son;
Bushman said that Harvard "is all about talking";
Bushman was also asked how he can believe in Joseph Smith. He said that he is "the man he wants to be" when he lives "the Mormon way";
He also added that the strain of believing in modern times" is positive because it means that good scholarship will result.
The author asked Bushman what it meant to be the go-to figure for the media in answering questions about Mormonism during Mitt Romney's second candidacy. Bushman said that it felt good, especially since he had not done as well in his responses in the past. (This would presumably, primarily mean questions asked when "Rough Stone Rolling" came out in 2005 and/or during Romney's first campaign in 2007 and 2008.)

The Sacred Road to the Stars

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CATHEDRAL CEILING

Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God's love be with you

David Bowie, 1947-2016 (Thanks Major Tom!)

I find space launches so incredibly inspiring. We are ready for launch to the Moon, then to the planets, and then to the stars - we just need to restart the countdown and enjoy the long road to the stars. Our robotic probes are exploring the solar system, and manned space exploration could restart sometime in the next decade, but the road to the stars will be long. Therefore, we need to find and keep inspiration.

The spectacular achievements of the Apollo program in the sixties gave us the mistaken impression that the road to space would be easy and quick. As a child of the sixties I spent most of my life regretting that we didn't build those cities on the Moon and the planets. I was 11 when I watched on TV the first man walking on the Moon, 15 when I watched the last, and it's very unpleasant to realize that I'll probably be 75 or older (or not be) when we go back to the Moon.

Now I realize that the Apollo adventure was too far from our supply lines to be sustainable. But we are still doing space, and someday (not soon) we will go back to the Moon, and then to Mars, to the planets, and to the stars. In the meantime, we can enjoy our little steps in space, admire the view and think that, as crew members of Spaceship Earth, we are part of the wonderful adventures of humankind among the stars.

So I have made this resolution: I will have fun following our robotic missions to the planets, without letting the fun be spoiled by the knowledge that probably I won't see much more than that.

“[Colonizing] other worlds is not something that takes ten years, or even a hundred," wrote Annalee Newitz (Newitz 2013]. "It might take much longer than that before humans are living on Mars, or in orbit around Saturn. But we are undeniably on the path toward a future where humans live in space. Our ancestors, who dared to learn from the planets and stars, led us onto this path. And now we are actually seeing those planets up close, for the first time in the history of our species.”

“Enjoy this small but incredible slice of time that you get to live through, and remember that Galileo would be weeping with envy and relief to know we made it this far," added Newitz. "Just because it takes centuries doesn't mean we aren't making progress.”

”We're riding a slow, powerful wave that will bear future generations to the stars.”

I often disagree with Newitz, an author who too often dismisses all radical futurist visions in the name of the dull political correctness now unfortunately fashionable in "liberal" circles, but I admit that she has the right attitude here. The road to space is long and difficult, and will probably take generations, but we are enjoying the first few miles as crew members of Spaceship Earth.

“As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study [Bainbridge 1976], space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century,”

said Sir Arthur C. Clarke in a 2007 IEEE Spectrum interview titled "Remembering Sputnik" [Clarke 2007]. It appears that Sir Arthur was right - the youthful Apollo adventure of the sixties was an inspiring prelude of things to come, but space travel will become a reality only in this century.

In this century, people could walk on the Moon again and build the first sustainable planetary colonies. That's the plan of NASA and other space agencies, a plan that seems likely to be achieved in the next decades, because it belongs to the realm of the possible. But of course the most visionary scientists and engineers are already venturing into the realm of the presently impossible, and developing plans to reach the stars. Alpha Centauri, the closest star system, beckons from a distance of more than 4 light years. That's quite a long road indeed, and requires long-term thinking.

"In a way, a Centauri probe isn't modern," says Paul Gilster in Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration [Gilster 2004]. "Paradoxically, it may require medieval thinking, the sort of thinking that built cathedrals in Chartres and Salisbury and Cologne." A space scientist quoted in the book says that we as a culture may have to start thinking in terms of centuries. "The average worker on a medieval cathedral didn't live to see it completed." I highly recommend Gilster's book and Centauri Dreams website among the best reference works on interstellar spaceflight.

In 1994 Marshall T. Savage wrote The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps [Savage 1994], a wonderful call to arms to restart the countdown and get serious about space colonization, with a detailed step-by-step plan for humans to "explode into space and engulf the star-clouds in a fire storm of children, trees, and butterfly wings."

“Because of us, landscapes of radiation blasted waste, will be miraculously transmuted: Slag will become soil, grass will sprout, flowers will bloom, and forests will spring up in once sterile places. Ice, hard as iron, will melt and trickle into pools where starfish, anemones, and seashells dwell - a whole frozen universe will thaw and transmogrify, from howling desolation to blossoming paradise. Dust into Life; the very alchemy of God.”

Savage appreciated that restarting the countdown is a cultural issue more than an engineering problem. Only a "human laser" formed by people acting "in synchronous harmony [creating] a coherent beam of intent" can get us to the stars. It appears that Savage's human laser, which was beginning to shine bright in the sixties, has stopped working. The question is how to fix it.

See Frontiers of Propulsion Science [Millis 2009] (see also [Millis 2011] for a summary) for a description of advances in propulsion and candidate research steps that will lead to discovering if, or how, radical propulsion breakthroughs might finally be achieved.

Back to Clarke's observation - "space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century" - there's a case to be made that interstellar travel shouldn't arrive for many more centuries, because our frail flash and blood bodies aren't appropriate interstellar gear. In fact, even with suitable propulsion technologies, manned interstellar missions would be hugely expensive due to the need to ensure the survival and safety of the humans on-board and the need to travel at extremely high speeds.

One solution is to do without the wetware bodies of the crew, and send only their minds to the stars - their "software" - uploaded to advanced circuitry, augmented by AI subsystems in the starship’s processing system. I have argued [Prisco 2012] that an e-crew - a crew of human uploads implemented in solid-state electronic circuitry - will not require air, water, food, medical care, or radiation shielding, and may be able to withstand extreme acceleration. So the size and weight of the starship will be dramatically reduced.

Mind-uploading technology for software e-crews could make interstellar colonization practical, while delivering equally important spinoffs in neuroscience, computer science, and longevity, including indefinite life extension. The astronauts' memories, thoughts, feelings, personality, and "self" would be copied to an alternative processing substrate - such as a digital, analog, or quantum computer. A software mind running on an appropriate substrate can be much more resistant and long-lived than a mind caged in a biological brain, and it can be housed in a similarly resistant and long-lived robotic body. Robots powered by human uploads can be rugged, resistant to the vacuum and the harsh space environment, easily rechargeable, and much smaller and lighter than wetware human bodies.

Eventually, human uploads augmented by AI subsystems will be implemented in the solid-state circuitry of the starship’s processing system. Boredom and isolation will not be a problem for e-crew members, because the data processing system of a miniaturized starship will be able to accommodate hundreds and even thousands of human uploads.

If strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developed, perhaps smarter than humans, why should we bother to upload humans? One answer is that most of us will want human minds on our first journey to the stars. However, I agree with Ray Kurzweil's speculation that we will merge with technology, so many future persons will not be “pure" humans or pure AIs, but rather hybrids, blended so tightly that it will be impossible to tell which is which.

Ultimately, I think space will not be colonized by squishy, frail and short-lived flesh-and-blood humans. As Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Childhood’s End [Clarke 1953], perhaps “the stars are not for Man” - that is, not for biological humans 1.0. It will be up to our postbiological mind children, implemented as pure software based on human uploads and AI subsystems, to explore other stars and colonize the universe. Eventually, they will travel between the stars as radiation and light beams.

In Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction [Newitz 2014], Newitz shows an open mind about sentient AI, artificial life, mind uploading and all that. "It’s possible that we’ll become cyborgs, beings who are half biological and half machine," she writes. "No matter what scenario you think is most likely - synbio, uploads, or natural selection - our progeny may look nothing like us." Newitz just thinks (and so do I) that:

“We may be at the start of a long, slow journey whose climactic moment comes thousands of years from now.”

Should we then forget the stars and wait for tomorrow's technologies? I don't think so, and one reason is that tomorrow's technologies won't arrive tomorrow, or next week, or in the next decade.

I have been a transhumanist since I was a child, persuaded that humanity would transcend Earth and all limits. In the nineties I discovered organized transhumanism and became a card-carrying, unrepentant, in-your-face transhumanist. One little caveat though: I never believed that progress would be easy and fast. After two decades I am still persuaded that 1) we will transcend Earth and all limits, but 2) not anytime soon.

I am confident that things like radical life extension, artificial life, sentient Artificial Intelligence (AI) and super-human AI, mind uploading, and interstellar colonization, will happen someday, but probably after my time. I never considered the hyper-optimistic predictions of Ray Kurzweil and others as even remotely plausible, and I don't see a Singularity in 2045 (or ever). I am afraid things will take the time they must take, with all the twists and turns and roadblocks and setbacks that happen in the real world.

Getting things to almost work is much, much easier than getting things to work. Engineers know that even if you do 90 percent of the work in 10 percent of the time, then you will have to spend the remaining 90 percent of the time to do the missing 10 percent of the work. Same, of course, for money. Which means that 90 percent wasn't really 90 percent, because it left out all the boring details that take 90 percent of the money and the time - boring details like sustainability, operational robustness, error recovery, fail-safe operations and all that, without forgetting social acceptance, financial and political aspects.

The impression that real AI seems always 20 years away indicates that perhaps we just don't know enough to estimate the development time-line for something that is actually 200 years away. A good analogy is Leonardo's flying machines. Leonardo understood that machines could fly, and produced sketches of flying machines, but the actual development of flying machines took centuries and required different technologies.

Becoming an interstellar species will take centuries, and developing transhumanist technologies will also take centuries. The Catch-22 situation is that we need transhumanist technologies to colonize the stars, but we need a powerful overwhelming drive to fully develop transhumanist technologies, and space colonization can give us the drive. So I think we should start colonizing the planets and moons of our solar system, now.

Watching the sky and knowing that other people are living and working there would be a powerful pointer to future, even more daring cosmic journeys, that could contribute to the mental health of the zeitgeist and give us a renewed confidence in the relevance of our lives on this little planet. Not everyone can be a space explorer, but we are all partners and stakeholders in the cosmic future of our species and its "manifest destiny" among the stars. This is a powerful meme that could result not only in much more support for space and advanced technologies, but also in a more positive and proactive attitude on other pressing issues, at a moment of our history where we need positive thinking, confidence and optimism.

I often think that I would be happy to do the most menial, boring and repetitive work if I could do it on a starship. Imagine that you are part of a mission to the stars - wouldn't you be happy to clean toilets if that's the most useful task you can do? I most certainly would, and knowing that I am meaningfully participating in the mission to the stars would give me all the motivation I need, even if the mission takes centuries to reach a destination that I will never see. I would consider the mission as a a journey on sacred road. But on second thought, isn't that my current situation, and yours? We are all crew members of Spaceship Earth and parts, big or small, of our sacred journey to the stars.

So this is my proposal. We should consider our first timid steps into outer space as the beginning of our journey on the sacred road to the stars.

In Dan Simmons' Phases of Gravity [Simmons 1989], three Apollo astronauts remember their lunar mission sixteen years later. All three have been deeply touched by their adventure in space. One has taken an easy path and become a fundamentalist Christian televangelist, but the other two compare the mission to a sacrament, a sacred journey to places of power. The novel hasn't been widely acclaimed like other Simmons' works, but I think it shows Simmons at his best. The first steps on the sacred road to space are there to be seen, represented by a young woman, a seeker of places of power who believes in the richness and mystery of the universe.

In a visionary essay on "Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0" [Bainbridge 2009], renowned sociologist William Sims Bainbridge writes:

“[W]e need a new definition of spaceflight that will energize investment and innovation. I suggest a return to the traditional view: The heavens are a sacred realm, that we should enter in order to transcend death.”

Other scientists and philosophers, including the late psychologist Albert Harrison, have expressed similar views. In "Russian and American Cosmism: Religion, National Psyche, and Spaceflight" [Harrison 2013], Harrison explores the influence of religion on technology and society as we take the first steps to the stars.

Harrison traces the roots of the Russian and American space programs in the works of visionary, spiritually oriented "prophets" of space exploration, and concludes that the United States has its counterpart to Russian Cosmism, for which no term seems more appropriate than American Cosmism. "Even Fedorov’s idea of reassembling the dust of all the people who ever lived has a Western counterpart: Frank Tipler's proposal to achieve resurrection and eternal life through computer emulations," notes Harrison. In "Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion and Folklore" [Harrison 2007], Harrison discussed Cosmist scientific visions, plans for expanding throughout the universe, and transcendence in space, including immortality and resurrection through computer emulations.

I am persuaded that humanity's expansion into interstellar space, and the new technologies that will emerge along the way, will lead our post-human descendants to become part of the galactic community of Gods, participate in the development of transcendent space-time engineering technologies, and eventually achieve Fedorov's Cosmist vision of universal resurrection. I have articulated my vision for humanity's future as:

We will go to the stars and find Gods, build Gods, become Gods, and resurrect the dead from the past with advanced science, space-time engineering and "time magic."
God is emerging from the community of advanced forms of life and civilizations in the universe, and able to influence space-time events anywhere, anytime, including here and now.
God elevates love and compassion to the status of fundamental forces, key drivers for the evolution of the universe.

Expansion into interstellar space is central to this vision. Like the medieval builders of cathedrals, we probably won't live to see even the first milestones on the sacred road, but we can find meaning and inspiration in contemplating the long road ahead and the transcendent places of power at the end of the road. I am persuaded that only a powerful Cosmist mythology can give future generations the strenuous spiritual stance required to advance on the sacred road to the stars. Both established religions and new "space religions" have an important role to play.

That's it. Space supports religion by building the sacred road to the stars. Religion supports space by offering awesome visions of what we will find at the end of the sacred road: we will find God, transcendence, and universal love.

The images taken by NASA's New Horizons probe show a big heart on the surface of Pluto. Like a Twitter emoji sent from outer space, Pluto's heart is beckoning to us and daring us to venture to the edges of the solar system, and then beyond, to spread love and compassion to the stars.

I will now describe some ideas that have been proposed for visionary missions to the stars, which could be feasible before the end of this century and at the same time can serve as space-age cathedrals to provide a powerful spiritual inspiration to the next generations.

Cathedrals in Space

The FOCAL mission proposed by the Italian space scientist Claudio Maccone [Maccone 2009] is not intended to reach other stars, but to establish an observatory in deep interstellar space, at about three light days from Earth, or 550 Astronomical Units - 550 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. This is the distance of the gravitational focus of the Sun, where the Sun's gravitational lens effect predicted by Einstein's General Relativity provides a huge amplification of signals from the opposite direction (the Sun must be between the observatory and the target).

Unlike optical lenses, in which the light diverge after the focus, gravitational lens effects continue in a focal line after the focus, and therefore a gravitational lens observatory would still work at distances greater than the focus. A gravitational lens observatory only works in one direction, but the signal amplification would be quite dramatic, of the order of 100 millions [Matloff 2005] or higher. For one particular frequency that has been proposed as a channel for interstellar communication, signal amplification would reach a staggering factor of 1.3 quadrillion.[Chorost 2013].

The Sun's gravitational focus is much farther than the orbit of Pluto, and therefore a FOCAL mission would qualify as an interstellar mission - a first outpost on the road to the stars, dedicated to important scientific research. In fact, the spectacular amplification of all electromagnetic radiation at the solar focus would permit astronomical observations of unprecedented precision, and could possibly permit detecting faint signals from, and then establishing permanents communication channels with, alien civilizations out there among the stars. Perhaps we need a gravitational lens router in place is we want to join the Galactic Internet of advanced civilizations.

“[Radio] bridges between any pair of stars in the Galaxy can be built if the gravitational lenses of both stars are exploited by placing two FOCAL relay satellites on the opposite side of each star, so that a perfect (or nearly perfect) alignment between these four points in space is kept, said Maccone [Maccone 2012]. "Only now (2011) are humans realizing that radio bridges between couples of stars in the Galaxy can indeed be constructed. But, then, some other extraterrestrial civilization in the Galaxy might already have understood this a long time ago.”

Consequently, a sort of Galactic Internet might already be in use in the Galaxy now! But humans will be unable to benefit from this Galactic Internet until they reach the minimal focal sphere of their own star, the Sun (i.e., until a human FOCAL probe reaches 550AU or more).

Once we learn to digitize consciousness and move it from biological brains to digital storage and back, the galactic communications network will become a galactic transportation network.

It appears that a planet much bigger than the Earth could be located at a distance suitable for a gravitational lens observatory. The existence of the planet - dubbed Planet Nine - is suggested by astronomical observations [Gilster 2016], but it hasn't been definitely confirmed yet. If confirmed, Planet Nine would be the prefect stepping stone to the stars, close enough to be reachable with moderate improvements of today's technology, but far enough to be considered as an interstellar destination. Establishing a base on or orbiting Planet Nine (if it's really there) should be considered as an important priority for the first phase of interstellar exploration, especially if the base can double as a gravitational lens observatory.

Imagine:

A base on the icy surface of a Planet Nine's moon, with an incredibly powerful observatory to probe the deepest mysteries of the universe and perhaps listening to alien civilizations far away. The gravitational lens observatory permits scanning whole distant galaxies to search for faint signals from advanced civilizations. If that's the first place of power on the road to the stars, I can't wait to get there or, more realistically, I want to do whatever I can to give a small contribution to the preliminary work.

The awesome Breakthrough Starshot project, announced in April 2016, wants to send the first robotic probe to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, in only a few decades [Prisco 2016]. If things go according to plans (things seldom do, but optimism feels good), some readers will be alive when the first data and images come back from the Alpha Centauri system. Breakthrough Starshot is not the first interstellar probe project, but it's the first with sufficient funding for a thorough feasibility study. In fact, initial $100 million funding was provided by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, an early Internet enterpreneur and successful investor who already funded other visionary science projects. The project is also supported by physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook creator Mark Zuckergerg.

The key elements of the project are based on technology either already available or likely to be attainable in the near future under reasonable assumptions, and the Alpha Centauri mission is expected to require a budget comparable to the largest current scientific experiments. If so, the total funding needed would be of the order of $5-10 billion, which seems ambitious but possible.

The star probe will be a highly miniaturized system on a chip, propelled by a 4-meter lightsail built with advanced nano-engineered metamaterials. The probe and its lightsail, both weighing only a few grams, will be pushed by light beams from high-power (100 gigawatt) lasers on Earth, accelerated to 20 percent of the speed of light, and reach Alpha Centauri in two decades. There is no room for a deceleration system, so the mission will be a high-speed fly-by with the goal of returning data and images.

Among the many Starshot system design challenges, data return is expected to be one of the hardest, because there is little room for a communication system to send data back to Earth. Therefore, several experts have proposed combining the project with a FOCAL gravitational telescope pointed to Alpha Centauri, which would permit receiving the faint signals sent back from small, low power transmitters. It appears, pending further study, that a Starshot probe could work as a FOCAL telescope, staying on the focal line without slowing down.

It's also worth noting that precursor Starshot missions, powered by preliminary, scaled-down versions of the laser propulsion system, could reach Planet Nine (again, if it exists) in relatively short times and gather useful data for a Planet Nine outpost. It appears that there could be useful synergies between the different projects aimed at Alpha Centauri, Planet Nine, and gravitational lens astronomy - we could use the same masonry for many cathedrals in space.

Real thinking and feeling Artificial Intelligence (AI) of human (or more than human) level could be developed in a few decades, in time for the Starshot launch. Sending a real AI instead of dumb unthinking software to Alpha Centauri would be equivalent to sending a person (think for example of Samantha, the AI in Her [Prisco 2014]). Even more interestingly, mind uploading technology, which could developed in this century, would permit sending human astronauts as software entities living in the star probe processors.

Martine Rothblatt, a billionaire technology entrepreneur and a visionary thinker, proposed to send "mindclones" - software entities based on recorded human personalities - to the stars, embedded in advanced on-board data processing systems [Rothblatt 2014]. "Software functions on space probes sent to nearly every solar planet, oblivious of the biologically deadly vacuum of space," says Rothblatt.

"The proverbial thousand-plus years it would take to send a spacecraft to one of the dozens of Earthlike planets discovered by the Kepler satellite observatory might be bearable for a large mindclone community on board that spacecraft, maintaining radio contact with the Earth."

At the 2012 Public Symposium of the 100 Year Starship (100YSS), an initiative, initially sponsored by DARPA and NASA, intended to make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system to another star a reality over the next 100 years, Rothblatt proposed to extend the invitation to create a mindclone bound to the stars to everyone [Rothblatt 2012].

Imagine:

A large software e-crew of human uploads and AIs on a starship en route to new worlds around another star. Boredom isn't a problem for crew members, whose subjective time is spent with many good friends in incredibly rich virtual reality environments. There are lots of things to do, and preparations to make for the arrival in the target star system. Once there, the uploads will interface with sensors and robotic bodies to explore the new planets, and build receivers for colonists beamed from the Earth on light waves.

Wouldn't you want to go? I would definitely go if I could have the chance. Sadly, this possibility isn't likely to materialize in my lifetime. However, like the medieval builders of cathedrals, I look forward to doing whatever I can to contribute to the preliminary work, here on Earth, to open the sacred road to the stars.

References

Bainbridge, William Sims. The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study. Wiley, 1976. Bainbridge, William Sims. Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0. IEET, 2009. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bainbridge20090820/ Chorost, Michael. The Seventy-Billion-Mile Telescope. The New Yorker, 2013. http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-seventy-billion-mile-telescope Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood's End. Ballantine, 1953. Clarke, Arthur C. Remembering Sputnik. IEEE Spectrum, 2007. http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/remembering-sputnik-sir-arthur-c-clarke Gilster, Paul. Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration. Copernicus, 2004. Gilster, Paul. Evidence for 9th Planet Unveiled. Centauri Dreams, 2016. http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=34871 Harrison, Albert A. Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion and Folklore. Berghahn, 2007. Harrison, Albert A. Russian and American Cosmism: Religion, National Psyche. Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics and Policy, 2013. Maccone, Claudio. Deep Space Flight and Communications: Exploiting the Sun as a Gravitational Lens. Springer, 2009. Maccone, Claudio. Mathematical SETI: Statistics, Signal Processing, Space Missions. Springer, 2012. Matloff, Gregory L. Deep-space Probes: To the Outer Solar System and Beyond. Springer, 2005. Millis, Marc G., and Eric W. Davis, eds. Frontiers of Propulsion Science. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2009. Millis, Marc G. Progress in revolutionary propulsion physics. arXiv, 2011. http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.1063 Newitz, Annalee. Stop pretending we aren't living in the Space Age. io9, 2013. http://io9.gizmodo.com/stop-pretending-we-arent-living-in-the-space-age-1249483666 Newitz, Annalee. Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. Anchor, 2014 Prisco, Giulio. Uploaded e-crews for interstellar missions. KurzweilAI, 2012. http://www.kurzweilai.net/uploaded-e-crews-for-interstellar-missions Prisco, Giulio. Spike Jonze’s Her - Love in the time of AI. H+ Magazine, 2014. http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/01/15/spike-jonzes-her-love-in-the-time-of-ai/ Prisco, Giulio. Breakthrough Starshot: The First Steps to the Stars. IEET, 2016. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/Prisco20160415 Savage, Marshall T. The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. Little, Brown, 1994. Rothblatt, Martine. We Are the World: Inviting Everyone Onboard the 100YSS Is Practical and Will Help to Ensure Its Success. Proceedings of the 100 Year Starship Symposium, 2012. Rothblatt, Martine. Virtually Human: The Promise - and the Peril - of Digital Immortality. St. Martin's Press, 2014. Simmons, Dan. Phases of Gravity. Subterranean, 1989.

Image: Carlisle Cathedral, from Wikimedia Commons.

I'm a Critical Thinker!

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF GREEN STATUE

Exercising Our Critical Thinking Muscles

Online forums and social media are great and terrible places to test your critical thinking. As I've written on Mormonism and Transhumanism on Rational Faiths, Exploring Sainthood, and the Transfigurist for over two years, now, as well as interacting on online LDS faith transition and support groups for this same time, I've experienced warm approval, condescending criticism, and a lot of good (if sometimes intense) dialogue.

Any of you who have followed similar paths will have seen the same trends--most arguers can see how they are thinking clearly and critically and you aren't. Not everyone does do that, but a lot of us think it in our heads at least. I think this is especially true in our early stages of understanding a new thing. When we finally make sense of the New God Argument, or figure out the impossibility of textbook style historicity for the Book of Mormon, or realize that there is no way our childhood God could be more than a fantasy--or perhaps even evil--we get a real rush. Our bodies release dopamine at these moments of enlightenment, and we feel excitement and even joy. We want to share what we learned, and we subsequently feel great frustration when others reject the beautiful opportunity we are offering them. And it's even worse when they start (or continue) arguing for the goodness or rightness of something we no see is wrong, misguided, ill-informed, or even hurtful. We have stretched our critical thinking muscles, and think the rest of the world should be working harder at developing their own.

What Is Critical Thinking?

One of the joys of being a teacher is that I get to study learning (at least some of the time). I recently attended in a presentation where Justin Garcia (a professor at DeVry University) spoke about teaching critical thinking in online discussions. He shared Paul and Elder's critical thinking framework. I recommend the mini-guide, or [CriticalThinking.org] for a more in depth (and fascinating) introduction. The model includes this figure on the elements of thought:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF THOUGHT GRAPH

You will notice that this model includes a wide array of considerations. It's not enough to look at the data. It's not even enough to look at the data, their interpretation, their implications, and their purpose. A complete critical analysis will involve all of these aspects as far as they are relevant. On top of that, as it evaluates arguments regarding each of these aspects, it will consider this list of intellectual standards:

Is the argument:

clear?
accurate?
precise?
relevant?
deep?
broad?
logical?
significant?
fair?

Here is my invitation. As we discuss such heated topics as Mormonism, gender, race, politics, Transhumanism, etc., as we become more enlightened and leave behind some of the fables of our youth, as we become more progressive (I choose this for me, but you can substitute your change) and reject as less informed or out of date the views of our parents, church leaders, or our cultural contemporaries--can we take a few minutes and think about one of our recent arguments? You have one in mind? When I implied that my wife hasn't thought as carefully as me about that topic, was I only assessing data and its interpretation? Was I only considering accuracy, precision, and logic? Was I forgetting other points of view? Forcing assumptions on her that she doesn't share? Overstating the significance of that topic? Forgetting our shared purpose and goals? Failing to recognize the importance of related, interconnected topics? Ignoring the emotional content of human interactions?

Critical Thinking: Emotional Virtue

That's right. Emotional content. As we develop our expertise with intellectual standards and elements of thought, we develop Intellectual Virtues--and many of these are emotional.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF INTELLECT VIRTUE GRAPH

I think this is an inspiring list. Many of us found ourselves doubting the LDS narratives we knew precisely because we were seeking to understand them more fully. We believed them humbly, but coupled with perseverance and integrity we found they lacked the substance we imagined. As we developed courage and autonomy, we had to change what we believed. Or we applied our empathy and fairmindedness to people excluded by our LDS community and found that there was real harm being done by our past beliefs. We persevered with our studies and grew in confidence in our reasons. Applying all of these virtues led us to new places. We really had become more critical thinkers than we were before. But I would suggest we can't stop there--wherever "there" is--in our journey of critical thinking. We will never be done with questions to ask ourselves. So here is one:

Am I showing respect to others' views? Even those I'm confident are wrong? Too often my answer has been no--and with an answer of no, how can I be showing empathy, humility, or fairmindedness? My confidence in reason is only one virtue. My intellectual integrity is only one virtue. My perseverance to study an issue as far as it can be currently understood is only one virtue. And there's the obvious fact that having applied all these virtues to one set of questions doesn't mean I've thought expertly about them all--or that others who have come to different conclusions have failed in applying their virtues. Remember? Different points of view? Different assumptions? Even different data as we have each lived different lives.

So as we think and write critically, let's make sure we take time for reflection and ask if there isn't one more tool we can add to our critical thinking toolbox, and one more virtue we can add to our intellect. Whatever faults it may have, there are some pretty prominent invitations in Mormonism to seek virtue and increase in intelligence. Maybe, whatever our beliefs are growing into, if we work together with love and respect, we can increase in both.

Transhumanism: Reflections from a Non-Scientist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MAN LOOKING AT GRAPH IN CLOUDS

My name is Matt Howe and I am not a scientist. I am, in fact a business man, and other than a few classes in college, my formal training in most scientific disciplines ended either in college or from what I can gather off the internet or have learned from others. Yes, I have a great deal of expertise in the Risk Management sector and being in sales I have probably a better than average gift for communication, but despite all these seeming limitations, I am a Transhumanist, part of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, and Transhumanism needs me.

You see, like most folks who align with Transhumanism, I have a deep appreciation and love for science and technology. It could be argued that I am an amateur philosopher when it comes to the application of scientific ideas. I love how fast technology is changing our world and every day it seems like there is something new that humanity has discovered/invented that will improve our lives.

One thing about Transhumanism that I especially like is that it's fluid. Even in the MTA we argue direction of its goals. And not everyone agrees in the end. For instance, I actually detest the idea of a Singularity as some have defined it. Any idea in which I lose personal identity is an affront to me. But to others it's essential.

Other than my own philosophical arguments, what exactly do I offer the Transhumanist narrative? The truth is, Transhumanism not only needs me, it needs everyone. It requires that we all advance ourselves one way or another to a superior state of understanding and enlightenment, and frankly, in order for that to happen, the small steps necessary along the way have to be understood and implemented by brick layers, real estate agents, retail managers and yes, even Insurance Brokers like me.

One conclusion that many Transhumanists have arrived at is that technology is the vehicle to reach a post human state, and that technology needs to accessible by all, not just the uber rich or privileged. In fact, to arrive at our lofty goals for redeeming humanity, for becoming a race of people filled with no desire to have wars, that there be no poor among us, that we be all equals, the world needs to play some catch up.

For one, we require to be enlightened. All of us. The UPS driver needs to know why and how and what we are about to buy in if she chooses and how people's lives have both meaning and purpose in the grand scheme. It's clear that perhaps the most pressing goal of Transhumanism is to disseminate as much technology, to as many people, for as low a cost as is possible.

Imagine if all the kids in North Korea had cell phones and access to Google and the rest of the world of information on the internet? If they realized how small the world is becoming, would their ideas of isolation change? Would the old way of thinking die and they embrace the world as so many others have? Perhaps the peace we've so long sought for in the Middle East could be overcome by access to more than one narrative through technology they do not currently possess?

The benefits of a more technological world are nearly endless, and if we can somehow empower individuals with their own access, then perhaps the powers and ability of those who wish to subject others will be either greatly diminished or even eliminated.

These lofty goals cannot be reached however without me. And you. And the guy down the street. We'll even need the critics along the way to help us self reflect, but the level of understanding we require begs that we, all of us, participate. In other words, it can't be just a few scientists and intellectuals pursuing these ends, it must be the entire world.

Lincoln Cannon to present at Digital Hollywood

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

On May 5, 2016, former MTA President Lincoln Cannon will be presenting remotely at Digital Hollywood in a panel on Transhumanism: science fiction or reality.

For more information, see [http://www.dhsessions3.com/Thursday16Sp31.html]

The Problem of Pain

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF STATES AND EMOTIONS

The problem of pain is not in its logic. It only defeats false Gods, or Gods unconstrained by the realities of the nature we live daily.

The problem of pain is in the gut wrenching sadness of watching a parent lose a child and thinking of your own precious children. Of watching a man or woman lose the love of their life. Of watching families uprooted, homeless and cast upon the whims of unwilling strangers, thinking of the time you were jobless, homeless, and on the road with two kids, whatever stuff you could fit in a sedan, and only safe because of the luck of belonging to a family able to help. Of visiting your neighbor and smiling and talking like good neighbors do, but noticing empty cupboards in their tiny, broken, rented home, knowing your kids--who may be limited in where they go to college by what scholarships they can get--will be going to college (or its future counterpart), but who knows where these childhood friends will go from this tiny town with one in six adults unemployed. Of walking by the friendly old man who is always out giving candy to kids on Halloween, with a smile and happy words, and seeing his perpetual rummage sale--and realizing how poor many of your neighbors must be for his to be even a marginal business--selling stuff you wouldn't even donate to a second hand store or give to a friend.

That is the problem of pain. When I don't shut it down or blame it on somebody so I can pretend it's fair, or at least deserved, I see it for what it is. It is evil. It hurts. It hurts even when it doesn't hurt us. We hurt and we rage at injustice. At an unjust universe. At an unjust God. Yeah, even the Gods that might be real. They aren't stopping the pain. They aren't fixing the problems. Even if they might fix them later--balancing out all that wrong on some imagined scale of eternal justice--that doesn't do squat for here and now. What's unrighteous about that anger? Anger at big, powerful people, comfortable in their positions, with enough resources to fix things if they cared enough? You want to know how I'll react if you tell me that anger's unrighteous? Probably you don't, but I probably wouldn't react much. Everybody says dumb things. It's a pain, but usually not much. I've survived worse.

But when my heart hurts, when I see happy kids with deprived futures, when I see kind, uncomplaining people with no hope or purpose but to get by until they die, when I feel irreparable loss--big or small--sometimes I either cry or scream, or both. Maybe not on the outside, but maybe so. And it doesn't matter that our Heavenly Parents have an answer. Especially not since that answer seems to be that the universe is unjust and uncaring--even the one they live in. It's just pain. There is no fix. There is no right answer.

One thing that makes it better for me? We cry together. We scream and rage against that pain together, and we say NO! NO PAIN HERE! NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT! And sometimes we do have a say, so we do something. But sometimes we don't, so we still scream. We still cry. And we love each other, because that's all we can do. We create that out of the uncaring universe. Maybe we have to live forever with the problem of pain. Whatever explanation we give, it's still pain. But every loving being we make in this universe--as parents here, or as Parents hereafter--makes the universe care that much more.

Image Credit: Wellcome Trust

MTA featured in the New Yorker

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

On April 20, the MTA was featured in an excellent article by Dawn Chan in the New Yorker. Take a look:

The article asks, "Can the Mormon transhumanist movement reconcile technological progress with religious prophecy?" and includes excerpts from interviews with Christopher Bradford, Lincoln Cannon, and Carl Youngblood.

Join the Association and be part of the world's largest religious transhumanist group!

Don't Disparage Death: a Call to Curb our Transthusiasm

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OLD PAINTING

The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1833 – 1898

As a transhumanist I am full of hope that one day the knowledge of certain death will no longer be the prime mover of the human heart. Whether by digital or biotechnological means (or both) I believe it is possible that within my lifetime I may witness breakthroughs in science that could extend the life of bodies and brains, and the existence of individual minds well beyond one century. I hope, but humbly so, recognizing that for now and the foreseeable future--what lies beyond the singularity is not foreseeable--we die.

Death and Medicine

As part of my residency training, I spent the month of December in the hospital caring for some very sick patients, some of whom medicine could not help. I became a doctor because I believe in the healing power of compassionate medical science and want to extend its reach, but more often than I anticipated I have been humbled by the limits of what I can do for those who are dying. During this month of "wards" I had the responsibility of calling and leading four family meetings to discuss the diagnosis and prognosis of a terminal illness in their loved one, the futility of current medical treatments aimed at cure, and what is for now the best alternative we have: palliation and hospice.

After these emotional and difficult conversations, my patients and their families came to accept the reality and imminence of their mortality and resolved to come closer together, to turn away from false hope, to face death with courage and dignity and to stop the madness of bed alarms, monitor beeps, IV replacements, early morning vital sign checks, blood draws, side effects, scans and the other thousand unnatural shocks the inpatient flesh is heir to. Despite my efforts, and those of many other doctors, there was one patient I could not spare from these tortures: a 70 year old Eastern European immigrant with glioblastoma multiforme--the boogie man of all brain cancers.

His wife of 40 years, and self-published herbalist, remained in complete denial of his diagnosis/prognosis after multiple neurosurgeons had evaluated his scans and determined his tumor inoperable. His deficits included complete aphasia (inability to speak), almost complete paralysis and only minimal responsiveness. He had developed several very serious infections during the previous few months with drug-resistant organisms requiring the strongest antibiotics modern medicine has to offer, which only provided him marginal improvement.

Despite all of this evidence that he will soon die, no matter what we do, his wife remained adamant that his condition is only temporary and that he can be completely cured and return to his prior state of health. She insisted that everything possible be done for him. I have learned and accepted that sometimes no amount of objective evidence can displace a firmly held, but false belief. I wanted so desperately to direct this woman's strong hope toward something achievable, such as a dignified and pain-free death for her husband, but at the end of the day she was his next of kin and it was my duty to respect her wishes. I am a supporter of the hospice philosophy in such cases, which cares for the dying and those seeking refuge, restoring dignity and fulfillment in the midst of irresistible suffering.

Within this past few months my mother and grandfather were both hospitalized with serious illnesses. As the medical person in my family it fell to me to interpret what the doctors were saying for the rest of my family, and often the impossible task of predicting what lay in store for them. It is humbling to see the health of those I love in decline and know there is little I can do to stop it. Medicine is a form of humanism in that we accept the animal body, warts and all, and seek to facilitate its healing compassionately. Enhancement, while very important to transhumanism, is still far from the minds of most physicians as the primary objective of medicine is to remove the barriers to health and relieve the many sources of physical suffering, and for now our hands are already full with these!

I believe my unique past experiences with the infirm, the dying and the dead have given me perspective and a vocabulary to discuss these issues with compassion and clarity.

My Early Experiences with Death

During her nursing career my mother worked in hospice, and frequently brought me along on her home visits when I was young. At first I was afraid of her patients, older people who were missing teeth, spoke loudly, smelled bad, and were often grumpy. But sometimes they were delighted to see me, asked my name, and told me their stories. One of my friends, a woman named Martha, had large, expressive, frightened eyes. She lived in a floral print recliner with her cat. She always admitted that I helped her feel better, and sometimes her eyes would even smile. When my mom told me she was gone, I imagined her gaping recliner, filled only by her lonely, pining cat. I missed her, but was comforted that I had known her and been her friend.

Shortly after returning from my LDS mission in Brazil, I was engaged in a conversation in the halls of church between blocks about looking for work when a brother I had not formally met who had overheard stopped in his tracks and offered me a job. I accepted, then asked what sort of business he had--"A funeral home," I was told. "Oh!" was all I could think to say. Having already accepted, I began the internal rationalization that follows all hasty decisions, and quickly concluded it might be educational. Thankfully, it was!

I was able to help transfer the bodies of the deceased with care and respect from their home beds, living room floor, the hospital, the road, and transport them to the funeral home where we washed them, embalmed them, dressed them and prepared them to be viewed one last time by those who loved them. I attended their memorial services in many different faith traditions, and was present for both the digging and the filling of their graves. I tried to be present for their families' grief, and when appropriate to share in that grief. As you may imagine, it was a difficult duty, but very rewarding. This experience pushed me to leave the familiarity of my family and my small town to begin my higher education with the goal of becoming a doctor.

My next experience with work for the dead was with those who were still living but on borrowed time: I became a nurse's assistant, and following after my mother I found work in hospice. After relocating to the Phoenix area to attend Arizona State University, I was hired by Hospice of the Valley as a CNA where I had the privilege of training in the facility where (unknown to me at the time, since I never met her) my Jewish grandmother had passed away only a few months before.

I served the dying across the socioeconomic spectrum. I began working the night shift on weekends in a small inpatient unit on the campus of the Maricopa County Hospital. While there, I cared for people from various backgrounds (e.g. former school teachers, the homeless, and developmentally disabled) and ethnicities (e.g. African-American, Central and South American), and learned to respect and care for them equally. I remained at that position for 9 months, and was then transferred to work as on the campus of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale,where my patients were mostly well-to-do, upper middle class white people. By experiencing such contrasting environments of healthcare, I began to understand some of the strengths and weaknesses of our system, and developed a commitment to improve access to high quality care for all people as a future physician.

How Death Can Heal

In the summer of 2010 I was reunited with my Jewish family, thanks to my father's wife, whose last wish while dying of ALS was to see me reunited with their family. In our second meeting, after the emotional reunion around Father's Day, they asked me to explain the hospice philosophy and what they could expect if they decided against going back to the hospital for aggressive care the next time she deteriorated. It wasn't long after that she did pass away, peacefully in her home surrounded by her loved ones. It was at her funeral that I first recited the Mourner's Kaddish, the prayer uttered by so many Jews through time at the death of a family member or friend: a prayer that praises God and renews hope for the coming of His kingdom. This hope can be glimpsed in the Zionist hymn Hatikva, now the national anthem of Israel.

The Kaddish is associated with the Holocaust for many non-Jews, whose only exposure is reading Elie Weisel's Night. It is a quintessentially Jewish thing to express praise and lamentation, worship and worry, hope and heartache together--Job-like-- in the same breath. Many survivor's stories (Viktor Frankl, Primo Levi, etc.) stress the strong desire to live and find meaning--something to live for--as the only thing that got them through. Those who lost this fire, who had accepted the God-role of the guards whose will it was that they should die, were referred to as "Muselmanner" by other prisoners, and they did indeed die more quickly. I believe this deep desire to live, to survive, to hope in the face of imminent death is why Judaism has avoided extinction in the face of its very obvious out-competition by its spiritual children, Christianity and Islam.

I believe this same strenuousness drives the desire for eternal life among religious transhumanists; however, our hope in post-humanity should be balanced with our humility prehumously. After all, our immortality may not come in the way we envision or hope for it. I doubt the victims of the holocaust envisioned their legacy as black and white photos of piled, naked, emaciated bodies, but we have not forgotten them. In their mortem they are immortal, in their dying they are born to eternal life.

As a humanist, I do not feel that my individuality warrants immortality, or that I myself am of much value in the universe, but that humanity as a whole does and is. I would rather see all people live happy, healthy lives for 100 years and preserve the cycle of life, growth, reproduction, flourishing, ageing and death than to interrupt that cycle so that a few can live 1000 years. It may be a value-based position, but I very much doubt that, pragmatically, we can have it both ways.

In demonizing death we deprive ourselves and devalue an experience that has driven our species since its dawn. The first millenarian may be born, but it's probably not you or I. Should this lead us to lose faith? Should we gather our loved ones--Goebbels-style--and go quietly into the night? Such an absurdism deserves its own reduction. Existentialism was born in the dying breath, the aleph, of those who taught us there is more to life than joy: that suffering, too, is worth living for.

“Unto what shall I liken?” - Breaking the Fourth Wall of Revelations

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PAINTING

We share an evolutionary history of language and semiotics as evident in this survey of common symbols found on stone age artifacts which follow patterns of human migration.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SYMBOLS OF STONE AGE

Religion too has evolved over time influenced by culture, language, music, interaction with the divine, and other forms of semiological expression.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF TREE OF RELIGION

One of my favorite quotes, that I think gets at the crux of this, is by William James when he said:

“Religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our life affords”

I think there is great insight in that perspective. That religion is limited to the semiological domain of those it finds expression in. And as our knowledge, aesthetics, culture, etc. change, our religious expression will change too as we find new ways to express those religious longings.

In Mormonism, our scriptures (much like Christianity) make reference to “likening”, “comparing”, and “typifying”. Models, maxims, parables, allegories, metaphors, etc. are all semiological expressions in our scriptures and teachings.

One of my favorite scriptures that illustrates this is in Doctrine and Covenants 88:46.

Unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand?

The reason I absolutely love this instance where the word “liken” is used, is because it breaks the fourth wall and reveals the author’s hand and intention in the process of revelation.

Breaking the fourth wall is a literary device that evokes a conversation between the author, messenger, and audience. It ties all parties together and invites them to consider each other’s realities. It brings a sense of self-awareness and agency that otherwise can be missed. And it’s this self-awareness that is so important for faith today.

Looking at each word in this phrase from a semiological perspective can illustrate how this self-awareness can occur.

Unto

First is the word “unto”: a functional word indicating reference or directionality.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PAINTING

A common Buddhist teaching highlights the difference between a subject and the object that points to it.

“I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon.”

Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. highlights how the “scriptures are replete with allegorical stories, faith-building parables, and artistic speech."

“Even the most devout and sincere believers in the Bible realize that it is, like most any other book, filled with metaphor, simile, allegory, and parable, which no intelligent person could be compelled to accept in a literal sense...”

“The Lord has not taken from those who believe in his word the power of reason. The Lord expects everyone who takes his "yoke" upon them to have common sense enough to accept a figure of speech in its proper setting, and to understand that the holy scriptures are replete with allegorical stories, faith-building parables, and artistic speech.”

(Doctrines of Salvation, Bookcraft, 1956, vol. 3, pg. 188)

All of this points to some fundamentals of semiotics which I think are important to cover briefly (and at only a surface level) to provide some context.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SILOHETTE'S COMMUNICATING

At the base of semiotics is the idea of communication: particularly communication between two, self-aware individuals. The difficulty is how do you communicate something from an unfathomably complex mind to a different, independent, and likewise unfathomably complex mind.

The person communicating has, in her mind, an object to communicate. This object is what is being “signified”. It can be a picture, concept, sound, truth, smell, taste, aesthetic, experience, fiction, model, etc.; anything that can be communicated via the chosen medium of communication.

In order to communicate this, she must encode this into abstract symbols or “signifiers". In this case she chooses the concepts of “mountains”, “colors”, “and ruins”. She then must select symbols within the medium of communication. Here she is using the spoken, english words “mountains”, “colors”, and “ruins”. This process is called “semiological encoding”.

The other party must then understand those communicated symbols, construct abstract symbols, then form an object to try to understand the original idea that the other had. And I think we’ve all had experiences where this process didn’t work as well as we might have hoped.

This process breaks down when there is no longer a shared communication medium or shared set of communicable symbols to use. And even when communication is possible, the process of decoding can break down on issues of comprehension, relevancy, engagement, value judgements, and non-neutrality of the communication medium itself.

Furthermore, even before communicating, the task of encoding can break down on ideas of accurate sign selection, biases, lack of trust with audience, compensating for audience, and the non-neutrality of the communication medium as well.

This, I think, is what Paul was referring to when he talked about “knowing or prophesying in part” or “seeing through the glass, darkly” with the hope and faith of a time of greater clarity (1 Cor. 13:9-12).

This all comes back to the topic of religion. We see visions of greatness as we commune with the divine. Then we seek to find ways to express that greatness using the crude symbols our lives can afford.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ART STATUE

What

The word “what” references the thing or things in question.

James E. Talmage observed that god is often treated as merely a projection of our own traits.

“[Mankind is] prone to conceive of the attributes of God as comprising in augmented degree the dominant traits of their own nature.”

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CLASSICAL GREEK PAINTING

The Greek and Roman mythologies were very much projections of human nature: the embodiments of our different natures. As a tool for exploring who we are, there are benefits here.

But as New Testament scholar NT Wright points out in an Veritas he spoke at titled "What Gods Do We Believe In Now?", there are problems when our own human nature becomes an object of worship.

In regards to modern society’s obsession with eroticism, he noted:

"The goddess Aphrodite, even if unnamed, is believed in and served by millions.”

In the wake of the global financial crisis and scandals he points out that:

“We still assume that even though something has gone horribly wrong, that the only thing to do is to shore up this idol and get it going again.”

And critiquing our modern machines of war he said:

“ No matter how many body bags are brought home we still assume that that’s how the world ought to work.”

This kind of idolatry has a long history with religion.

I love the opening chapter of Isaiah in this regard. Isaiah brings an iconoclastic perspective. Here, Isaiah critiques the uselessness of the religious symbols at the time.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

Whenever I read this scripture I “liken” it to our sets of religious symbols to ask if how I’m using my religion would likewise be critiqued by Isaiah.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of tithes, and fast offerings; and I delight not in the casseroles, or of home teaching, or of he visiting teaching.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my church?

I think it's important that we "liken" this scripture to our own day. Perhaps casting this in the mold of Mormonism we might get something like this:

Bring no more vain oblations; hymns are an abomination unto me; the fasts and sabbaths, the general conferences, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the celestial rooms.

Your meetings and your family home evening my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

How are we using our tithes and fast offerings? Does the Lord delight in our casseroles and home teaching & visiting teaching? Do we remember who we worship? What do our hymns provoke us to do or be? What affects do our sabbaths and general conferences have on us? Is our use of sacred spaces in our temples worthy of God? Would the Lord hate our meetings and family home evenings?

Of course, my selection of LDS symbols here is somewhat arbitrary. Regardless however, these are intentionally provocative questions. But I think that is the point being made in Isaiah here. And we can know when idolatry has taken root precisely when these questions are seen as offensive or unnecessary.

Our religious symbols, when detached from how they relate to the larger picture of what they signify in God, become ineffectual and worthless. They become idols and we become idol worshipers, mistaking pointing hands for the moon they point to.

Isaiah isn’t merely an iconoclast though -- and neither am I. Isaiah sought to restore the purpose and meaning of those symbols by re-attaching them to their intended use: To become clean. To put away evil doings. To learn to do well. To seek discernment. To relieve the oppressed. To plead for the widow.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Shall

Returning to the scripture, next up is the word “shall”. This denotes choice or freedom of the author.

I challenged my son last year to take notes during a General Conference talk, but to try to use symbols as he did so. This is what he came up with.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DRAWING

There's a hint in who the author of the talk was in the symbols my son drew. Can you guess it? Here's a hint: airplane.

As you might have guessed, this is from a talk given by Deiter Uchtdorf titled "The Gift of Grace" from the April 2015 General Conference.

Freeman Dyson makes a point that’s relevant here. In his book “Infinite in All Directions” he reflects back on science at the beginning of the 20th century when there were the great mountain peaks which dominated scientific visions and attitudes:

“Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of general relativity, these were the great mountain peaks which dominated our vision for a hundred years. But God did not only create mountains, he also created jungles. And today we are beginning to understand that the jungles are the richest and most vibrant part of his creation.”

“God's creation was richer than either Maxwell or Einstein had imagined. There was a time in the 1920s and 1930s when it seemed that the landscape of physics was almost fully mapped. The world of physics looked simple… between them only a few unimportant valleys still to be surveyed.”

“Now we know better. After we began seriously to explore the valleys in the 1950s, we found in them flora and fauna as strange and unexpected as anything to be seen in the valleys of the Amazon. Instead of the three species of elementary particle which were known in the 1920s, we now have sixty-one (and we've revised these since). Instead of three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas, we have six or more. Instead of a few succinct equations to summarize the universe of physics, we have a luxuriant growth of mathematical structures, as diverse as the phenomena that they attempt to describe. So we have come back to the rain forest, intellectually as well as geographically.”

(parenthetical comments my own)

I had the opportunity to ask him about whether this analogy could also work for religion. That we see the same types of worldview: one with creedal mountain peaks and simplified, reductive explanations; the other which finds home in the flourishing of diversity of expression and the exploration of that rich flora and fauna. The former seeing itself as complete with only a few unimportant trivialities to tie up. And the latter seeing itself as incomplete with an endless diversity to explore.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF TREES IN FOREST

He agreed and mentioned that this is especially true in the context of the Mormon religion.

So what are some of the transformative results this kind of semiological approach can provide? How can we meaningfully explore this jungle?

Instead of divining God’s one will, we can see that God’s will is infinite in diversity but within a domain.
Doctrine and policies can be treated less as edicts and instead can be approached as milestones.
Fixed religious symbols are instead used as aesthetic tools to find meaning.
Devotional or reductive interpretations are expanded by literary analysis.
Singular, idealized interpretations instead follow the pattern of manna and are re-integrated and re-applied anew.
Instead of there only being one possible right way or outcome we see many (even infinite) possible outcomes within the domain of God’s will that we may choose from.
Rites and rituals, rather than being treated as final, are instead seen as expressions of evolving faith.
And passive acceptance is abandoned for the self-awareness that comes from active choosing as we take responsibility for our own beliefs rather than abdicate them to another.

I

The word “I” in this scripture brings the author directly into the picture. And the concept of prophetic authorship and authority is a hotly debated topic in Mormonism. There is a fascinating, and sometimes tragic, history behind why these debates are framed the way they are today which is beyond the scope in this essay. But I want to see if I can provide a way forward which is informed by this kind of semiological approach I’ve been underscoring here.

The debate hinges on this question: When is a prophet acting as a man or acting as a prophet? This question has some problems.

First. Why isn’t anyone asking when a prophetess is speaking as a woman or speaking as a prophetess? Technical authoritarian definitions aside, we have functional prophetesses today even if unordained. I watched this most recent April 2016 general woman’s broadcast and their leadership and efforts to focus our faith more on refugee outreach is nothing short of prophetic.

Second, it proposes a false dichotomy. It forces us to pull apart the agency and person from the divine calling. It de-humanizes religion. This is a mistake and often leads to implied or explicit infallibility of leaders or the total rejection of them. Fundamentally, the man or woman is always present in the limitations of their knowledge to decode what they feel from God and then, in turn, encode that in a way which others can then decode.

To borrow the William James’ quote above:

“God’s revelations clothe themselves in such poor symbols as the lives of God's servants afford.”

A land mine in the ground on this debate in Mormonism is the treatment of Wilford Woodruff's words when he said (regarding the first Official Declaration), "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray... If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place." While I don't disagree with that statement, the interpretations of it and the immediate arguments that follow are almost always escapist in nature and invoke bolts of lightning, sudden diseases inflicted on prophets, etc. But all abdicate responsibility to discern away from individuals and remove it from the work of discipleship. The logical result is that we must, even if temporarily, deify prophets into realms of infallibility - thus removing their agency in those moments.

So how can we move forward? The way this debate is formed, it seeks to develop rules that put all the discernment on the mantle of authority. It results in very escapist arguments, hyper-devotional interpretations, authoritarianism, and circular reasoning. I believe such arguments are not only unnecessary but pull us away from Christ.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WHITE JESUS STATE

A powerful way forward is to keep Christ at the center of the discussion. We already have hermeneutic guides to apply here from the scriptures themselves. Here are four of them.

First Christ asks us to “hang all the law and the prophets” on the two great commandments: love God and love thy neighbor (Matt 22:37-40):

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Second, Paul warned than prophecy will fail when it is detached from charity (1 Cor. 13:8):

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail

Third, Moroni taught in his parting wisdom that anything that provokes us to do good and believe in Christ comes from Christ (Moroni 7:14-16):

Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.
For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God

Notice that this wisdom is "given unto [us]" -- all of us.

And fourth, Joseph Smith gives a pattern whereby we can judge the efficacy of the exercise of priesthood authority (Doctrine and Covenants 121:36-37, 41-42).

That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BOOK OF PHILOSOPHERS

So we have filters which every individual can apply with the authority that comes with earnest discipleship in Christ to answer the question: “Is what is being said by a prophet or prophetess the word or will of God, or not?” The personal application of these filters is important as history (both ancient and modern) clearly shows that prophets/prophetesses make mistakes not just in their personal lives but in the exercising of their calling — just as we all do in the exercising of ours.

This kind of hermeneutic approach has a provocative but, I think, much more robust way to interpret Woodruff's words:

If/when prophecy advocates something that fails these tests, that prophecy will fail not because God magically comes down with a bolt of lightning to remove our agency and solve the problem for us; it will fail precisely because disciples of Christ will simply say, "No."

But conversely, and this is important to balance this interpretation, when prophecy advocates something that passes these tests and which might go against commonly held opinions or practices, disciples of Christ will repent and turn to Christ.

This gives prophecy its rightful power to call to repentance as that repentance leads towards Christ. But it also gives power to disciples of Christ to be a balancing force against imperfections of the process and partnership of prophecy as we work towards Christ together.

There's an important lesson from Ezekiel 14:9-11:

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him; That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God.

The people of God cannot use prophets to excuse their belief or actions. It seems that we're all in this together (both prophets and those that follow them). Prophets need us and we need prophets as we work together towards Christ and God's Kingdom. We all reap what we sow together -- whether good or bad. Perhaps this kind of discernment can orient us towards the fulfillment of the desire expressed by Moses that all of the Lord's people were prophets together (Numbers 11:29):

And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!

Liken

Finally, the word “liken”.

By this point I’ve belabored the point about semiologically likening, so I’ll just make a final concluding remark that I think brings a level of authenticity much needed.

Richard Bushman in his book “Rough Stone Rolling” points out how the Book of Mormon “multiplies the peoples keeping sacred records”. That the Nephites, Jews, tribes of Israel, and indeed “all nations” are spoken to by God and that they each write (or I’ll add “decode” and “encode”) what they hear. And he points out how the Book of Mormon teaches that God chooses what “he seeth fit that [the nations] should have" (Alma 29:8) — invoking agency of the Author — and Bushman highlights how "all peoples have their epic stories and their sacred books". And we can see this variety of encoding/decoding going on across cultures, languages, geographies, and times.

Semiological understanding expands the notion of scripture away from creedal ownership to instead whatever hermeneutically passes the tests of what is the word of God. Canon, however, can be selective. Whereas scripture spans creeds and religions, canon becomes whatsoever a group feels inspired to use to maintain identity or hold themselves accountable to.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SCRIPTURE GRAPH

NT Wright makes a similar connection when he sums up the 3 biblical coordinates of wisdom Christians have to orient themselves as they navigate their discipleship (again, from his talk at the Veritas forum mentioned above).

We are called to reflect the Creator’s wisdom and care into the world.
We contextualize our wisdom as being part of a much larger world full of interlocking connections and mutual relationships.
That our knowledge is never in isolation. That while we can be bold and humble in stating what we have seen and know, but will always covet other angles of vision.

This is why I love this phrase “Unto what shall I liken?”. This breaking of the fourth wall of revelation evokes a much needed conversation between the author, messenger, and audience. It ties all parties together and invites them to consider each other’s realities. This is a gift of grace from God. And I believe as we do so with self-awareness and agency that otherwise is sometimes absent, our religious discussions will be elevated and a sense of authenticity and Christ-centered faith can better grow.

Christopher Bradford elected new MTA President

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

At the March meeting of the Board of Directors of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, the Board elected Christopher Bradford as the new President and CEO of the MTA. Chris is a founding member of the MTA and has previously served as Vice-President and has been on the Board of Directors since its founding. Chris and his wife, Lucy, have eight children. Chris spent most of his youth overseas in the Middle East and Europe, returning to the U.S. to graduate with a degree in Linguistics from BYU. Professionally, Chris is VP of Engineering at Ancestry; he also enjoys performing, especially musical theater and choral music; reading; and philosophy.

This leadership change coincides with the tenth anniversary of the founding of the MTA. Throughout this decade, the MTA has been headed by Lincoln Cannon, who has done a tremendous job as President and CEO. Lincoln will continue to serve on the Board of Directors and will, of course, continue to be actively involved in the MTA. We are grateful for his service -- past, present, and future.

Please direct any questions about this change to admin@transfigurism.org.

How a Ragamuffin became a Mormon Transhumanist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

This post is part of a series of personal narratives written by members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. Each tells their story of how they became a Transhumanist. Guest: Michaelann Bradley.

The central guiding myth of my life springs from one man. Rich Mullins is a Christian pop singer who became very famous in the early 90s for songs like Awesome God and Sing Your Praise to the Lord.[i]

Rich lived his life according to the Ragamuffin Gospel; a Gospel that declares:

“Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think: that if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor.”

Rich spoke passionately of a life with Jesus to come, and he lived recklessly, and when he died he was living out his life with the poorest of our nation, on a Native American reservation teaching music and giving away most of his wealth from his popular music.

Help is not on the way

This is the central myth of my life, my north star, my liahona. When I think about who I want to be and what my life needs to look like, I think about Rich — a life dedicated to the giving away of myself, taking no thought for the morrow, and trusting in a hope to come.

I’ve struggled a lot to find my place in this mythos. During one particularly tumultuous year of my life I quickly and sequentially made a number of plans, but quickly discarded each to provide speech therapy at Primary Children’s in Salt Lake, teach preschool in inner city Memphis, mobilize volunteers to tutor children, gain skills in the study of sociology, create and provide literacy curriculum to Title 1 teachers, and finally fundraising for United Way.[ii]

Here’s what I wished for: someone to tell me how to live out the Ragamuffin Gospel — a leader, commander, an easy answer of what I should do, or at least one free of moral quandaries. For example, I could go teach school in Memphis, but as an outsider, wouldn’t I actually be doing more harm than good? For example, I could study sociology, but that’s pretty Ivory Tower, and who would actually benefit? For example, for example, for example. I have wished for a smooth way, and a clear path forward. I have been incapacitated by the potential to screw things up. It seems better, at times, to wait — to wait until the answer is clear to me, and until I feel the hand of a God guiding me in my life.[iii]

We are the vanguard

There is, in fact, a seemingly magical promise in the Ragamuffin Gospel, in the Christian Gospel. The promise is of a triumphal end to suffering and slavery when Christ comes again to set things right — a magical end to a wretched beginning. There is a comfort and an excuse in this for what we fail to do or cannot do.

This mindset tells us that we are helpless. You cannot do what Christ is anointed and predestined to complete. It sets obedience as the highest virtue and commands you to wait on God for answers, instructions, and justice.

Although I still cling as fiercely as ever to the Ragamuffin Gospel, through the Mormon Transhumanist Association I also have begun to understand something else. When my husband brought me first to the MTA, I resonated with the brilliant minds I encountered. But recently I have begun to understand what revolution lies at its heart.

This is the truth I have learned: humanity has never had anything but the tools of its own hands to craft its world, and with those tools, all the requisite and inevitable perils; including all the uncertainty, all the potential to do more harm than good, all the mistakes. If we are waiting for God, or a godlike perfection, to descend upon us, the transformation will never happen.

But this is not because there is no God, and the promises of the Christian Gospel are not in vain.

In my friend Carl Youngblood’s words,

"Many people have believed in the concept of a resurrection and redemption, but few have imagined that this is something we would ever participate in. The vast majority have taken it for granted as a kind of external event that would take place regardless of our desires or choices. We believe that the redemption and resurrection of humanity cannot be imposed, but must be a cooperative and voluntary effort. We believe that the outcome depends on our choices here and now. We are the vanguard — the first to accept and embrace this responsibility and to begin deliberately contributing towards this great work."

While we’re waiting on God, God is waiting on us.[iv] And this is why I am a Transhumanist. It urges me to action. Rich Mullins taught me to identify with Christ. Mormon Transhumanism taught me that to identify with Christ is to participate in his work of redeeming the world.

[i] For what it’s worth, these are NOT my favorite Rich Mullins songs. :) I highly recommend Be With You, If I Stand, and, just because it’s a fun song, Jacob and Two Women, which here is sung by a woman, not Rich, but Rich himself actually found the song more evocative that way.

[ii] The story about why I landed at United Way and why, in fact, I am still there almost four years later is too long a story to tell here, but for starters I can only recommend to you the book, The Soul of Money. See Goodreads excerpts here.

[iii] If you’re looking for some inspiration of some people who I think actually lead a consecrated life quite well, I would suggest Nicholas Kristof, journalist; Jacqueline Novogratz, investment funder; Bryan Stevenson, lawyer; and David Hilfiker, doctor. At great sacrifice to themselves, they are navigating the murky waters of change making, and each in their own corner in truly transformative ways.

[iv] My cute husband told me I could steal this. He actually said it first.

Voting Members Amend Constitution with Extended Affirmation

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

Voting members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association have amended its constitution to extend the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation. Together, the Transhumanist Declaration and the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation define the purpose of the association.

The original version of the Affirmation had three points, all of which remain unchanged in the new version. The new version has six points, two of which appear before the original three points, and one of which appears after the original three points. Here is the full text of the new version:

We are disciples of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ, to become compassionate creators as exemplified and invited by Jesus.
We understand the Gospel to be compatible with and complementary to many religions and philosophies, particularly those that provoke strenuous pursuit of compassionate and creative exaltation.
We seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anatomies, as well as communities and their environments, according to their wills, desires, and laws, to the extent they are not oppressive.
We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end.
We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.
We practice our discipleship when we offer friendship, that all may be many in one; when we receive truth, let it come from whence it may; and when we send relief, consolation and healing, that raises each other together.

Any change to the association constitution requires the support of an absolute super majority of voting members. This high bar means, in practice, that change to the constitution is likely to happen rarely. So far, in the history of the association, the constitution has changed only once before. In 2010, voting members approved an amendment to simplify the director election process, to adopt an updated version of the Transhumanist Declaration, and to make association affiliations with other organizations optional rather than mandatory.

The constitution requires all members of the association, both basic and voting, to support the Transhumanist Declaration and the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation. The association does not rigidly enforce any particular interpretation of these statements. Nor does the association enforce narrow understandings of "support". A person may be a member of the association in good standing while sincerely holding to an interpretation of the statements that differs from that of another member, or while not fully agreeing or even constructively disagreeing with parts of these statements, so long as that member supports the Declaration and Affirmation on the whole.

For reference, here too is the full text of the Transhumanist Declaration:

Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth.
We believe that humanity’s potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions.
We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable. Some of these scenarios are drastic, others are subtle. Although all progress is change, not all change is progress.
Research effort needs to be invested into understanding these prospects. We need to carefully deliberate how best to reduce risks and expedite beneficial applications. We also need forums where people can constructively discuss what should be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.
Reduction of existential risks, and development of means for the preservation of life and health, the alleviation of grave suffering, and the improvement of human foresight and wisdom should be pursued as urgent priorities, and heavily funded.
Policymaking ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe. We must also consider our moral responsibilities towards generations that will exist in the future.
We advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise.
We favour allowing individuals wide personal choice over how they enable their lives. This includes use of techniques that may be developed to assist memory, concentration, and mental energy; life extension therapies; reproductive choice technologies; cryonics procedures; and many other possible human modification and enhancement technologies.

Lunch Celebration of Future Day 2016

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF FUTURE DAY

Future Day is 1 March, and the Mormon Transhumanist Association invites you to join us for lunch and casual conversation about the future at Costa Vida (1621 N State) in Orem, Utah, at 11:45am on 1 March 2016. Bring your friends and family, and of course your thoughts and questions about the ethical use of technology and religion to extend human abilities.

Holidays provide a fantastic way of channeling peoples’ attention and energy. Most of our holidays are focused on past events or individuals, or on the rhythms of nature. History and nature are wonderful and should be honored — but the amazing future we are building together should be honored as well. Future Day is a way of focusing and celebrating the energy that more and more people around the world are directing toward creating a radically better future. This is a brand new holiday — the first Future Day was in 2012. This year on March 1st Future Day will be even better! Let us all work together to continue to make Future Day a great success!

Click here to learn more about Future Day.

Broadening Our Understanding of Sexuality and Procreation

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO SCREENSHOT

Presentation at Sunstone West Symposium on 30 Jan 2016 in Berkeley, CA. Presentation begins at minute 17:04. Text below.

Imagine you’re an infant that just left your mother’s womb. You are being welcomed into the world by eager parents. A plethora of possibilities and opportunities await your exploration. Upon your delivery they look at your nude body and note the aesthetics of your genitalia. The doctor announces, “It’s a girl!” In this fractional moment, a socially constructed gender has become your assumed destiny.

Your parents love you and they raise you just as a little girl should be raised. You have good and happy experiences living as a girl and you seem content until one day when something in you changes or perhaps you only recognize what was always there. You ask yourself, “Is this gender, role, identity, and purpose truly mine or was it simply assigned to me?”

The Family: A Proclamation to the World states “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”[1] I agree. However, many interpretations of gender are limited and underdeveloped.

Gender is not static or binary and is just as much expressive as biological. Having an eternal gender does not mean an unchanged destiny. Eternal means “existing forever”[2] and to exist is to be in a constant state of change or evolution. Some might even call it eternal progression. I am not the same yesterday that I am today, nor will you be the same person tomorrow that you are today, biologically or mentally.

For example, Mormonism teaches that God is eternal and has existed forever, yet Joseph Smith taught that God was once as we are now, mortal beings.[3] This would require God to undergo some sort of Darwinian evolution. Mormon theology supports a reoccurring theme that progressive change is both eternal and essential.

Before we broaden our understanding of sexuality and procreation, first, we’ll need to widen our perceptions of gender. As we deconstruct some overly simplified schisms of gender, sexuality and procreation, please keep in mind this is simply a limited introduction to gender and sexuality, not a comprehensive overview.

Gender

Gender Identity

First, gender identity is a person’s inner sense of being male, female, a blend of both, or neither. Gender identity may be in likeness or contrast to biological sex. An individual whose identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth is cisgender.

Gender identity, though influenced by others, should be determined by each individual. For example, I identify as a woman. I perceive myself as a woman and call myself a woman. For another person to assign me a masculine identity against my own perceptions can lead to a host of negative outcomes.

Gender Expression

Second, is gender expression. This is usually the external appearance of gender identity. This is expressed through various mannerisms, behaviors, apparel, style, and voice pitch. Gender expression is mostly predicated on socially constructed ideals of what constitutes as masculine and feminine. Many people express some sort of androgyny containing both masculine and feminine qualities. This classification is highly subjective based upon geographic location, time period, and belief system.

For example, men regularly wear kilts in Scotland or sulus in Fiji, while being in perfect compliance with masculine gender norms. However, if a bruting man with a beard were to wear a skirt to a wedding in the US, many would consider this a social taboo.

As time passes and society evolves, so do our perceptions of “normal” gender expression. If a female were to wear pants or trousers in the 19th century, many people would condemn her of attempting to be too masculine in her gender expression. However, today, a woman may choose to wear pants and not be in violation of gender social norms.

Religion also plays a role in this social construct. In LDS Mormonism, some women designate a specific Sunday as “Wear Pants to Church Day”[4] that challenges traditional gender stereotypes in a religious context.

Gender expression is a performance, not constrained to any singular act, but the repetition and ritual of a person performing a gender until it becomes naturalized.[5] Our parameters of acceptable gender expression are highly subjective and constantly changing.

Biological Sex

Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines sex as “the fundamental distinction based on the type of gametes produced by the individual.”[6] Smaller gametes called sperm are assigned male and larger gametes called ovum are assigned female.

This definition is actually quite fascinating, because it doesn’t account for chromosomal, genital, or hormonal factors.

While most people fall into the male/female categories, some people are born with ovotestis, which are gonads that contain both ovarian and testicular tissue. Some people are born with external male genitalia as well as a fully functional uterus. Some people may appear completely male or female physically, yet have XXY chromosomes, while others may be born with very ambiguous genitalia.

If a female is born with abnormally high testosterone levels does this make her any more biologically male? What about an infertile male that does not have the ability to produce male gametes, sperm? According to this medical definition he is no longer male. What a about a woman with a fully functional vagina and ambiguous penis? Penises are generally considered to be a male trait. However, she may identify her penis as a feminine, because it’s her penis.

Perhaps our categories of male and female are not as simple as we would like to believe, and we should recognize the limitations of our medical terminology in assigning specific body parts with a gender.

People who are born intersex may be subject to invasive surgeries, not because these surgeries leave the person any healthier from a physical perspective, although some do, but because by doing so they conform to a cisnormative culture. There is a wide spectrum of genders physiologically, socially, and biologically.

Let’s go back to the little girl I mentioned at the beginning. What happens when her gender identity is in contrast to the gender she was assigned at birth?

Transgender is one of the most controversial forms of gender. When these categories don’t perfectly align to create a cisgender human being some people may become confused, defensive, or even aggressive. However, God too has also been personified quite androgynously.

The Bible contains multiple scriptures supporting the notion of a gender diverse, gender fluid God capable of radical morphology. The Spirit of God appears in the Bible as a burning bush[7], a dove[8], or even invisible[9]. If these verses are not to be taken literally, why should we take literally the idea of God being limited to a single male embodiment?

From an LDS perspective, Elder Erastus Snow stated, “If I believe anything God has ever said anything about himself. . . I must believe that deity consists of man and woman.”[10] It is unclear whether this is a description of one embodiment or multiple embodiments. Genesis states that both females and males are made in the image of God.[11] From this we can reevaluate the image of God. God is both male and female in some form; otherwise woman could not have been made in God’s image. No matter where a person falls on the gender spectrum, according to the Bible, the image of God is both male and female.

Accepting the broad diversities of gender seems almost required in order to display the fullest image of God. After all, we are not only encouraged to become like God, but also promised in Psalms[12] that we are gods and children of the most High, and that God is no respecter of persons.[13]

In contrast to our Biblical narratives, some religious people strangely contend that a particular type of embodiment comes with a particular type of unchanging gender identity. If God is not limited by a particular embodiment why should we limit ourselves and each other to a particular type of embodiment?

Assigning a person’s embodiment a gender comes with a host of social expectations and limitations that act as a determiner for that person’s life and future. This idea of gender determinism tends to get the most retaliation when a person’s biological anatomy does not conform to acceptable forms of sexuality.

Sexuality

Sexuality, like gender, is extremely diverse. For practical purposes I’ll give a brief overview of just a handful of sexual identities to illustrate the diversity and nuance of sexuality.

Heterosexual: sexually attracted to a person of the opposite sex.

Homosexual: sexually attracted to a person of the same sex.

The problem with these labels is they label sexuality from a cisnormative perspective while lacking gender identity nuances of people who identify as genderqueer or agender. If one does not identify as male or female, identities such as homo and hetero become less useful. More accurate terminology would identify sexuality independent of gender.

Androphilia: sexual attraction toward men or masculinity.

Gynephilia: sexual attraction toward women or femininity.

Bisexual: sexually attracted to two or more genders, not to be conflated with pansexuality.

Pansexual: sexual attraction is not limited to any gender on the spectrum.

Skoliosexual: sexually attracted to people who do not fall on the ends of the gender binaries.

Demisexual: doesn’t usually experience sexual attraction unless they have formed a strong romantic or emotional connection with that person; variances include heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, or aromantic.

Asexual: may find people aesthetically attractive, but doesn’t necessarily feel sexual desire.

Graysexual: is fluid between sexual and asexual.

Autosexual: sexually attracted to themselves, preferring self-gratification over other sexual activity.

Sapiosexual: finds intelligence as the most sexually attractive feature

Polysexual: incorporating different kinds of sexuality, i.e. a Skolio-Romantic, Bi-Sapiosexual, or Gray-Autosexual.

As you can see from this brief and incomplete list, sexuality is diverse, individualized, and unique. Sexual attraction is influenced by a person’s gender, but not necessarily deterministic.

Technology

Technology is continually shaping our perceptions of gender, sexuality, and procreation.

Within the last century there has been an explosion of advancements in reproductive technology. Many religions have come to embrace these technologies in order to successfully create biological families.

Latter-day Saints have exceptionally positive views of procreation. Mormon scriptures, prophets, and temple rituals teach that not only are we encouraged to reproduce, but we are commanded to “multiply and replenish the earth”[14] then nurture those children into godhood. Using the power of procreation does not alienate one from God. It enables mortals to become co-creators with God in a divine plan of eternal increase. Procreation is seen as a divine partnership.[15] Church leaders have counseled members to seek inspiration with God as they use their individual agency to bring children into the world “even in difficult situations and circumstances.” [16]

What does this mean for infertile individuals, transgender people, or same sex couples?

Many people encounter difficult challenges when procreating, but reproductive technologies have allowed humanity to embrace their religious beliefs of creation while overcoming natural obstacles. Some common forms of assisted reproductive technology include:

Artificial Insemination: the deliberate induction of sperm in a female’s uterus or cervix in hopes to achieve pregnancy when sexual intercourse isn’t a viable option.

In vitro fertilization: method of assisted reproduction that involves the extraction of an egg and sperm from each parent. Fertilization of egg and sperm is done manually in a laboratory dish. The embryo is then transferred back into a uterus for gestation.

In vitro fertilization with three biological parents: commonly used to prevent the passing on of mitochondrial disorders to their offspring. The biological mother and father donate their egg and sperm similarly to the process of in vitro fertilization; however a third woman donates healthy mitochondria that replace the defected mitochondria of the first mother’s egg. The altered embryo is transferred into the uterus of the mother. The child is the biological offspring of three parents—two mothers and one father.[17]

Surrogacy: embryo is produced via in vitro fertilization, but the uterus used for gestation is not the biological parent; they use a surrogate.

A 58-year-old woman in Texas was recently a surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law who had encountered many difficulties conceiving their own child. Even though the grandmother already experienced menopause, her uterus was still functional so she offered her womb to gestate her granddaughter. She said “It’s such a blessing I can do this for my daughter.” [18] This exemplifies a recurring theme that technological developments which enable humans to live out their religious beliefs are seen as a “blessing.”

Uterus Transplant: a healthy uterus is implanted into a female with a faulty, dysfunctional, or absent uterus. In 2014, a healthy baby was delivered by a woman who received a uterus transplant. Dr. Brannstrom, who performed the transplant, said, “The baby is fantastic, but it is even better to see the joy in the parents.”[19] Hundreds of uterus transplants are taking place right now, giving hope to more couples who wish to conceive.

Soon, uterus transplants may allow transgender women the ability to carry children. Women born into male bodies may choose to undergo an aesthetical sex change that involves surgically altering a person’s genitalia to allow a person to match their biological anatomy with their gender identity. However, now with advancements in uterus transplants it may soon be possible for transwomen to also experience pregnancy.

It seems fitting for individuals who were assigned a male sex at birth to aspire to motherhood when latter-day apostles teach “the highest and noblest work in this life is that of a mother”[20] and motherhood “is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.” Please note that motherhood is to be assumed by mankind.[21]

Elder M. Russell Ballard also said, “There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities . . . what matters is that a mother loves her children deeply.”[22]

Stephanie Mott, transgender educator, elaborates on the desires of mothers by saying, “If medical advances offer that possibility to transgender women, it is no different than offering that possibility to cisgender women.”[23]

Also on the horizon are reproductive technologies that will allow two women the ability to procreate using their own reproductive cells without the need of sperm. That means that a lesbian couple will be able to produce their own biological daughter and indeed create their own biological family unit. Soon following would be children from two biological fathers.[24] Perhaps more “light and knowledge”[25] [26] will allow technologists and physicians to create external wombs to gestate our offspring with more precision, safety, and control than an unreliable uterus[27] which might spontaneously abort or miscarry the fetus.

Some of these reproductive technologies may seem controversial, but keep in mind that artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and surrogacy were once considered highly controversial, and are now accepted as useful means of assisted reproduction for many faithful Latter-day Saint families. The LDS Church Handbook of Instructions affirms “children conceived by artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization are born in the covenant.”[28] As reproductive technology rapidly progresses, some might see this as a threat to traditional theology. However, I would contend that these technologies are a complimentary manifestation of our deepest desires to be like God.

Mormon Theology

There are many biblical and theological references that would support broadening our understanding of sexuality and procreation.

Conception is a controversial topic in the Bible. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin. When the angel told her she was to conceive she replied, “how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” The angel replied, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest will overshadow thee.” [29] Perhaps these passages could be interpreted as a spiritual in vitro fertilization, as Mormon doctrine has affirmed the virginity of Mary.[30] [31]

Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, was made a joyful mother after being considered barren.[32] When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.[33] These highly unusual, controversial, and unorthodox pregnancies were considered a worthy celebration of life.

The most notable example of same-sex creation is found in canonized scripture and LDS temple rituals when women were entirely absent in accounts of the creation. Adam’s embodiment was created by Elohim and Jehovah, two male personifications. Two males created a male.[34] Eve’s mortal body was also created by two males and formed from the rib of another male, Adam. There is no account of her physical embodiment being produced by an earthly mother.[35]

Surely celestial procreation involves far more efficient and sophisticated methods of reproduction than our current mortal model. Insisting that post-mortal reproduction would be congruent with a “natural” mortal model of reproduction is in contradiction with scripture and is a limited interpretation of creation.[36] [37]

In LDS theology, God organizes intelligences,[38] for matter cannot be created nor destroyed.[39] Mormons are regularly invited to become just like God when participating in procreation. The reproductive technologies I have discussed are often the manifestations of our desire to organize matter into intelligences, to follow the examples of the scriptures, to have families of our own, and to become like God.

In conclusion, I hope we have a greater understanding of gender, sexuality, and reproduction, so that as we are drenched in love for all families, humanity can unite as the body of Christ[40] and more fully display the all-encompassing image of God, because “all are alike unto God.” [41]

And perhaps the next time a baby is born and the doctor shouts “It’s a girl!”, we will enable that child to use her agency to determine her own identity and destiny.

BLAIRE OSTLER is a board member of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. She holds a BFA degree in design from the Academy of Design and Technology, Seattle. She specializes in abstract modern art. She is passionate about esthetics, design, religion, gender equality, animal ethics, and early childhood education. She presented this paper at Sunstone West Symposium on 30 Jan 2016 in Berkeley, CA. She can be contacted by email at blaire.ostler@transfigurism.org.

[1] The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” General Relief Society Meeting (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September 23, 1995), Paragraph 2.

[2] Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. “eternal,” accessed January 15, 2016. “(1) having no beginning and no end in time; lasting forever (2) existing at all times: always true or valid (3) seeming to last forever.”

[3] Joseph Smith, Jr., “The King Follett Discourse,” General Conference Meeting (Nauvoo: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 7, 1844). “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.”

[4] The first “Wear Pants to Church Day” was on Dec. 16, 2012. It was launched as an effort to normalize the action many LDS women have taken to wear formal, respectful dress pants to LDS church services. Mormon feminists, women and men, wear dress pants and the color purple to their local LDS Church services for many different reasons, but many of those who participate are concerned about gender equality in the LDS Church. For more details, see [http://pantstochurch.com].

[5] Judith Butler, “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,” (New York: Routledge, 2007), Preface 1999, XV. “. . . performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body, understood, in part, as a culturally sustained temporal duration.”

[6] Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, s.v. “sex,” 32nd Edition. Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders, 2012.

[7] Exodus 3:2 KJV. “And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.”

[8] Matthew 3:16 KJV. “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:”

[9] 1 Timothy 1: 17 KJV. “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

[10] David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “A Mother There: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” BYU Studies 50, 1 (2011): 79.

[11] Genesis 1:27 KJV. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

[12] Psalms 82:6 KJV. “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.”

[13] Romans 2:11 KJV. “For there is no respect of persons with God.”

[14] Genesis 1:28 KJV. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

[15] Brent A. Barlow, “The Encyclopedia of Mormonism: Procreation,” (1992), accessed January 17, 2016, [http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Procreation].

[16] Homer S. Ellsworth, “The Encyclopedia of Mormonism: Birth Control,” (1992), accessed January 17, 2016, [http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Birth_Control].

[17] Ian Sample, “Three-parent babies explained: what are the concerns and are they justified?” The Guardian, February 2, 2015, accessed January 17, 2016, [http://theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/02/three-parent-babies-explained].

[18] Fox News, “Grandmother Acting as Surrogate Delivers Healthy Granddaughter,” Fox News, January 7, 2016, accessed January 17, 2016, [http://foxnews.com/health/2016/01/07/grandmother-acting-as-surrogate-delivers-healthy-granddaughter.html].

[19] NPR International, “A First: Uterus Transplant Gives Parents a Healthy Baby,” NPR International, October 4, 2014, accessed January 17, 2016, [http://npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/10/04/353691555/a-first-uterus-transplant-gives-parents-a-healthy-baby].

[20] Russell M. Nelson, “Our Sacred Duty to Honor Women,” LDS General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 1999).

[21] James R. Clark, “Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (1965-75),” 6:178. In 1935, the First Presidency stated, “The true spirit of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives to woman the highest place of honor in human life.”

[22] M. Russell Ballard, “Daughters of God,” LDS General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 2008).

[23] Jordyn Taylor, “A Revolutionary Surgery Could Finally Let Trans Women Carry Children,” Tech.Mic, November 20, 2015, accessed January 17, 2016, [http://mic.com/articles/128972/uterus-transplant-surgery-could-let-trans-women-have-children#.3UKq2J8Tj].

[24] Guy Ringler, “Get Ready for Embryos From Two Men or Two Women,” TIME, March 18, 2015, accessed January 17, 2016, [http://time.com/3748019/same-sex-couples-biological-children].

[25] Doctrine & Covenants 50:24. “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”

[26] N. Eldon Tanner, “The Light of the Gospel,” LDS General Conference (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, October 1977).

[27] Blaire Ostler, “How a Mother Became a Transhumanist,” The Transfigurist, accessed June 6, 2015, [http://www.transfigurist.org/2015/06/how-mother-became-transhumanist.html].

[28] “Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops,” (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 3.6.2). “Children conceived by artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization are born in the covenant if their parents are already sealed. If the children are born before their parents are sealed, they may be sealed to their parents after their parents are sealed to each other.”

[29] Luke 1:34-35 KJV. “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

[30] Brigham Young, "Character of God and Christ, etc.," July 8, 1860, Journal of Discourses, 8:115. “. . . there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical. The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood—was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.”

[31] Bruce R. McConkie, “Mormon Doctrine,” 2nd edition, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 822. "Our Lord is the only mortal person ever born to a virgin, because he is the only person who ever had an immortal Father. Mary, his mother, "was carried away in the Spirit" (1 Ne. 11:13-21), was "overshadowed" by the Holy Ghost, and the conception which took place "by the power of the Holy Ghost" resulted in the bringing forth of the literal and personal Son of God the Father. Christ is not the Son of the Holy Ghost, but of the Father (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, pp. 18-20). Modernistic teachings denying the virgin birth are utterly and completely apostate and false.”

[32] Luke 1:36 KJV. “And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.”

[33] Luke 1:41-42 KJV. “And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.”

[34] Genesis 2:7 KJV. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

[35] Genesis 2:21-25 KJV. “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

[36] Taylor G. Petrey, “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 44, 4 (Winter 2011): 110. “If reproduction as we know it offers a model for heavenly reproduction so as to exclude homosexual relationships by definition, then must we imagine that male Gods deposit sperm in the bodies of female gods (who menstruate monthly when they are not pregnant), that the pregnant female god gestates spirit embryos for nine months and give birth to spirit bodies? While some LDS thinkers imagine an eternally pregnant Heavenly Mother, I see no reason why we much commit to this kind of literal pregnancy as the reason for divine female figures.”

[37] Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” Sunstone (Sep/Oct 1980): 78-87.

[38] Spencer W. Kimball, “The Miracle of Forgiveness,” (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1969), 5. “Our spirit matter was eternal and co-existed with God, but it was organized into spirit bodies by our Heavenly Father.”

[39] Doctrine & Covenants 93:29. “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”

[40] 1 Corinthians 12:27 KJV. “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”

[41] 2 Nephi 26:33. “For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”

Annual Report and Pending Leadership Change

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

Dear friends and members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association,

Ten years ago, fourteen of us founded this association: Andrew West, Brent Allsop, Cameron Dayton, Carl Youngblood, Cherie West, Chris Bradford, Cory Funk, Gary Parker, Joseph West, Karl Hale, Leonard Reil, Lincoln Cannon, Marcus Flinders, and Martin Wood. Although we hear from some of these founders more often than others, all remain members of the association today.

Since that time, the association has grown to 574 members. I believe that makes us the largest formal organization of religious Transhumanists in the world -- and in human history, for that matter.

More importantly, though, our association has also become a sanctuary for the religious Transhumanist. Mormon and otherwise, we are an uncommon type (so far). That can be lonely. It has been lonely, as frequently expressed by new members when they discover us. But our association changes that.

Many have contributed substantial time and resources to make this happen. Of particular note are those who have served us as board members and managers: Andrew West, Blaire Ostler, Brad Levin, Brent Allsop, Bryant Smith, Carl Youngblood, Chris Bradford, Cory Funk, David Foster, Don Bradley, Dorothy Deasy, James Carroll, Joseph West, Karl Hale, Leonard Reil, Lincoln Cannon, Marcus Flinders, Michael Ferguson, and Nathan Hadfield. They have my gratitude, and I know from abundant feedback that they also have the gratitude of other members of our association.

Ten years ago, I accepted an appointment from our board to serve as president of the association. I have acted in that capacity since that time. And I believe I have done so in a manner that has generally represented us well. Hopefully you will agree, as you look through this annual report, which shares recent opportunities I've had to present some of our ideas and aspirations to large audiences.

Among the challenges presented to leaders of new organizations is that of establishing helpful precedents. Patterns and traditions can be hard to change, for better or worse. With that in mind, I have increasingly felt that the time has come, or perhaps is past due, to establish a leadership change precedent.

I have notified the board that I am retiring from my appointment as president. They and I have been working together on a transition plan for several months. And, in accordance with the process outlined in our constitution, we will appoint a new president in March. Afterwards, I will continue to serve on the board, as elected by voting members.

While I admit to some sadness, this is truly an exciting opportunity for our association. Transhumanists, better than most, know that change is essential to progress. Religious Transhumanists, better than most, know that change is too often most strongly resisted when and where it's needed most.

Thank you, as sincerely as I can express in writing, for your support and friendship over the years. Like many of you, I need this association as my sanctuary. You have made it that for me. And whether we will live forever or die trying, I see Christ in you.

Please enjoy this annual report, which celebrates our work this year, and promises greater works to come. Here's the link:

[http://transfigurism.org/pages/annual-report/2015]

Lincoln Cannon President and Founder Mormon Transhumanist Association

A Cosmic Atonement

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF JESUS STATUE

In my previous post I wrote about how the infinite diversity and independence of Mind could be considered one of the most valuable things in the universe. Something which can help us address the rhetorical question posed in Psalms:

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”

If God could consider Mind to be of great, even prime, importance then another question to consider is: what threats does Mind face and how might God address these threats?

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy, a measurement of disorder or chaos, in a system ultimately increases. In other words, matter tends towards disorganization (more entropy). Matter decays, stars burn out (taking with them any ecosystems of their planets), black holes evaporate, and galaxies eventually cool. Isaac Asimov's favorite personal short story was 'The Last Question', in which he imagines mankind's struggle against the increasing tide of entropy in the universe playing out over trillions of years.

Indeed, anyone who has owned a home or a car is intimately aware of this cosmic principle. Despite our best efforts, windshields crack, wood rots, tires run bare, furniture breaks, etc--often at the worst possible time. We expend great time and resources to repair these fits of entropy only to be doomed to inevitably do it again in the near future often on the very thing we previously repaired. Indeed, much of transhumanism can be framed as a fight against the entropic forces in the universe that threaten life.

The same holds true for Mind as well. Left without hope, light, knowledge, love, or guidance, Mind/Intelligence deteriorates into self-destruction. One way to frame the concept of sin is that it can be seen as a spiritual or mental form of entropy; it leads to chaos, disorder, degeneration, destruction, and separation or isolation from God and other Minds.

A child, isolated from others and without any human contact, will become emotionally and physically maladjusted. Their behavior becomes irrational, disorganized, and chaotic. Societies which allow hate and intolerance to rule quickly find social disorder, chaos, war, and destruction. Marriages strained by unchecked relationship entropy dissolve into divorce, often tearing the family apart. And human relationships or communities are often destroyed by shunning or ostracization.

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

This is why the Atonement of Christ and transhuman efforts must both have a dual nature. They must provide an anti-entropic power to overcome the degeneration of both body and Mind. And it's this anti-entropic power that becomes the means for God in Mormonism to accomplish the stated "work" and "glory" to "bring to pass" "immorality and eternal life" (Moses 1:39) (note the dual-nature purpose there -- physical and relational/mental).

Jacob, in the Book of Mormon, explains how the Atonement is an anti-entropic force for the body of mankind:

"For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God.

"... it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him.

"... there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord.

"Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more." (2 Nephi 9:4-7)

Peter also taught of the incorruptible nature of the Atonement -- again, note the dual nature of addressing both physical deterioration and relational/mental deterioration:

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

“ But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

“ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

“ For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

“But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” (1 Peter 1:18-19,22-25)

Alma, in the Book of Mormon, explains how the Atonement provides a spiritual anti-entropic power through an infinitely intimate comprehension of the Minds of man:

“And he (Christ) shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

“And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

“Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.” (Alma 7:10-13)

A "power of resurrection", "being born again, not of corruptible seed", "[enduring] forever", "without blemish", "incorruptible", "without spot", "purified", "abiding/endiring forever", overcoming "death", "afflictions", "temptations", "sicknesses", "infirmities" all become anti-entropic powers realized here in scripture through the abstract idea of the Atonement of Christ. And this is done both for Mind and body.

Now, these are draped in religious language. And if these only remain as abstract passive aspirations they are ultimately pointless. These must become powerful active aspirations with tangible goals for them to truly transform our world. Transhumanism is capable of framing these in tangibles: immortality, cryonics, mind uploading, disease eradication, augmented intelligence, genetic improvements, organ and limb restoration, etc. When approached ethically and equitably in ways respecting individual freedom and autonomy, these things become forms of fulfillment of the religious aspirations of atonement and resurrection. And to the degree they can create a flourishing and compassionate society they can be part of the means of creating eternal life.

It should be no surprise then that much of Christ's focus during his earthly life was exercising this anti-entropic power through preaching the gospel to Minds/souls as well as healing the sick, infirm, and even raising the dead.

“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” (Matthew 9:35)

An important question to ask is how do we create and use technologies towards these goals?

In Mormonism, God is not just the God of the physical universe. God is the God of individuals, the God of Souls and Minds. God has an eternal desire to connect with, cultivate, and comprehend each and every one. And to realize that desire, God provides a way for the soul, Mind and body, to escape these entropic deaths. God provides a Savior through which an Atonement is made.

This calls and challenges us to be co-participants in realizing the blessings of restitution, rejuvenation, reconciliation, reunion, and resurrection; not as things God imposes on us while we passively wait but as something that God trusts us to work towards as we share Godlike aspirations both physically and mentally. And efforts like transhumanism can play an important role in the realization of those aspirations.

This brings up an often overlooked aspect of the nature of the Atonement. Not only is the Atonement a way to reconcile man with God, but it provides a way for God to know humanity, a way for God to realize God's greatest desire -- to know us as we come to know and become like God. It becomes a kind of Grand Cosmic Relationship which is what I'll write about next.

Gods in Our Image

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MONKEY ON A LION

When I first began my circular questioning, asking what Gods within nature would look like, and what kind of cosmos would result in the Gods I believe in from scripture, I had no idea how much it would change my understanding of theology. Perhaps the strangest thing is the beautiful imperfections I now see in the heavens.

I see many possible Gods. While it isn't a case of anything goes -- flying spaghetti will not have the brains to be a God, although a flying spaghetti monster might -- the possibilities may approach the infinite. But after pruning off inevitabilities (determinism that we can't change) and nihilism (the likely end of humanity), I was surprised to find how normal the heavens looked. Certainly they are filled with great power and wonder, but the inhabitants there are still faced with problems very much like what we live with on earth.

What will it be like? Perhaps there will be no involuntary death or disease, but their children -- us and our premortal siblings as well -- will still suffer and die. There will be vast knowledge, but there will endlessly be more to learn and explore, and there will endlessly be the uncertainty that accompanies the unknown. There will be new worlds to create, and the Gods' numerical relevance will depend on doing it about as fast and sustainably as any other Gods out there. There will be constraints from the need for the stuff of creation, whatever that is. Using the stuff efficiently, acquiring more, exploring new space and new methods, avoiding waste (and unneeded pain) through destruction of others or their resources, will all factor into the difficulty of being creative Gods. The need to explore and adapt to remain relevant in an evolving cosmos adds the demand for diversity of thought and ability. The desires of a diverse community of Gods must be managed, and economic theory tells us this can never be done completely fairly (for example) -- so Gods will be hurt, or at least sometimes denied their desires. These are the pressures facing my evolved Gods.

As I realized where my explorations led me, I realized I had created Gods in humanity's image. Gods with great power and knowledge, but with all the problems we face today in our struggles to live relevant, moral lives. I had a moment of pause. Have I simply created another God in my image? Another false idol?

Somehow, these Gods seem profoundly different, to me, from the Greek myths I grew up with. They even seem different from the Gods invoked to back a favorite political or social agenda. Yet they do back my agenda -- or I Theirs. It's always hard to tell. These Gods seem profoundly real to me. Beyond me, but not unreachable. Wondrous, but full of wonder. Coming to peace with the demands of love and pain. Inviting all that is to partake of endless creation, but making hard choices every day to favor creation, even when it necessitates sorrow, separation, or grief. These Gods are so human I fear them and fear for them, since one day I may join them, and I feel so small and broken. Yet this is my image of God. This is my hope and my joy.

Photo: "The Ungrateful Man" Norman Rockwell

Register Now for 2016 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF 2016 MTA CONFERENCE

Registration now for the 2016 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association!

The 2016 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on Saturday 9 April 2016 from 9:00am to 9:00pm in Provo, Utah, at the Provo City Library. Speakers will present on the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion. The conference is open to the public.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Rosalynde Welch holds degrees in English literature from Brigham Young University and the University of California, San Diego, where her dissertation focused on private conscience in early modern English literature. She writes on interreligious issues for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, and she blogs on Mormon issues at timesandseasons.org. She also serves as the managing editor of the Mormon Review, and she steals the occasional afternoon to pursue her own research agendas in early modern literature and Mormon literature and philosophy. Rosalynde and her husband, together with their four young children, make their home in St Louis, Missouri.

Eric Steinhart is the author of Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life After Death and Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University. He works primarily on metaphysics using contemporary analytical and logical methods and tools. He is also interested in historical metaphysical systems (particularly Plotinus, Neoplatonism, and Leibniz). Steinhart grew up on a farm. He was originally trained as a computer scientist and mathematician, and worked as a software designer for several years. Some of his algorithms have been patented. He holds advanced degrees in philosophy. His past work has concerned Nietzsche as well as metaphor (analyzed using possible worlds semantics). He has written extensively on the metaphysics and computation. He is featured in the film Chronotrip, a documentary about time travel. He is increasingly interested in the philosophy of religion, focusing on the intersection of the formal sciences and theology. He is especially interested in alternatives to Abrahamic religion. He affirms the existence of transfinitely endless hierarchies of sets, computers, languages, games, strategies, and minds. He believes in the existence of more things than you do. He also likes New York City, New England, mountain hiking, all sorts of biking, chess, microscopy, and photography.

CALL FOR PAPERS CLOSING SOON

The deadline for paper submissions is 1 February 2016. Please submit your papers soon! More details can be found on our call for papers.

Registration now for the 2016 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association!

Call for Applications: Mormons and Modernism

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MORMON BILLBOARD

Mormons and Modernism: Modernism, Secularism — and the Mormon Response?

Thinkers as diverse as Charles Taylor, Marcel Gauchet, John Milbank, Mark Lilla, and Louis Dupré have written about the origins of the modern period—the radical change in thought and society from the medieval period to the modern that occurred gradually and culminated in the sixteenth century. Modernism brought us the renaissance, modern science, the birth of the modern state and democracy, as well as, ultimately, what Nietzsche called “the death of God.” In the twentieth century, questions arose about modernism, such as “How should we understand its grand narratives?” and “What have been its costs to human being?” Recognizing both modernism’s difficulties and achievements, if we cannot think against or beyond modernism, can with think within it?

This seminar for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and not-yet tenured faculty will explore the emergence of modernism and its eventuation in what is often called “postmodern” thought. We will ask if Mormon thought should be understood as part of or in contrast to modernism. Do we have any unique responses to the issues that arise?

James E. Faulconer (Professor of Philosophy, BYU) will direct. The seminar will run weekdays from 11 through 29 July (except for 25 July, a state holiday). It is sponsored by the Wheatley Institution, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, where it will be held. Participants will receive a weekly stipend of $500 and may receive help with housing and travel, depending on circumstances.

To apply, please send a short vita and a one-page letter explaining your interest in the seminar topic to wheatleysummerseminar@gmail.com. Please include the names of two persons who could recommend you. We encourage minority applicants, and especially applicants from outside the US.

Application deadline is February 15, 2016.

When to be like Han Solo

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO UNAVAILABLE

Long live Han Solo. We love the space pirate. That’s because he was a reluctant hero.

A reluctant hero doesn’t want to be pulled into life-saving acts but rises to the occasion. After leaving the Rebel Alliance in the original Star Wars, Han returned, enabling Luke Skywalker to destroy the Death Star.

There are those who don’t believe in an afterlife but want to live past mortality. Here’s hoping that they could one day say that they were reluctant heroes.

They are Transhumanists. Transhumanism is about transcending mortality through science and technology.

If they are right, they will save us.

Yes, the process could be discouraging. Discomfiting. Difficult.

But dilemma-solving.

It’s a safe assumption that most of these folks are probably atheist or agnostic. But some who are religious, including some Mormons, still identify as Transhumanists because these people of faith believe that science and technology are key to resurrection and immortality.

If folks don’t believe in life after death but want to live past mortality, they ought to engage as much as possible with Transhumanism.

If that’s you, be like the beloved smuggler in bold pursuit of Transhumanism. Shoot first.

Lincoln Cannon Featured at Ozy on Tech and Church

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF LINCOLN CANNON

Lincoln Cannon, president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, is featured at Ozy in an article on “The Intersection of Tech and Church“, part of a series that explores the Big Ideas shaping our tech-driven future.

”Lincoln Cannon was in his late teens when he did a religious double take. Raised Mormon — the descendant, in fact, of a Mormon apostle — he was headed for the traditional Mormon boy-to-man transition: Brigham Young University, a two-year-mission, marriage. Kind of an 'awkward time' to drift toward atheism, he reflects now.“

Transhumankind - Being One With The Primitive

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

Whether humankind began among higher apes or as enlightened, ensouled images of God, one thing is clear to me: as long as humankind has existed, it has been transhumankind. What that means is that to be human is to continue to evolve, not just biologically as critters do, but mentally and techno-organically. This isn’t generally acknowledged. An unspoken assumption pervades our discussions on transhumanism: that our foray into merging with technology and changing humanity into something new is somewhat recent, a product of the Information Age or, at most, the Industrial one.

We may soon become posthumans if we play our cards right, but what about going back and seeing where this already happened before? Our tailed ancestors tens of millions of years ago were monkeys, then trans-monkeys, then post-monkeys (apes), then trans-apes, then post-apes (humans). Marking that latest transition was the development of expanding and evolving language, symbol usage in drawings on cave walls, wearing plant and animal skins, and the creation of ever more complex wood and stone tools with steadily improving forms and functions. More so than with any previous evolutionary stage, we had become able to change our station. We became changing humans ... trans-humans, by our very nature.

Transhumanism is associated with cyborg culture, and how is that defined? Wearables? Enhanced prosthetics? The concept of wearing technology is not new. Clothing and handheld tools have been with us since before the Stone Age, and are indistinguishable from humanity. These were present with Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon men, over 30,000 years ago. These advancements allowed us to spread beyond the tight habitats where we find our primate cousins. We could build shelter and manage homeostasis in the most extreme environments. These were the first steps in personal climate control.

Transhumanism is also focused on the confluence of art and science, of humanism physically and metaphysically. This fascination has been with us since the dawn of time, as evidenced by the notion that prehistoric cave art was showcased in the most resonant areas of human cave dwellings, as if to suggest that storytelling was intimately verbal AND visual. The earliest humans were drawn to places where their symbols in language and art could be most easily expressed. They made conscious choices to enhance their communication, developing a science of acoustics associated with the structure of their visual recordings, twenty thousand years before sound recordings were made possible.

This is not to say that the level of introspection we see today on the state of humanity and our capacity to permanently overcome our greatest threats was present in the minds of ancient humankind. The heaviest questions have only been asked in the last millennium, prompting the frenzy of engineered evolution we have experienced particularly in the last 200 years. These advancements were not the start of technology, though, and not the start of transhumankind. Those define each other, and both started together when hominids were formed.

We must consider whether we should tightly restrict our conception of transhumanism to only include the recent movement towards transforming humanity through life-saving technology. Anything broader and we must accept that our oldest family members shared our same desires: live longer, happier lives, and use our wits and everything around us at our disposal to make it so and make things easier for those that follow than it was for us.

Human 1.0 came out somewhere between 6,000 and 200,000 years ago. A new update was finally announced in the last 1000 years and was just released. The Internet is the installation key. The Installation Wizard for Humanity 2.0 is now showing 99% complete. We are the Next Best Thing.

How a Faithless Hedonist Became a Transhumanist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMAN IN LIGHTS

Now that I have your attention ...

Those who know me best may be a little shocked that I have defined myself in this way, but as I thought about me and who I really am, these descriptors just fit the best. Allow me to explain.

First, the faithless bit. By this, I don’t mean that I am godless or unbelieving, but rather knowing so completely as to not require faith as a general rule. This may seem a little arrogant or brash, but this is truly where I am and have been for some time. There are so many things I just know to be true, and the things I don’t know, I know that a logical answer will be known to me eventually.

Second, the hedonist bit. This is just an acknowledgement of my overriding desire and pursuit – pleasure. Or, joy, if that seems less garish. Not pleasure at the expense of others, or at any price, but just a general pursuit and an active choice of those things and that which brings me the most pleasure, joy, fulfillment, accomplishment, applause, recognition, validation.

Now, on to my story.

I grew up poor. And by poor, I mean, we had a roof (usually a non-leaking one) and food (blessedly my mother could make even TVP taste good ... mostly) and clothing (often embarrassingly hand-me-down or homemade), but not a lot of the extra things that make life easier. However, we had family. And an amazing one at that.

My father never rose to high acclaim or recognition, but he was the smartest man I knew. He could remember everything he ever read, and he would talk to us for hours and in great depth about amazing things. He was a convert to the Mormon faith and a stalwart one. He understood the sometimes ugly, sometimes fantastic, deep and meaty things of the Mormon faith, the kind of stuff that causes Sunday School teachers to roll their eyes and sigh heavily if you bring them up in Gospel Doctrine.

My mother valiantly tried to maintain order and some semblance of routine raising seven precocious children. Formal scripture study was spotty at best. Family Home Evening was often a fiery religious/scientific/moral debate that opened and closed with prayers and hymns in four-part harmony. Family prayer was a grudge match between my parents and us siblings with our penchant to sleep in or retire early, and I remember many a prayer becoming interlaced with my dreams while my face was buried in a couch cushion.

Church attendance was compulsory: almost down to a science of where we sat, when we arrived, how we behaved, a sacred ritual or treasured tradition. And, boy howdy, did my father have clarity on the matter. Any matter for that matter.

As his daughter, I inherited his precision for matters of the spirit. Right down to this state of faith-less-ness I find myself in. When others around me clamor for answers to the big Why, I am shaking my head, and wondering why all the fervor. The answer is plain and clear to me, right here and right now. My first foray into the temple was a long string of events that I recognized as “right” and “perfect” and “correct.” I don’t know how I knew about those things, but they just fell into place for me.

I understand this isn’t the way for everyone. My husband does not see it that way, and still has questions. Good friends and family have had similar confusion and speak graciously of the faith they employ so they can move forward in the church, or the faith they had to move forward in a different direction altogether.

In my estimation, even this difference in perception makes perfect sense. My understanding of God, or Allah, or Elohim, or Goddess, or Mother Earth is one of benevolent beings, in the role of creator because he/she/them understand how all the bits work, and one of the bits is that we mere mortals have exquisite agency, even down to the life we are living, and not everyone picked the same rollercoaster, or for that matter, the same amusement park. Where miracles confound some, infuriate others, and strengthen still others, I see these incidents as a picture puzzle with missing pieces, fully confident that missing pieces will fill out the gaps and make perfect sense soon enough. I recognize truth immediately, like an old friend, and I embrace it whenever it shows up, and in whatever form. The picture is always more amazing than the sum of its parts. Often breathtakingly so.

For example, one particular fall day, my first husband and I, newly remarried, were walking the 14 blocks from the power company back to our dark and powerless apartment. We had paid the overdue bill and reconnect fee and additional deposit with money borrowed from my parents. There was some indication that the power would be restored when we got home, but no promise of such.

Pathetic souls we were, trudging through the leaves, kicking at stones, grumbling at each other for failure to work enough or to spend rightly. The sky was overcast and heavy, reflecting our mood and our outlook. About halfway to home, where we could neither return where we had come from, nor hurry on to our destination, the heavens opened up. This was not a sprinkling or even a decent rain. No, this was a torrent, a downpour. It was as if the clouds had been holding back all of the angst and anger and petulance of the day and chose this particular 20-minute span of time to let loose the deluge of the ages. We were drenched. The rain ran in rivulets off my hair, getting into my eyes and even my nose. My glasses fogged up. The down-filled coat I was wearing became soaked, causing the inner layer to become plastered against my skin, offering no barrier from the icy rain. I looked over at the miserable wretch walking next to me. Steam was coming off his head. His face and eyes were being similarly drowned out, his glasses fogged over, and the snarl on his lips moving slightly as he cursed under his breath, and then out loud. Cursing God, cursing me, cursing the inexcusable series of events that had been dumped, literally at this point, on his head.

Blinking through the downpour, I was struck first with the ridiculousness of it all, of him, of me, of life and karma and fate and choice, and then, as the answer gelled in my mind, I snorted a bit. Then, I smiled wistfully and started to shake my head. As the truth washed over me in a literal deluge, I chuckled, and then started to laugh. The laughter built until it took me over, and I could not control the fits of giggles and the outbursts of glee.

JOY! I looked up into the heavens, closed my eyes, flung my arms out wide, and thanked the Gods for this amazing moment. I was alive, and more alive in that moment than I had been mere moments before. This rain! This amazing rain over which I had no control, this rain that cleanses, nourishes, and refreshes the weary world.

What did I expect? There was nothing to do but to rejoice. Being miserable didn’t suit me in the least. Besides, who was I to shake my fists at the clouds? Did they hold for me ill will? No. Was God trying to teach me a stern lesson and make me suffer for my folly? No. Was my marriage doomed because of the appearance of a squall? Again, no. But I had a choice. And a fine choice it was, too. I could be depressed and miserable, or I could have joy and rejoice.

Life is hard. That is the baseline. Joy is a choice. “… [M]en are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:27, italics added). “Might” is not a guarantee. The hedonist in me abandoned the state of sorrow and self-deprecation of the moment before, being shaken out of that pitiful place by the stinging weight of the cold droplets, and embraced the joy.

My companion looked at me like I was crazy. I don’t blame him. My reaction was not expected or understood. But, for me, there was no other option. Truth! Truth was that we were fine. Wet? Sure. Cold? Absolutely. But, there was a home to go to where towels, dry clothes, and (eventually) warm water awaited us. And if we didn’t have those things, the skies would clear eventually. We could have found a tree or a building in which to take refuge. This was just a temporary jag. And there was nothing to do, nothing else that was reasonable in my mind, but to rejoice and laugh and walk on.

As new dilemmas have confronted me (gay marriage, women and the priesthood, the myriad of people who aren’t Mormon and don’t believe what I believe, although most Mormons don’t believe what I believe either), I have held these dilemmas against the overwhelming comprehension of these truths. And the answer becomes yet another brick in the building of truth, another cloud in my sunset, another droplet in the torrent. It all makes perfect sense to me, and as I sit and wait or step back and observe, each dilemma opens up a new window as it comes into focus. And though I do get bogged down in mortal things, as soon as I realize that there is a choice to make, I will (most times) choose the fun, the pleasure, and the joy.

The internet is awash with both the dilemma and a variety of voices offering a possible solution. In sifting through all of the various tidbits, I came across a particular string of thought – the Mormon Transhumanist one. As I picked it apart to see what aligned with my truth, it invariably all did. Even things that I didn’t understand at first eventually cleared up. The “truth building” that I was working on suddenly had more floors, more windows, more balconies, more truth.

I had to learn more, so I delved a little deeper into the Mormon Transhumanist Association. It became much like my wanderings in the temple, my discussions with my father, and even my rain-induced epiphanies. Here was a place to discuss ideas freely with people who were smarter than me in many ways, and argued (mostly) reasonably on topics of dilemma. Here was a place where I could voice my ideas without fear of reprisal, or at least be defended in my right to voice my ideas. I will be honest, some of the science flies right over my head, but it doesn’t matter because it is out there for me to understand when I am ready.

No real miracles, just technologies not understood. No real conflict, just humans not understood. No magic tricks, no mystic slight-of-hand, and no requirement of blind faith – just truth and the important pursuit of truth. These Transhumanists accept that humans do not know everything, but trust everything can and will be known eventually. Truth. Transhumanists pursue truth and knowledge through science, benevolence, and even art. Truth. Transhumanists accept that the pursuit of truth will eventually lead to longer life or even unlimited lives. Truth. And most importantly, all of these ideas align perfectly with my understanding of my religion. Eternal truth.

I am a faithless hedonist who recognizes truth when it manifests as pleasure and joy, and pursues those things which continue to bring me pleasure, especially if they continue to make my world a better place. I am a Transhumanist.

Michael LaTorra explains Buddhist Transhumanism in a nutshell

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MICHAEL LATORRA

My friend Michael LaTorra, an ordained Zen priest and the abbot of the Zen Center of Las Cruces, New Mexico, has written a short, simple and readable introduction to Buddhist Transhumanism. The article was published in Theology and Science in April with the title “What Is Buddhist Transhumanism?”

Unfortunately the article is protected by a paywall. The abstract reads:

“The meeting of ancient Buddhism from Asia with modern orientation towards science and technology in the Western world has led to a burgeoning movement that combines these in new and innovative ways. Lacking much institutional structure, but with many shared goals among its adherents, this movement seeks to attain the traditional Buddhist goals of reducing suffering and realizing Awakening, but with the assistance of scientific knowledge and technological means.”

I often tried to educate myself about Buddhism and Buddhist Transhumanism (or Transhumanist Buddhism?), and Mike’s article is very useful as a first step because it is simple and focused on the essentials of both. The article provides a clean and clear introduction to Buddhism for people already familiar with Transhumanism, or the other way around.

An important parallel between Buddhism and Transhumanism is that both emphasize practical philosophy over abstract metaphysics. At the same time, deep metaphysical concepts are there to be found in both Buddhism and Transhumanism.

Buddhism asserts the doctrines of karma and rebirth. “Your actions now will affect your present lifetime and your subsequent afterlife, just as your actions previous to this birth affected your current life circumstances,” says Mike. In related speculations, Russian Cosmism and derived visionary interpretations of contemporary Transhumanism assert that future technologies could resurrect the dead.

The Noble Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha – right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation – is a guide to “right” lifestyle and mental discipline that offer benefits to both individuals and their society. Similarly, Transhumanism emphasizes the potential of emerging futurist developments in biotechnology, neurotechnology, cognitive science, computer science, nanotechnology, related disciplines, to make people “better than well” and able to function in utopian societies. In both cases, philosophical concerns with eschatology and the ultimate nature of reality are confined to an inner esoteric core, not as evident as the outer exoteric front-end.

Reducing suffering is a key aspect of both Buddhism and Transhumanism. While Buddhism suggests diluting the ego in a cosmic unity, and emphasizes meditation as a practical way to achieve enlightenment, Transhumanism wants to change the world using advanced technologies.

To put the difference into perspective, LaTorra cites an old Buddhist teaching aphorism that says ‘To walk more comfortably, it is better to cover one’s feet than to try to cover the whole earth.’ By contrast, says LaTorra, many transhumanists would prefer to cover the earth in comfortable materials. “And Buddhist transhumanists would use a combination of both, providing shoes for everyone while at the same time making large swaths of the earth into benign and comfortable regions where people could safely go barefoot. “

It’s important to note that, contrary to other religion, Buddhism doesn’t oppose using technology as one of many means to achieve enlightenment. “[T]here is nothing in the teachings of the Buddha that forbids the inclusion of science and technology in Buddhist practice,” says Mike. The compatibility of Buddhism and Technology was also emphasized by Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” a cult novel that contributed to popularize Buddhism among Western audiences. “The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of the mountain, or in the petals of a flower,” wrote Pirsig. “To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is to demean oneself.”

The question is, once all suffering is eliminated by diluting the ego in meditation and unity with the whole of reality, is anyone left to experience happiness? Mike is well aware of “the typical horrified reaction of many Westerners to this vision, which seems to imply annihilation.”

In fact, reducing suffering doesn’t necessarily mean increasing happiness. For example, a rock doesn’t suffer, but doesn’t experience happiness either. Many Westerners tend to think that in Nirvana, “the deathless state of perfect liberation” attained by those who reach enlightenment after a succession of earthly incarnations, they would be as happy as rocks. Yet, for those who are ready, the Buddha “urges determined effort to put an end to wandering in samsara and to reach [Nirvana], which transcends all planes of being,” as explained by an American-born Buddhist monk.

Mike explains that the Buddha did not teach annihilation: “He generally preferred to speak of the goal, the state of Nirvana, in terms of what it was not: not mortal, not suffering, etc. The implication of the Buddha’s teaching, therefore, is that once all negatives are removed, the intrinsic positive would reveal itself.”

I find that rather vague (I guess Mike would say that here vagueness is not a bug but a feature), and I try to think of ways to reconcile Buddhism with cherishing the individual awareness that I wish to keep. My formulation of the core Buddhist message for Westerners would be something like:

Don’t think of Nirvana yet – you’ll cross that bridge when you get there. Try to live a right life, and advance with some little steps on the Karmic road to enlightenment. Then in your next existence you will have a bit more of a cosmic mind, and perhaps a bit less of an earthly mind. So in your following existence, and the next, and so forth … until you see the bridge to Nirvana, and then you will be ready for whatever comes next, which probably we couldn’t even imagine now.

At the 2014 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Mike gave a presentation titled "Where Is Heaven? An Examination of Multiple-World Models of the Cosmos and Beyond.” A few days after the conference, I had the pleasure to attend a Buddhist meditation session led by Mike, who designed the session for Western newcomers to Buddhism. I can’t say that I achieved enlightenment (I guess that takes much more than one casual session), but I think got part of the cosmic flavor of Buddhism and I look forward to repeating the experience anytime.

“The Buddhist meditation techniques, as originally given and as extended over the millennia by Buddhist practitioners in different traditions, are based on a science of the mind designed for transforming the individual practitioner,” says Mike, and adds that there are many types of Buddhist meditation, some for a general purpose and some designed for specific situations.

Mike’s article includes short profiles of people who, though not all define themselves as such, can be considered as Buddhist Transhumanists. I found especially interesting the profile of Franklin Merrell-Wolff, a not very well known American mystic and a precursor of Buddhist Transhumanism. Mike argues that Merrel-Wolff was the first to use the term “transhumanism” in the first edition of “The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object,” written in 1939 but not published until 1973.

“It may be valid enough to assert thatuman consciousness qua human is always time conditioned, but that would amount merely to a partial definition of what is meant by human consciousness,” wrote Merrel-Wolff. “In that case, the consciousness that is not time conditioned would be something that is transhuman or nonhuman.” He added that it is in the power of man to transcend the limits of human consciousness, which seems a good summary of both Buddhism and Transhumanism in a nutshell.

Picture by the author.

Your gift will be doubled!

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

Dear members and friends of the Mormon Transhumanist Association,

You're invited to join me in giving a gift to the Mormon Transhumanist Association this Christmas season. We have just received an offer from another generous member to match your donation this year up to $3000!

The association will use your doubled donation to promote practical understandings of the Gospel of Christ, that complement science and technology. More specifically, it will cover costs of our annual conference, expansion of our video library, and maintenance of our websites. It will also help the association grow into new projects and services, such as the technological humanitarian work we've done this year.

Small or large, all donations add up to make a real difference. Please donate by this coming Thursday, 31 December 2015. Remember that your donation of $100 or more qualifies you to become a voting member of the association. And remember that all donations are tax deductible in the United States.

Here's the link to give your gift:

[https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Z7DMMYU9AUR4C]

Thank you so much!

Lincoln Cannon President and Board Member Mormon Transhumanist Association

My Jesus.

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SHEET MUSIC

I don't know what I think about Jesus, sometimes. I'm clearly a believer -- a believer in his life, in the resurrection, in the atonement, in salvation and exaltation, in his hard moral teachings. But sometimes the ways I believe in these things seem so different from how I understood them before that some might not recognize them as Mormon.

I believe in the resurrection. I know it's unprovable historically, but I am pretty convinced the Book of Mormon is a historical narrative (not textbook), and that Christ's visit probably happened. At the same time, I'm nearly certain that Joseph Smith (or God, or Mormon, or somebeing) expanded on some parts of the original text he was translating/revealing, so I don't claim absolute certainty about much from the Book of Mormon. I just don't see evidence to suggest that the physical visit was an expansion without having first concluded Christ's visit was impossible. I also believe in the possibility of technological resurrection. I think Jesus knows how to do it, and it is a physical process (since it is restoring a physical body), so why can't we learn how to do it? We are expected to learn to be like Jesus in other ways, why not this one? Resurrecting people may not be the highest thing on my to do list, but I don't see why we should discourage anyone else from doing their best to be like Jesus -- even if I agree that faith and repentance ought to be higher on the list. We can each work on more than one good thing.

I believe in the atonement. I believe that Christ suffered to bind us all together and cover our sins, if we would join him. But I have a hard time seeing it as something magical in the ways I used to. What I see is an existence where pain and harm will never go away, even for Gods, and so if we would be with our Heavenly Parents -- if we would be Gods -- we must accept this pain. We must feel the harm our choices, and even eternal life, inevitably cause. We must choose to go forward together in full knowledge that eternal rest does not mean freedom from pain -- love comes at a cost. So every one of us must atone, just as Jesus did what he had seen his father do. Jesus's atonement is miraculous to me only partly because it is such a powerful example of atonement, but also because choosing to stay together in relationships with those who sometimes hurt us is simply miraculous, to me. And Jesus chose a relationship with everyone.

I believe in miracles. I think most are probably faith-promoting stories that popped up later, just like I think most fantastic stories are today, but I find it presumptuous to claim certain knowledge of very much in the distant past, especially based on negative evidence. Such claims reflect more on the (dis)believer than on what really happened. So I choose to believe many of Jesus's miracles, with very little certainty. To use the terminology of biblical scholarship, as best I understand it, I believe a high christology of miracles, but I bring it almost down to earth. My God condescended perhaps further than most, or perhaps not as far since he never was as unreachable.

But one thing all my uncertainties and earthbound beliefs have not removed is those moments of longing for home with Jesus. One Sunday I was thinking about why I long to be like Jesus. Here are some of my conflicted thoughts:

I want honor ... He had none. I want home ... He wandered. I want understanding ... He was questioned. I want life ... He died. I want redemption ... He suffered. I want certainty ... He submitted. I want peace ... He brought a sword.

Why do I long for this? Yet I do.

Merry Christmas, friends.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

Transhumanist Advent: The Messianic Pattern

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DISCIPLE HOLDING UP JESUS

In the scriptures we learn that the Satanic pattern is to vault oneself above all others:

“

“Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

”

—

2 Thessalonians 2:4

“

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:”

”

—

Isaiah 14:13

“

”

—

Doctrine & Covenants 29:36

We also learn that Christ's pattern is to raise others up with him:

“

“And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.”

”

—

Doctrine & Covenants 84:38

“

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”

”

—

John 14:12

“

”

—

Doctrine & Covenants 76:94-95

-Carl Youngblood

< Previous meditation

Visit Mormon Matters to listen.

Mormon Transhumanist Association at Sunstone West

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SUNSTONE WEST

Mormon Transhumanist Association board members Blaire Ostler, Carl Youngblood, Christopher Bradford, Dorothy Deasy, and Joseph West will speak at the Sunstone West Symposium in Berkeley CA on 30 January 2016.

The theme of the conference this year will be Mormons and technology. A complete schedule and registration are available on the Sunstone West conference website. The Mormon Transhumanist Association is sponsoring recording of the conference, and will make videos available on its YouTube channel afterwards.

My Depression and the God of Esau

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PAINTING WITH JESUS

My first encounter with really powerful depression came in the MTC. It worsened in the field. I cycled through periods of intense productivity and soul scouring depression a few times a month. As a missionary, I framed everything I experienced within the vernacular that was closest at hand. I attributed the depressive cycles to moral failure, not working hard enough, not being pure enough in my selflessness, despite the fact that I was clearly undergoing symptoms of clinical depression.

I viewed these dark episodes as the consequence of the sin of inadequacy. The wages of obedience, I was certain, were peace. While the Gospel could not ensure a steady income, friends, clothing, or food, I reasoned - the one thing I thought I had a right to was inner peace and assurance that I was "On the Right Path." I was deeply hurt and confused when that assurance did not come when I needed it most desperately -- a feeling I'm sure many of us, depressed or no, can relate to, to one degree or another.

In one of my darkest moments on my mission the noise of anxiety became so overwhelming that I simply walked out of the apartment during morning study without saying a word to my companion. I wandered the city haranguing myself for being weak, for having not measured up, agonizing over how I would get through the rest of my life having failed my mission, which, I had been taught, would set the pace for the rest of my life as an LDS male. When the fog of panic had settled and I could once again see clearly, I returned to the apartment to face my shaken companion and district leader, took a train into the city where the mission president was stationed, and accepted my mission president's invitation to just "man-up." My cycles of hyper-productivity and worsening depression continued, but I was thankfully able to finish and feel proud of the work I did.

I have struggled with severe depression regularly in the 10 years since my mission. It wasn't until the end of my missionary service that I started to notice a kind of tidal pattern to the ups and downs, suspecting, for the first time, that these dark moods were a product of a maladjusted brain, and not due to moral failing or a displeased God.

As I've mapped out the darker corners of my psychosphere over the following decade, one thing has become resoundingly clear: I can't always trust my feelings or self-analysis, especially when the cadence of my thoughts darkens and takes more cynical or caustic tones. Depression, to a large extent, is a phenomenological lens through which everything is filtered for me. While I have made enormous strides in navigating these emotional byways, depression is the central and defining struggle of my adult life. Everything I do is an accounting of it, an offering to it.

One of the things depression stole from me was the God I had envisioned growing up. God, I found, had nothing to say about the dark moods I passed through. And his representatives, despite their immediate accessibility, didn't either. I felt a deep isolation that made the concept of a loving God remote and inaccessible. Relief did not come when I needed it most, and there was no assurance that everything would be OK in the end, that this pain served a purpose. So I looked for alternative narratives.

In the years after my mission I discovered a movement in art that flowered around WWI called Dada, and it resonated deeply with me. A group of artists, meeting in Switzerland, saw the human search for beauty and "the good" as a failed venture in lieu of the war. They rejected the primacy of accepted forms of artistic expression, the virtue of beauty, and the privileged status of order and reason. They embraced chaos and absurdity. An incredibly fecund period of experimentation ensued, leading in turn to many other modes of expression , including surrealism and cubism, radically challenging how people looked at and defined "art."

Here I found my narrative. I would, I decided, reject my inherited assumptions because, on a pragmatic level, they didn't work. I hoped that a personal Renaissance would follow, and in starting from scratch that I would discover avenues that would have otherwise been inaccessible had I kept trying to move forward from the same foundational premises.

During this period, and while a student at BYU, I encountered the writings of Carl Jung. An English professor and dear friend, Suzanne Lundquist, introduced me to him and I instantly fell in love. Jung provided a way of looking at religion that accounted for the most horrible things I had experienced and which did not insist on religion being externally, objectively true. This allowed me to hold on to the value of undeniably, unforgettably powerful experiences I had received while actively LDS, without having to follow the usual train of logic that this meant that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that all subsequent truth claims established by the Church were also valid.

Moreover, Jung insisted that symbolism was essential to the spiritual life, and that spirituality was essential to health, but that these things pointed inward, not outward - avoiding in this subjectivity the distasteful problem of dogmatism. Christ was a potentiality for wholeness within all of us, and Christ himself was paradigmatic of the fully individuated human being. Like the Buddha, he was a pattern to be followed, realized even, and not just a god to be worshiped. This also allowed me to move away from perfection as a paradigm to the more humanistic goal of wholeness.

I remember reading the story of Jacob and Esau as an assignment for this same class and being overcome at its potency in a way that I had never before experienced. Esau, in my mind (and working through a Jungian, archetypal interpretative lens), represented my depression: my impulses, my wild, intemperate desires that often led me to dissipation in attempts to quell the pain I felt. Jacob represented the impulses of my rational mind for holiness, education, connection and community: my healthy brain.

The part of the story that I'd always missed, and which has become foundational in how I approach religion, occurs long after Jacob's con, years later when these estranged brothers are reunited. Jacob approaches Esau's home with caution, fearing violence against his person, the promise of that old blood feud. He sent his servants and gifts before him like a shield. Esau, however, in one of the most shining examples of forgiveness and radical love that I've come across in scripture, abandons formality and the long sedimentary buildup of enmity, runs to his brother without hesitation, and falls at his shoulder, embraces him, kisses him, and weeps. Jacob, stunned, and perhaps a little overwhelmed, says to Esau: "I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God."

It was Esau who had the greater compassion, and the greater capacity for forgiveness, despite the fact that he had by all fair estimation been wronged, tricked out of his inheritance, and dealt an unjust hand by his parents. This Esau is the wild man, who sold his birthright to satisfy his desire, and the same who is typically held up as an example of how not to comport oneself.

I found within this story a metaphor that moved me deeply. I would not find peace through alienating or shunning this other part of myself, my "demons" -- supposedly the adversaries of my better nature. In fact, I might just see the face of Christ, who had been so painfully absent for years, in that shadow-half. I might find in its shade a relief from the heat of my self-loathing and unobtainable expectations. Maybe I could extrapolate from the experience, as did Jacob, a higher more perfect love in the reconciliation of my healthy-self with that other I had bucked against and buckled under.

Was the face of God somewhere to be found in my depression? Some of the most powerful feelings of love I have felt in my life have come from embracing the wound that I understand now will never heal, and which will always be a significant part of who I am. And having to show a love to myself, that had been so inaccessible on my mission, revealed a God much closer than the God of Kolob who did not comfort nor heal. Depression showed me the limitations of the God I had built with my understanding: broke him, even. I've learned that the task of rebirthing God, slightly more evolved (hopefully) with each iteration, is my task, and mine alone -- as it is for everyone else.

At least for now, I have trouble approaching the idea of God as an anthropomorphic externality. Mormonism as a paint-by-numbers guide to heaven has no meaning for me. I lost that paradigm to depression (and then further had it drug through the mud by the usual information). In its place I hear an ethical call to envision a God that is better than the former to whom I prayed. I hear a call to be that God, as Esau was in the transfiguration of that moment for Jacob, as hard as that can be. I believe that we are not only complicit in creating the God in whose image we ourselves are re-created, but that it is our moral imperative to create an increasingly moral God.

I believe that God is the injunction to be creators in a way that best promotes life and its continuation, from the personal to societal level. My depression is Esau, wild, impetuous, and the embodiment of the need to love and for love, all the bolder for its caprice. The pain brings consciousness of my ideological limitations -- wisdom, as Satan brought it to Eve. From consciousness comes the capacity to create, and with the capacity to create, a moral imperative to create God, that I too, might increase in my capacity as a Creator until salvation is not just a concept, but more of a practice with social, environmental, and technological impact.

Carl Youngblood at Mormon Matters on Demythologizing

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CARL YOUNGBLOOD

The Mormon Matters podcast recently featured Carl Youngblood, vice president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, as well as association member Jordan Harmon. With host Dan Wotherspoon and Derrick Clements, they discussed the positive spiritual effects of disenchantment and demythologizing.

Here is the description of the podcast episode from Mormon Matters:

“Throughout our life cycle, we are all called to reexamine the truths, values, beliefs, and stories that suggest key purposes for living and give meaning to the things we do. In most areas of life, when we see cracks in our understanding or problems in the way we do things we usually find somewhat gentle ways to admit the issues that need addressing and to cast about for resources and new views that might aid or drive the needed changes. However, when it comes to the things we sense as life’s biggest value giver or most important stories or framings, what theologian Paul Tillich calls our “Ultimate Concern,” admitting that shifts are needed is much more difficult. And because for most of us, our Ultimate Concern involves God, anxiety about death or salvation, and other elements of life with seemingly very big consequences should we be wrong—the stakes are raised even higher. The problem is, however, these things of Ultimate Concern are not tangible in the way that much of life is. We can’t see them clearly or use any of our other physical senses to help us articulate them. Instead, we need metaphors and symbols and rituals and community dialogue to continually “point toward” them, to direct our attention to their looming presence even in their physical absence. Unfortunately, once we begin relying on these symbols and metaphors, quite naturally our minds begin to forget that these are not the things of Ultimate Concern themselves but only directors and encouragers, stories and practices that are to aim our attention to concerns and energies that lie beyond themselves.“

"All of us can recognize this danger, and we have likely experienced it ourselves. Furthermore most religions also understand this, and some better than others actually build in practices or have frequent conversations that talk about how we can end up focusing on the symbol rather than what it symbolizes, the literalness of a story versus its narrative and transformational power. These practices and conversations remind us to try to experience fresh the Divine or these Ultimate values and concerns, to allow our symbols and myths to “break” and remind us, again and again, that they were never intended to substitute for experiencing the things they point to. In these religions, we can find deliberate attempts to “disenchant” their followers with the symbols and old stories, sometimes in shocking ways, so they won’t focus on the wrong things. Or they will talk about the important role of “de-mythologizing,” of reminding ourselves that the powerful stories of our traditions, though often based upon real events or experiences of founders and others, also have mythic elements that must be sorted through. Sometimes the sorting leads to peeling back the layers to find an original core set of energies that gave and give life to the tradition; in other cases the process is to embrace the mythic elements even more thoroughly as a way of sending followers out of day-to-day consciousness and into more imaginative realms (but also ways of thinking that can allow the inrush of new insight and fresh transformative energies).

“This two-part podcast features Derrick Clements, Jordan Harmon, and Carl Youngblood, along with Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon, exploring the difficulties but also the rich blessings of becoming disenchanted, and/or entering into conscious demythologizing. The first part and a bit of the second focus mostly on how this process operates (and could operate better) at a personal level. The second part then folds into a discussion of how Mormonism as an institution might work more effectively to move us into the more powerful experiential realms that can follow upon “brokenness”—whether of symbols, myths, or our hearts. The episodes contain fascinating ethnographic material from Hopi and other cultures, strong exegesis from Paul Tillich and other thinkers, and the participants’ own life stories and experiences with these processes."

A Cosmic Mind

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PERSON STANDING BEFORE SUNSET SKY

In a faith which claims God is the creator or architect of the universe, one grand idea to lose yourself in is to reconcile that faith with the amazing truths mankind has discovered about those creations. This exercise was eloquently described by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century and resonates even more powerfully today:

Let him lose himself in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness. For who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which [is] imperceptible in the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach ...

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BLAISE PASCAL

Pensees by Blaise Pascal

This paradox is also echoed in religion: That when compared with God mankind is nothing; but to God mankind is everything. This is stated in the famous Psalm:

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

In an attempt to explore this paradox, interesting perspectives are gained on our relationship with God, the role of the atonement, and the eternal nature of family.

In Arthur C. Clarke's "3001 The Final Odyssey", the prolog opens with a description of the explorations of the "First Born" -- the first species to explore space-time:

... [since] in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars.

While this line is from science fiction, this idea (that Mind is the most precious thing in the universe) resonates with the declaration in Moses 1:39. In the Mormon faith, this notion of Mind described here aligns well with the doctrine of Intelligences which are seen as co-eternal with God.

To better understand what God sees in Mind or Intelligences, it is necessary to dive into what the essence of Mind is. From the Seventy's Course in Theology vol. 4 'Intelligence, Intelligences', the following descriptions of attributes are used to define Intelligence (or Mind):

Consciousness

[Intelligence is] conscious of self and of not-self; of the me and the not me. "Intelligence is that which sees itself, or is at once both subject and object." It knows itself as thinking, that is, as a subject; thinking of its self, it knows itself as an object of thought—of its own thought. And it knows itself as distinct from a vast universe of things which are not self; itself the while remaining constant as a distinct individuality amid the great universe of things not self. It is an awareness of the mind. By reason of it an Intelligence ... knows itself as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching; also as searching, and finding; as inquiring and answering; as active or at rest; as loving or hating; as contented or restless; as advancing or receding; as gaining or loosing, and so following in all the activities in which Intelligences, as men, engage.

Generalization

Intelligence (mind) can perceive... something that cannot be taken in by sense perception; that is to say, Intelligence can generalize. Sense can get at the individual, concrete thing only: "this triangle," "this orange," "that triangle," "those oranges," etc. By the consideration of the individual, concrete object, however, the mind can form an idea, a concept, a general notion—"triangle," "orange"—which does not specify this or that individual object, but "fits to any individual triangle or orange past, present, or future, and even the possible oranges that never shall be grown. In other words Intelligence can rise from consideration of the particular to the general.

Perception of a priori Principles

There are a priori principles, which the mind can perceive to be incontrovertible and of universal application, by mere reflection upon the signification of the principles and without going into the applications (e.g. 1+1=2, a triangle has 3 sides, etc.) The objects here are mental objects. Their relations are perceptually obvious at a glance, and no sense-verification is necessary. Moreover, once true, always true, of those same mental objects. Truth here has an 'eternal' character. If you can find a concrete thing ... then your principles will everlastingly apply to it. It is but a case of ascertaining the kind, and then applying the law of its kind to the particular object.

Imagination

By a mind-power known as imagination, or imaginative memory, Intelligences… can hold before consciousness, in picture, what has been perceived by an outward sense, and this even when the outward sense has been shut off from the outward world of matter. This power of imagination, is also constructive. Intelligences can put before themselves in mental picture, combinations which are fashioned from the varied stores of memory. But by the mere act of [its] will, [it has] the power to project [itself] in thought to any part of the world. Instantly [it] can be in the crowded streets of the world's metropolis, walk through its well remembered thoroughfares, hear the rush and roar of its busy multitudes, fragments of conversation, broken strains of music, etc. —- all this the mind may do.

Ratiocination

The mind (Intelligence) can combine various general principles or individual facts and principles; and in the combination and comparison of them, it can perceive other facts and principles. In other words, Intelligence is capable of reasoning; of building up conclusions from the data of its knowledge. It has the power of deliberation and of judgment; by which it may determine that this state or condition is better than another state or condition. That this, tending to good, should be encouraged; and that, tending to evil, should be discouraged, or, if possible, destroyed.

Power of Volition

Intelligence, as embodied in man, is also conscious of the power, within certain limitations, to will, and to perform what he wills to do: To rise up, to sit down; to raise his arm, to let it fall; to walk, to run, to stand... to control largely his actions, physical and moral; he can be sober or drunken; chaste, or a libertine; benevolent or selfish; honest or a rogue. Having deliberated upon this and that and having formed a judgment that one thing is better than another, or that one condition is better than another, he has power to choose between them and can determine to give his aid to this and withhold it from that. So that volition, within certain limitations at least, seems also to be a quality of Intelligence.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MIND WITH COLORS

[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16YbDTQCdHsGwxpKMBYTrR2sIHCTB2U3HpPQn5XSrJt8/viewform]

These attributes -- consciousness, generalization, comprehension of principles/truths, imagination, reason, and the ability to act or choose its own behavior -- are all necessary in order for something to be capable of comprehending what God is and for progress to be made to become like God.

Abraham had a similar revelatory experience to that of Moses (described previously). In Abraham's account, further insight was given on God's relationship to intelligences:

21 I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen.

22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;

23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

Abraham 3:21-23

And Joseph Smith further declared the eternal nature of Intelligences:

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

D&C 93:29

This is a teaching that is profoundly different from traditional Christianity: that consciousness (intelligence) is co-eternal (emergent) with God and that genuinely independent consciousness cannot be created or engineered by God -- which leads to ideas like adoption theology. The essence of who we are is what God cannot create and so we provide infinite originality, diversity, uniqueness, and perspective. For a creative God where originality becomes the final frontier, co-eternal beings become infinitely more valuable than whatever God can create alone. This strenuously orients God towards the discovery and fostering of the co-eternal attributes only consciousness brings.

God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them.

Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith - p. 354

So here we have Minds/Intelligences which are co-eternal with God. And it is these Minds that God sees as "good", with the desire being to "dwell in the midst of them all". This begins to unlock the paradox. Mankind is physically insignificant compared to God's creations, but the co-eternal Mind combined with the body of mankind is that which is most precious to God and to which God devotes "work" and "glory".

A wonderfully poetic expression echoing similar aesthetics is from the song "My Soul" by Peter Mayer:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

That is a profound truth. You and I, our emotions, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our loves, our imaginations, our reasoning; this life, with our Minds and bodies, is the most valuable thing in the universe to which God devotes energy.

But how can God develop a relationship with co-eternal beings that preserves and even fosters genuine originality of character and perspective? And what threats exist towards that end? A clue is found in two words: entropy and atonement. And I'll explore these in a future post.

2015 Member Survey

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

Dear members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association,

The association's annual member survey for 2015 is now available. All members of the association are invited to participate, and hopefully everyone will. That includes you! Here's the link to the survey:

This year, association leadership has included an optional section of questions on ideological identity. Your answers to these questions will help leadership make better informed decisions, representing your interests and perspectives.

The survey will run until 31 December, as usual, and you will be able to edit your responses until that time. Please complete the survey as soon as possible. In coming days, association leadership will reach out to members who have not completed the survey. Your early participation will decrease the amount of work they need to do, making the project easier. Thank you!

Brent Allsop Member Survey Manager Mormon Transhumanist Association

How a Depressed Transcendentalist Became a Curious Transhumanist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF FALL LEAVES AND LAKE

This post is part of a series of personal narratives written by members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. Each tells their story of how they became a Transhumanist. Guest: Joni Newman.

I’m probably not the most obvious person to be interested in the transhumanist movement. For starters, I’m an English teacher. I spend my time reading and annotating Jane Austen and helping my students understand the brilliance of Harper Lee. I grade nearly interminable piles of essays. When I get home, I cross stitch to wind down, and throw fuzzy balls at my cat while I watch Jimmy Fallon or something from the BBC. I own three copies of the first Harry Potter book. The closest I get to scientific exploration most days is an episode of Doctor Who and the occasional National Geographic article.

So my path towards interest in transhumanism really started with another famous group - the transcendentalists. I grew up with a fascination of transcendentalism that began with the Alcotts and worked its way towards Emerson. There was something so wonderfully beautiful about the prospect of humanity willing itself into a better existence. The utopian vision of people living and working together to rise above the natural man appealed to me.

Of course, further study on the transcendentalists led to a bit of discouragement. The group was full of good ideas but the application of those ideals was generally flawed and, ultimately, a failure. I still believed that their ideas were beautiful, but how does anyone make them work?

It was my study of the humanities that led me to see how desperately we need the sciences as part of progress toward being like God. The Doctrine and Covenants teaches that the Lord tells us in our minds and in our hearts what is true - thus suggesting that things will make sense to us both emotionally and logically. We are also taught that God’s house is a house of order - is that not the essential goal of any science? To find the order and logic and construction of the universe?

I grew to believe that miracles are only miracles until we understand the laws of the universe that govern them. What it is that allows the Savior to calm the storm, walk on water, and heal the sick is not magic - there are laws of science

of the priesthood - that allow such things to happen. I grew to believe that the universe was created through intense understanding of the laws that govern creation. Although I am an amateur scientist at best, I was drawn to the ideas of transhumanism - especially after I realized how deeply my life had been blessed by God through scientific development.

I’ve always been a believer that God expects humans to do the best that they can to improve their quality of life, but I have never believed that more fully until I needed to apply those principles to my own life. For about four years after college graduation I was incredibly depressed. It started out slowly, but increased to incomprehensible levels that left me, a relatively logical and practical person by nature, in tears more than once a week and feeling utterly debilitated and in a horrible state of despair. For all of those four years I prayed and studied my scriptures and begged for help from heaven. My family has a history of clinical depression, and a history of suicide in part because of poor management of that depression, and I did not want to go down that road. I didn’t want to turn my emotions over to medicine.

Things changed when my younger brother and his wife had their first baby. It had been hard enough watching a younger sibling get married while I have been perpetually single; it was even harder to watch him become a father. What should have been a joyous event for me was instead an occasion for resentment. I knew something needed to change. In prayer I felt as though God were telling me that it was time to talk to a doctor, so I went, and I got help. It was as miraculous an event to me as the healing of the blind man on the streets of Jerusalem. Where once everything had seemed dark and hopeless, things that I loved suddenly seemed marvelous again. I was a better teacher and co-worker. I had been afraid that getting medical help would turn me into someone else. Instead, it helped remind me of who I was and helped me to have more time in my life for the things I loved, rather than spending so much of my time trying to stay emotionally stable.

When I discovered transhumanism, thanks to the Facebook comments of some friends and by following the General Conference twitter feeds, the ideas of humans making their lives better and being directed by God through scientific principles just made sense. My life has benefitted from scientific discoveries in so many ways - how can I but believe that these are gifts from God? And if science, as we have it, has blessed my life - how can I not believe that further scientific discovery can draw me closer to becoming like God and promoting a world where others can as well? To me - transhumanism just makes sense.

The redemption of artificial intelligence

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF C3P0

Are artificial intelligences subjects of redemption in God's plan?

At the recent conference on Transhumanism and the Church at Samford University, pastor Christopher Benek suggested that the traditional Christian concept of human beings as creatures reveals humanity as artificial intelligence: God is true, non-artificial intelligence, who created non-divine (and therefore artificial) intelligences who are subjects of and participants in the divine plan of redemption. This is a strength of the traditional Christian position relative to transhumanism because if God already intends to redeem one kind of artificial intelligence, other kinds of artificial intelligence should not be excluded from the plan of redemption merely by virtue (or vice?) of being artificial.

To what extent is this argument available to Mormons? This depends on one's model of the origin of human souls, which is not univocal in Mormonism. I want to discuss three Mormon models and the availability of Benek's argument for each, then turn to a different, specifically Mormon, approach to the question.

The most widely accepted Mormon model of the origin of human souls is the tripartite model, in which individual humans have not existed as individuals eternally; rather, we were begotten spirits to a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother through a process at least analogous to physical procreation. Our spirit bodies are composed of eternal spirit matter (or intelligence in a collective sense), which does not have personal identity and thus would not be analogous to artificial intelligences in the transhumanist sense. But because the human soul is created by God, the analogy to artificial intelligence may appear to be available for transhumanist purposes.

However, the great weakness here (for these purposes, but a strength for other purposes) is that, as C.S. Lewis puts it, "When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself... What God begets is God." In other words, because human beings are already natural, and not artificial, intelligence, the analogy breaks down and so Benek's argument is actually unavailable.

The next most common Mormon model of the origin of human souls is simply that individual human beings have existed as persons eternally. In the words of Joseph Smith: "... there is no creation about it." Because there is no creation about it, the analogy of human beings to artificial intelligence fails and Benek's argument appears unavailable.

The third Mormon model of the origin of human souls is quite uncommon. It is essentially an evolutionary model of accretion and emergence. In this model, all matter is intelligent to some degree and the manifestations of intelligence, including the kind of personal identity we experience as human beings as well as the intelligence manifested by gods, depend on the organization and pattern of the intelligent matter. Personal identity emerges. This has much in common with the tripartite model, but does not include a literal procreation of premortal spirit bodies and suggests a more abstract, less robust personal identity prior to physical maturation. In some ways, this is a kind of middle ground between the two models outlined above, in that it includes the development of personal identity from eternally intelligent matter, but retains, at least as a proto-self, the sense that "there is no creation about it".

To the extent that God shapes the development of these intelligences, one could argue that the creation analogy with artificial intelligence holds. In fact, in any of these Mormon models, to the extent that intelligence depends on the material organization of the body and to the extent that God has a hand in this organization, Benek's argument is partially available. However, it certainly seems more weakly applicable in any of these Mormon views than in the traditional Christian view proposed by Benek.

However, there is an alternative approach to the question that is robustly available to Mormons and, I would suggest, to the broader Christian community. This approach is rooted in Catholic theologian Stephen H. Webb's observation that, for Mormons, all matter may be sacralized. What all three Mormon models have in common is that the entire universe is saturated with intelligence, both human and non-human. God's purpose is to make the entire universe sacred by organizing existing matter and spirits, teaching us to care for all of creation, and binding us in covenants of mutual love to participate in the work. In this model, the question of the redeemability of artificial intelligence is an unequivocal yes -- not because God already redeems artificial intelligences in the form of human beings, but because all existence is susceptible to redemption and exaltation. There is no such thing as "artificial" intelligence.

Applying The Gospel Algebra

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BALCK

“We need you to speak out … We need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom and your voices … My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstance, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration … We need women who have the courage and vision of our Mother Eve … So today I plead with my sisters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to step forward! Take your rightful and needful place … in the kingdom of God.”

Much has been said about recent LDS policy changes with regards to the parents and children in same-sex families. While I won't profess to have final answers (that's not what I'm offering here), I feel there's a need for more charitable dialogue and Christ-like discipleship to find ways forward. And I hope this can be a tool others can use to better understand each other.

I think there's some wisdom in an example from algebra. Perhaps you've seen the algebraic "proof" that "1 = 0":

x = y.
Then x2 = xy.
Subtract the same thing from both sides: x2 - y2 = xy - y2.
Dividing by (x-y), obtain: x + y = y.
Since x = y, we see that: 2y = y.
Thus 2 = 1, since we started with y nonzero.
And subtracting 1 from both sides we get: 1 = 0.

For those that have seen this you know that there’s an error in step #4. If x=y then x-y=0, and you can't divide by zero. Every other step (by itself) is perfectly fine algebra. But no matter what you do in steps 5-7 you simply won't arrive at the right answer because an underlying step, axiom, or premise is faulty.

I believe this is what has happened with the new policies. It's my opinion, and I won't claim infallibility. But it's the only opinion I can offer honestly.

I don't think the error or incompleteness has necessarily happened recently. But I believe it has happened somewhere along the line in our era (or perhaps before) and is now manifesting in this particular policy equation. I look at the policy and I understand (and genuinely empathize with) the immediate context and rationale of why it was instituted. I see the leaders of the church seeking to genuinely apply the gospel algebra, and I sustain them as they do so. But I look at the result and it doesn't add up with the message of Christ in certain ways. It's asking me to reconcile things that I can't with the message of Christ.

Again, I don't think that the problem is necessarily something recent - and thinking we can pin it on one person or assume malicious intent in those around us is an over-simplification. But I do think that there's an error or incompleteness somewhere along the line (manifesting itself in this way) and we need to go back and invite God to help us check our work. This is exactly what Joseph Smith did as he saw the religious turmoil in his day. He asked God to help him challenge assumptions and the result was the restoration. This is what he did when he saw how things didn't add up with regards to the salvation of the dead and the result was D&C 137, birthing essentials of LDS temple aesthetics.

I think we need to be willing to humbly ask God to help all of us check our work in the gospel; and this is precisely the work of restoration.

Now, I don't think the result is that we must think the same thing as the rest of the world on this matter - I'm concerned with what God's will is. But I do think that we must find more powerful ways to be more Christlike, even radically so, including paradigm-shifting ways.

This has several affects on me:

If someone is hurt by the policy change, I deeply empathize with them. And I'm filled with a hope and desire to foster the beginnings of faith that comes from healing.
If someone's faith has been shattered by this I know how they feel and I hope to help them begin to confidently pick up the pieces together in Christ.
If someone thinks the policy change rationale makes sense I can agree in a limited context, but I hope to inspire them to dig deeper to engage in restorative work and ask whether we can be on a more solid foundation in Christ.
I have empathy, trust, and hope in the fact that the leaders of the church are applying the gospel algebra, despite the fact that I personally don't see this particular equation as ultimately correct. And I maintain faith in our ability to continue in the work of restoration and revelation by sustaining each other.
And regardless, to all I hope and pray I can illustrate and inspire others towards the great work and opportunity we have together in the restoration as disciples of Christ.

It's important to understand that this is but one equation in the volume of the gospel. I see so many beautiful equations in the restored gospel that work wonderfully. My personally seeing a possible incompleteness or error in one says nothing about the other equations that "check out" when I invite the Lord to help me check the work behind them.

Administrative policies are the blunt instruments in the toolbox of the gospel. And while they serve a purpose, they aren't very good at administering the gospel intimately in individuals' lives. The power to personally administer the gospel into the lives of people is found in the finer instruments of grace we all have access to in our daily lives: a kind word, an open home, a heart-felt apology, a shared meal, a comforting hug, a listening ear, serving hands, and a trusting and forgiving heart. Our challenge as disciples of Christ is to apply these to all around us, especially to those we may disagree with.

I think we sometimes fail to get to the point where our testimonies go beyond creeds and authority. My testimony is not based on whether I agree with everything administratively or doctrinally (there are times when I don't). My testimony comes from a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ, the power of His atonement, the ability of the Book of Mormon and Bible to amplify discipleship in Christ, the transcendence of covenant faith, and the hope, work, and beauty of the restoration. This is the "rock" the scriptures are telling us to lay our foundation on (Helaman 5:12, Luke 6:47-49).

Those things transcend creeds and opinions on particulars. So I feel empowered to carve out my own faith and testimony according to my own conscience through personal revelation which I'm accountable for to God, not to creeds or authority. But (and this is the important part), I have covenanted to sustain the Lord's servants in every way my conscience will allow me to and I see tremendous blessings when I do so. And these sustaining blessings become even more poignant and sacred when I engage with others in the Lord’s work and they extend grace to give me the benefit of the doubt and sustain me in whatever way they can even when they may disagree with me and see my faults or errors.

These are the sacred gears of personal discipleship. And they work when we live true to personal revelation and live the gospel of Christ while engaging charitably with others in the sustaining work of the restoration.

I'll end by sharing an LDS Hymn which pierced my heart that my ward sang together that a truly inspired sister chose to lead the congregation in. I share these aspirations.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

Confessions and Covenants of a MoTranshUjU

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF HANDS WITH SCRIPT

Shefa Tal: Raising of the Hands during the Priestly Blessing of Judaism. #LLAP

Like many of the readers here, I was raised Mormon. That means I come from pioneer stock, and among my ancestors were personal friends of the seer Joseph Smith, colonizers, polygamists, members of the Mormon Battalion and the murderous Mountain Meadows militia. I advanced through the orders of the male-only Mormon priesthood, met my high school sweetheart in seminary, wrote to her every week during my two year mission, married and was sealed to her in the temple six months after my return and witnessed the birth of our first child two months after our first anniversary. But part of me doesn’t fit the Mo-mold and never did: my father is a Jew, and my parents were never married.

My mother was a Mormon 19-year-old babysitter and my father a recently divorced, Jewish, young single dad. He decided to keep my existence a secret from his three other children until five years ago, when tragedy forced his hand. I had very sporadic contact with my father growing up, and saw him only once between the ages of 8 and 25. As I was finishing my last year of college and preparing to take the medical school admissions test, I learned that my father’s second wife, a wonderful woman who knew me as a young child, was dying of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. It was her last wish that my father tell his other children about me and bring my family into theirs. It happened on Father’s Day 2010. In what was for her a Herculean effort, she spelled out with her big toe, her last movable appendage, the words “God didn’t want me home until we made this right.” She died two months later, after changing my life.

With this story I would like to share how my experience growing up with my head in Mormonism and my heart in Judaism has shaped my understanding and appreciation for covenants.

Getting to know my Jewish family filled a hole in my life that I had felt from the time that I was little. I had always felt close to my Jewish heritage, and even taught myself a little Hebrew at age 16 and practiced with the only Jew in my high school. I had always felt especially special being a Mormon and a Jew, both peoples of the covenant near and dear to God’s heart. I would joke that no-one could call me a gentile! But after these two worlds collided for me, my already tenuous equilibrium was thrown off.

This watershed moment happened during an already tumultuous time in my own life, as my wife and I were in the midst of a crisis of our childhood faith. Our concerns stemmed from many issues, mine primarily included truth claims in direct contradiction to scientific facts about the origins of Native Americans, humans and the rest of life. Issues that my wife had, which I also came to adopt in time, were the hidden history, gender inequality, mistreatment of our LGBT brothers and sisters and intolerance of sincere questions and doubts by other people like us voiced in public. We were also deeply saddened by the excommunications of intellectuals, feminists and LGBT activists for their open dissent from the theopatrioangulogerontocracy, while the likes of Bruce Jessen, the mastermind behind the “advanced interrogation techniques” used on the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, who was not just given a free pass, but was called as a Bishop. Our crises culminated as the scales of our inner Pascalian Wagers tipped away from the church to which we had covenanted our time, talents, everything we possessed and even our own lives if necessary. It was not an easy or trivial matter, and we experienced a great deal of grief, loss, guilt and pain.

My Jewish family was a source of light to us in this time. We saw in the traditions of reform Judaism an equality of the sexes, an openness to people of all genders and sexual orientations, and a liberal, progressive ethos. One of my older brothers is gay and yet remains a Jew in good standing! My other older brother is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat politician in a very red state, but his Jewishness is unassailable no matter how he votes.This was refreshing, and ironically the teachings and values I heard preached by the Rabbi reminded me of the original message of Jesus, whose gospel was one of social justice!

Our first year back in contact we went to the synagogue with them for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and heard the Shema (Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is the one) and read out of the Torah scrolls of the covenant they made with Yahweh, and tried to keep with mixed success, to be His people and keep his commandments, or mitzvot. We celebrated the Passover, and remembered how God had delivered the Jews from slavery in Egypt. We covenanted to continue this work of liberation for all people from all types of slavery until the whole world had been healed and there was peace in Jerusalem. We prayed that it might be so not just within our lifetime but next year (L’shana haba’ah ve yerushalayim!). If the messiah comes to help us, great, but we’re not gonna hold our breath and wait.

There is no direct translation for the word "covenant" in Hebrew, but the words that are used in the Bible that we replace with the English word "covenant" include a pact, treaty, to tighten a wrap or to put in a bind. The covenant made with Yahweh evolved over time: initially their promise was only to put away other gods (such as Baal and Asherah, popular fertility cults in the ancient Fertile Crescent), not necessarily to deny their existence or power, but just to remove the other options that were once there and be loyal to Yahweh, who calls himself a “jealous god.” In much of the Hebrew Bible this relationship between Yahweh and Israel is compared to a marriage that is both joyous and strained, punctuated by infidelity on the part of Israel followed by righteous anger and forgiveness on the part of God.

To this day, Jewish marriages are only formalized under the canopy, or chuppah, after a very thorough, legally binding agreement called a ketubah has been agreed upon by the families of the bride and groom. Over time, with the later prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos and Hosea, the understanding of the covenant was broadened to include not just loyalty but responsibility on the part of the Jews to work out Yahweh’s will for Social Justice in all the world, and forego their contentedness with the outward piety of the temple ceremonies and their thoughts of privilege as God’s chosen people. This was a message that Jesus would make very clear during his ministry: God has no patience or love for those who profess to know Him while neglecting the poor, the sick, the slave, the widow and the orphan. Faithful Jews take seriously this responsibility to heal the world, or in Hebrew Tikkun Olam, an imperative that comes from the Mishnah and the Kabbalah, collections of Rabbinic teachings that comment and expand on the Hebrew Scriptures.

In Mormonism, there are many covenants that are made throughout life beginning at baptism, and culminating in the temple ceremonies of the initiatory anointing and washing, the endowment and eventually the sealing ordinance. I have promised not to disclose the specifics of these ceremonies, but will share that for myself, as a man (I cannot speak to what it may be like for a woman), those experiences were magnificent and sacred. In baptism, new members promise to take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ, to always remember Him, keep His commandments, and serve Him to the end. They renew this covenant each time they partake of the sacramental bread and water on Sunday. Baptism is usually performed at age 8, unless you are a convert, or as of this week, unless your parents are gay -- it’s been a rough week for those of us who have LGBT family and friends who have been impacted by this terrible decision, and our thoughts are with those who are suffering.

When Jews think of the word covenant it is clear that this means a two way promise between themselves and God, “You will be my people, and I will be your God”. When Mormons think of a covenant, they are reminded of the promises they make at baptism and the added covenants made and heavenly blessings promised (which include not just salvation but exaltation if kept), during the sacred rites of the temple. These covenants are made once for living individuals and then countless times again for the dead by proxy. I thought Mormons and Jews had a corner on the covenant market. I never imagined I would find anything comparable in another faith, especially not in Unitarian Universalism.

When I first tried to imagine UU’s making a covenant, it sounded more like, “God, if there is a God, Please save my soul, if I have a soul.” When my wife first started going to a UU church in Arizona, I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. I had once heard an interview with the late Christopher Hitchens, of New Atheism fame, where he said that, “Unitarians are actually atheists who are just too ashamed to admit it.” Not knowing much about UU’s, I thought they were panentheists -- the Baha'is of the West. I thought being UU meant you can believe and do anything you want! And to some extent that is true, but I’ve been pleased to discover that when it comes to covenants we share a common source of strength, devotion and sacrifice.

Unlike the covenants of Judaism and Mormonism, UU’s covenant with each other, as equals, to love, respect and serve one another and to help each other flourish. Like the protagonist Michael Valentine Smith, the man from Mars in the great masterpiece of Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, we say to one another, “Thou art God, and I am God, and all that Groks is God.”

While preparing this, my wife told me about a video produced for the UUA GA called “What Do We Promise One Another.” The video mentions a Unitarian minister named James Luther Adams, who travelled to Europe in the 1930’s and was deeply troubled by the rise of Nazism and the inability of liberal German Christianity to resist it. There were notable exceptions to the complacency and implied consent of religious Germans to the Nazi atrocities, such as the Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but they were few and mostly ineffective. This experience left an indelible impression on Adams, who is considered the greatest UU theologian of the last century. After returning to America from Europe he helped to expand the idea of what it means to be a Unitarian to include a responsibility to other individuals and the world to resist injustice, much like the late prophets of the Jews.

The one consistent and defining feature of all religions is the realization that things are not as they should be. The great German theologian Rudolf Otto describes this as the struggle between the sacred and the profane in his best known book, Idea of the Holy. It can be seen in the Fall, the resulting separation from God and the problem of evil in Judaism and Christianity, suffering in Buddhism, injustice and pride in Islam, and the cycle of death and rebirth in Hinduism. Religion takes our sense of this wrongness for granted and says, “Do this, which requires that you believe/have faith in this, and things will be made right.” Almost every religious tradition has independently discovered what we refer to in secular society as the Golden Rule: do unto others what you would have others do unto you. A version of this admonition can be found in the teachings of nearly every great religious leader, from Krishna to Moses to Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed.

Religion inspires “right action” with a burning, urgent desire called the “strenuous mood” and has shown itself the greatest social force in all of human history to change our behavior, from doing that which comes naturally and serves only ourselves, our kin or our group, to doing that which serves the wider religious community (the “Ummah” in Islam, the “Sangha” in Buddhism, “Beth Israel” in Judaism, the “Body of Christ” in Christianity or “the Saints” in Mormonism), and in some transcendent cases to all people, and even all life. I remember some of the last words of Socrates, who was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens, who said “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the World.” I am also reminded of a favorite childhood poem, Outwitted by Edwin Markham,

He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

Inclusion, drawing bigger circles, showing that all people are of one family and that the well-being of each one of us is ultimately interconnected and dependent on the well-being of all: this should be another common denominator of every religion. It is the logically consistent conclusion which marries the the soul-felt conviction of compassion. This truth will bring the religious vision to life and usher in the Kingdom of God, Zion, Utopia, and Heaven on Earth. And this vision is a religious mission that science can assist with.

In college, one of the most challenging and rewarding classes I had to (er, I mean got to) take was organic chemistry. My professor professed to be a progressive man, but had no mercy for the trees of this world as he forced us to hand copy his extensive lecture notes containing the exhaustive steps of complex chemical reactions, with electrons pushing and being pushed in all directions around endless hexagons representing organic molecules. Besides getting very good at drawing hexagons, I learned a valuable lesson in his classes: science does not tell us how things ought to be, only how they are, and even that is questionable because science does not claim to have the Truth. It is just the process by which we tell smaller and smaller lies about reality.

One of the lies that has gotten smaller through science is the concept of biological race. Once thought so obviously unquestionably true, it was used to justify the abominations of slavery and segregation, as if the authoritative weight of science were solidly behind them, which was never the case. Now modern genetics has shown without any doubt not just that all people are more closely related than we ever imagined, but that people are more closely related to the rest of life than we ever imagined. Science has even cast doubt on the still prevalent self-evident truth that humans are superior beings to other types of intelligent life. So this represents a rare convergence of the two traditionally non-overlapping magisteria of science and religion that should be leveraged to the hilt by people of faith and of science to heal the world. My vocation in the science of medicine has given me the means of carrying on this mission through covenants I make with my patients.

In medicine there are many models that describe the way patients and doctors relate to each other. There is the traditional paternalistic model, which many of my older patients seem to embrace, where the doctor is the final authority and the patient should acquiesce to what the doctor thinks is best. Then there is the consumer model, where the patient is an always-right customer and the physician little more than a highly specialized human health technician. And then there are covenant physician-patient relationships, where medical decision making power is shared, the doctor assumes the role of teacher (the Latin noun docere, the root of the word doctor, is “to teach”) and helps the patient understand enough about their problem to make a truly informed decision, based on their own values, which the doctor will respect and only seek to persuade and not to coerce. The great oaths of Hippocrates (a Greek who lived in the fifth century BC) and Maimonides (a Jew who lived in the 12th century AD) affirm the ideal of a covenant doctor-patient relationship with the following phrases:

From the Oath of Hippocrates:

"I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage ... Whatsoever house I may enter, my visit shall be for the convenience and advantage of the patient; and I will willingly refrain from doing any injury or wrong from falsehood ... whatever may be the rank of those whom it may be my duty to cure, whether mistress or servant, bond or free."

From the Oath of Maimonides:

“The eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all time; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor thirst for glory or for a great reputation engage my mind; for the enemies of truth and philanthropy could easily deceive me and make me forgetful of my lofty aim of doing good to Thy children. May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain."

Drawing upon these ancient sources of wisdom and our own hopes, my medical school class collectively wrote our own oath which we recited during our initiation into medicine, when we donned our white coats for the first time, and at our graduation where the title of doctor was conferred on us. I would like to share some of it with you.

From My Medical School Class Oath:

"We believe that a physician's responsibility to heal and the responsibility to educate are inextricably linked. We make it our duty to be generous listeners and leaders, empowering our patients to actively participate in their health and well-being.

“May we be humbled by our limitations, acknowledge our mistakes and learn from others for the benefit of our patients. Above all, we recognize the fragility of life and will strive to do no harm.

“We accept that our responsibility as leaders extends beyond our practice and into our communities. We aspire to bridge the disparity in access to care and will serve those in our community, be they rich or poor, young or old, friend or foe.”

In closing, I leave you with the traditional Priestly Blessing. In ancient Temple Judaism, a member of the tribe of Levi, more specifically of the sons of Aaron the brother of Moses, would offer a prayer daily for those gathered to watch the sacrifices. He would make the sign of the shin with his hands to represent El Shaddai, the Almighty God -- and yes, the rumors that Leonard Nimoy, or Spock from Star Trek, borrowed this for his Vulcan salute are all true!

Priestly Blessing:

May the LORD bless you and guard you – יְבָרֶכְךָ יהוה, וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ (Yevhārēkh-khā Adhōnāy veyishmerēkhā ...)

May the LORD make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you – יָאֵר יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ ("Yāʾēr Adhōnāy pānāw ēlekhā viḥunnékkā ...)

May the LORD lift up His face unto you and give you peace – יִשָּׂא יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם ("Yissā Adhōnāy pānāw ēlekhā viyāsēm lekhā shālōm.")

Love is love. Life is life.

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CLASSICAL PAINTING WITH TWO WOMEN

In response to recent LDS Church policy changes related to children of LGBT parents, a kind and well-meaning friend commented on the outpouring of reactions.

She said, "I can’t help but think this is killing our Prophet."

Upon reading the words, I softly said to my monitor, "No, aging is killing our Prophet."

The last couple of days an internal monologue has been pacing through my mind, and I feel the need to share it.

Have we lost sight of our priorities? I believe my church has more pressing matters to address than the sexual relations of loving consenting adults.

Homosexuals are not the enemy. Death, hate, and fear are the enemy, and must be overcome with life and love. Will our species evolve beyond such wasteful antagonism, or will we stagnate in dogmatic expectation that only others must change?

Love is love. Life is life. Why do we keep trying to tell it what it is supposed to look like?

Aesthetics matter. I get it. I’m an artist and designer, and I’m fully aware of the power of aesthetics. In the design field we have a principle: form follows function. Acute awareness of aesthetics can be a substantial enhancement to the human experience, but if the aesthetics are in direct conflict with functionality, practicality supersedes aesthetics.

Today I question if my church is so focused on the aesthetics of the family unit, which are highly subjective, that they have lost sight of the purpose and function.

Transhumanism, to me, is the religion of life that is made meaningful through love. This is a product of my Christianity.

Using every technology at our disposal to preserve and create both love and life is the most purposeful objective I can currently imagine. This is a product of my Mormonism.

How else can we become like our Heavenly Parents if not through the vigorous advancement of life and love? How else will our species evolve into superintelligent posthumanity without embracing both life and love as our primary objectives?

Zoltan Istvan’s transhumanism is convoluted. It’s helping the cause.

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ZOLTAN ISTVAN

All publicity is good publicity.

That maxim couldn’t be truer when it comes to transhumanism’s crossover with the presidential campaign cycle.

So thank you, Zoltan Istvan, wrong as you are.

Transhumanism is about overcoming mortality through science and technology. Istvan started the Transhumanist Party USA and is running for president on the platform.

Istvan’s positions are quite off-base. But they’ve been all over the news.

As Lincoln Cannon, a leading advocate of transhumanism, wrote, Istvan’s party

“cowers under authoritarian control, so long as it denies the diversity of Transhumanist values, and so long as it mongers unnecessary hostility toward others.”

The Transhumanist Declaration reads that

“policy making ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe.“

"The positions and actions of Zoltan Istvan and his political party are not consistent with the Transhumanist Declaration," Cannon wrote. "They are not inclusive. They do not show solidarity with or concern for the interests and dignity of all."

All of this is true.

But we must consider the publicity of a critical set of ideas through a political candidate and/or his platform that wasn’t always right.

Consider even the most recent presidential campaign cycle.

Federal overreach through Rand Paul. Race issues through Barack Obama. Mormonism through Mitt Romney.

Publicity means an increase in knowledge of the message. The message is assessed more. If the message is good, it nourishes souls (Alma 32). And the message's true definition is better understood.

There’s nothing more important than that – we’re that much closer to Zion.

Fortunately, journalists also apparently (if not unknowingly) think so. Because of Istvan, consider the media where collectively millions upon millions of consumers have at least heard about transhumanism:

The New York Times. The Huffington Post. CNN. BBC. Fox News. Yahoo! News. Newsweek. The Daily Beast. National Geographic. And many more.

Yes, Istvan and his platform are misconstruing transhumanism. But as Oscar Wilde said: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about. And that it not being talked about."

2016 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association on 9 April

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF MTA LOGO

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce that next year's annual conference will take place on Saturday, 9 April 2016, at the Provo City Library.

Our transhumanist keynote speaker will be Eric Steinhart, author of Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life after Death and professor in the Department of Philosophy at William Paterson University. Eric holds degrees in computer science and philosophy and has previously worked as a software engineer. He has written extensively on Nietzsche, metaphor, computing, technology, and religion. Our Mormon keynote speaker will be announced later.

Philosophy, Theology and the Sociology of Religion: The secularization hypothesis and its implications for religion and religious organizations; post-secularization; ethics; faith and rationality; religious anthropology; philosophy of religion; scriptural hermeneutics; demythologization; post-modern religion; religious naturalism; social anthropology of technology; sociology of technology; technology and spirituality; feminism and gender issues; technology and gender.

Transhumanism: Transhuman-ism and trans-humanism; evolution and the great filter argument; Moore’s law, Kurzweil’s law and the technological singularity; the pace of technological change; evolution; the evolution of technology; simulation argument; solar energy; genome sequencing; synthetic biology; 3D printing; genetics and biotech; nanotech and molecular machines; robotics and artificial intelligence; substrate independent minds; mind uploading; consciousness; cultural impact of technology; coping with the pace of technological change; neuroscience

Transfigurism: rejecting fundamentalism; rejecting anti-religiosity; transfigurist science; transfigurist politics; transfigurist art; promoting benevolence; promoting creativity; engineering transfiguration; engineering resurrection; engineering renewal of this world; engineering worlds without end; the New God Argument

Please send submissions in RTF, PDF, MS Word or Google Doc format to [admin@transfigurism.org]. Include author's full name, contact information, and title.

Some funding is available to reimburse portions of travel for presenters. Please indicate interest in being considered for travel support in the submission email.

For more information, visit the official website of the Mormon Transhumanist Association at [transfigurism.org]. Recordings of presentations from previous years are available on our YouTube channel.

Important dates Conference Paper Submission Deadline: February 1, 2016 Presentation Invitation Notification Date: March 1, 2016 Conference Date: April 9, 2016

The Priesthood is a Spiritual Technology for Women Too

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF JESUS PAITING

I would like to share a new perspective on priesthood: that of a Mormon Feminist Transhumanist. Although some may criticize me and my minority position in our vulnerability, I feel it is important to offer this perspective with authenticity and honesty.

As context, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the largest Mormon denomination), priesthood is the power and authority of God given to man, including the authority to perform ordinances and to lead the Church. Presently, ordination and full access to priesthood is reserved for men only. Although women may participate in limited ways, men preside over all women’s positions and auxiliaries, and women are excluded from presiding in Church governance.

In this post, I will first illustrate the harmful effects of excluding women from full participation in the priesthood though a personal narrative. I will then comment on desires, benefits, and risks that would accompany the ordination of women.

A Father’s Blessing

It’s a Mormon tradition for the father of the household to give each child a priesthood blessing before the beginning of each school year. They are often referred to as "father’s blessings". It’s a lovely tradition. I remember, as a young girl, taking turns with each of my sisters, sitting in a chair, while my father laid his hands on our heads and blessed each of us. They are happy memories.

However, when I was 14 my father was excommunicated from the Church on Easter Sunday. He was cut off from the Mormon community as a form of discipline and was deemed unworthy to exercise the priesthood. My father was the only male in our home. This left my mother, two sisters, and me to fend for ourselves in matters of the priesthood.

The following school year I would not have a father’s blessing. Of course, the typical response to this particular predicament is to call the home teachers or bishop to come provide access to a priesthood blessing.

If only it were so simple.

The reality is if I were to ask my home teachers to come to our home to give me a priesthood blessing, my father would have the humiliating experience of sitting by and watching another man preside in his home and bless his daughter. My mother would have the humiliating experience of watching another man come into her home and bless her daughter because she was deemed an unfit candidate for the priesthood due to the fact she was female. As for me, I was a teenage girl going through puberty, starting my period, experiencing other bodily changes, and what I really needed was a priesthood blessing from my parent, not from a couple of well-meaning men from my ward whom I had hardly spoken a word to.

No priesthood blessing was worth the humiliation it would cause my family, so I concluded it was better to go without.

I cried in bed the night before school started. I fervently prayed to Heavenly Father with genuine intent asking Him to bless me with His Priesthood. I waited quietly and patiently for a response, but felt nothing. I was alone.

After I finished crying, I fell asleep that night feeling like a silly girl with shattered dreams in a fraudulent illusion. I suppose we all have to grow up someday.

Struggling to Find My Place

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PREISTS

A year or so later, some other negative experiences with the priesthood and priesthood holders caused me to question the priesthood more deeply. Where did it come from? Why would God exclude women? Why would God alienate women who weren’t connected to a righteous male priesthood holder? Why did Peter, James, and John confer priesthood to Joseph? Why didn't Mary, Martha, and Eve confer priestesshood to Emma? Is the former so much more believable than the later?

I had a seminary teacher, Sister Simpson, who saw me struggling to find my place in my religion. The two male priesthood-holding seminary teachers from prior classes had asked me to leave their lessons on more than one occasion for questions and conduct that were "uninviting of the spirit". Apparently, it was inappropriate for a 15-year-old girl to question her place in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and religion with the persistence that I did. However, Sister Simpson was different. She never asked me to leave her class. Not once. Instead she offered me an opportunity. She invited me to read the priesthood sessions of conference to get answers to my questions.

I remember feeling confused by her suggestion and responded, "… but I don’t have the priesthood." She smiled and calmly replied, "Neither do I, but I still read them."

I made a habit of reading, watching, hearing, and studying recordings of Priesthood Sessions of General Conference — meetings women are generally denied direct access to.

It's been a bittersweet journey. Some of the most faith affirming concepts and impressions I received were seeded in those meetings. A small, fragile testimony was forming. I longed for the priesthood to bless the lives of those I loved. I didn’t vie for any authority or power to climb the hierarchical ladder. I simply wanted to be as self-reliant as others in the Church, just as my religion counseled me to be. Perhaps that council only applied to men.

However, the beauty of priesthood came with a sting. I was clearly rejected from the group as a 16 year old girl. I was nothing more than an imposter with her nose pressed up against the glass with a clear view of what was being taught to men — and what was being taught to women. I desired to be like Jesus Christ, but my desires were met with hostility. Had I not been female, my desires would have been celebrated and congratulated and deemed worthy of praise.

Over time I grew sorrowful and eventually angry. Is the priesthood even associated with God, or is the priesthood simply one more tool men use to further subjugate women? Why are men given more tools to be self-reliant, while women are excluded? Is God sexist or is it just my religion?

Disillusionment

My freshmen year of college, I was engaged with a wonderfully devout Mormon who wore the priesthood so lightly it didn’t even seem to matter that I didn’t have it. It was difficult to reject the priesthood when he used it so honestly, but it did highlight that if I wanted a fuller relationship with the priesthood, he was my conduit. Even with a righteous priesthood holder in my life, I still felt an imbalanced dependency.

Then we were married in the Portland temple, and my fragile faith was crushed by an overwhelming sense of sexism. I felt that the ceremonies undervalued my gender and my sincerest desires to be like Jesus Christ. The experience genuinely broke my heart.

By the time it was over, I had what I felt at the time to be a clear image of the priesthood, its origins, its purpose, and my relationship with it. I concluded that I didn’t need the priesthood in my life. I had no desire for it. I was disillusioned entirely.

A New Perspective

A few years later, I delivered a healthy baby boy. After the birth of our first child, the tradition of a father’s blessing shortly followed. There were many conflicting emotions in my heart that day. Happy memories flooded my mind from my early childhood, followed with the grief of knowing I would be excluded from equitably engaging in priesthood blessings and ordinances for my children.

I watched my husband hold our tiny baby in his strong but gentle arms. During the blessing he spoke words that deeply resonated with me. I still had no intention of believing that the priesthood was anything more than a bunch of made-up nonsense, and I had no interest in receiving a priesthood blessing for myself, but nonetheless hearing his blessing changed me.

I became grateful to have a husband who held the priesthood, not because I subscribed to any superstitious nonsense, and not because I valued any unilateral male dependency. No, certainly not. I changed because I was able to see the priesthood from a new perspective — a completely natural, yet less cynical perspective.

I could see the priesthood as a spiritual conduit for bonding that provoked a collective mood of love and devotion. Had the majority of my experiences with the priesthood been like that, perhaps I would have been, as some Mormon women are, indifferent or resistant to female ordination.

But the young teenage girl inside me was still sad to be excluded from the experience of blessing my own baby. I contemplated what it would be like for my newborn son, who I created inside my body, to be ordained to the priesthood. What would it be like for him to bless, ordain, and baptize his future siblings, while I could not do the same for my own children? What would it be like for him to be congratulated and praised for his righteous desires for ordination at age 12, when my teenage desires for ordination were met with hostility and rejection?

I was conflicted, but ultimately grateful for the opportunity for my husband and son. I couldn’t be angry when it brought them so much happiness. I genuinely loved them, so their happiness became my happiness, and I pushed my own pain into the corners of my mind.

That day I realized what I missed most about not having the priesthood directly in my life was the opportunities to express and share love through ritualistic blessings and ordinances.

When my father blessed me before each school year, he spoke kind and thoughtful words that he probably would have never said had the opportunity of an annual priesthood blessing not presented itself. We formed positive memories and experiences that further formed our worldview. But the influence of those experiences was stunted once the priesthood was removed from my family. I wonder what experiences my mother, sisters, and I could have shared if the priesthood were freely available to us.

When my husband blessed our child with several other men, including my father, there were tangible expressions of love, devotion, and power that changed my husband as a man and father. How would those experiences shape him as a human being? How would those rituals affect our family dynamics? If my husband were removed from the equation, what spiritual technology could I use to recreate those meaningful memories and experiences for my children, if not the priesthood?

A Spiritual Technology

Priesthood is a spiritual technology and holds transformative power that is worth experiencing and exploring. The power lies in opportunities and access, just like any other technology. Priesthood technology has the potential to strengthen interpersonal relationships, forge bonds of spirituality, shape meaningful worldviews, and present opportunities for growth, leadership, and development.

Priesthood power lies not in any supernatural or mystical forces. Priesthood power lies in our willingness to let it transform us. But without access, the power is diminished.

When we limit equal opportunity and deny access to those positive experiences, we are weakening ourselves from within. When we thwart the righteous desires of women who wish to use that technology for good, we diminish the collective influence the priesthood has to offer.

The Desires of Abraham

My desire for female ordination is neither an unreasonable demand nor a groveling plea. Rather, it is a respectful and mutually beneficial desire that, I feel and think, merits our most serious consideration. It would further alleviate unnecessary suffering while providing more intimate opportunities for spiritual growth and development. And it would establish equal opportunity for us all in our desires to become Christ.

Abraham, that great priesthood patriarch himself, establishes precedent for desiring and seeking ordination:

“And, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers.”

Abraham, it says, was "desiring" and "sought ... the right [to be] ordained" to possess greater knowledge and righteousness. And as a follower of righteousness, he "became a rightful heir, a High Priest”.

Women who seek ordination for further knowledge and righteousness are not so different from Abraham, who was rewarded for his righteous desires and became a High Priest.

Desires of the Minority

I recognize that women who desire ordination are the minority, but being in a minority does not equate with being wrong. People who desired and advocated for racial equality concerning blacks and the priesthood were once the minority until they weren’t. Mormons are a minority among Christian denominations, but does that make Mormonism wrong or unworthy of consideration? Minorities bring valuable insights that are often overlooked.

Some argue that most women “don’t even want the priesthood”. I would generally agree. However, I would urge women who speak out against ordination to consider: does your lack of desire denote that another’s genuine desire is unholy or unrighteous? Not necessarily. As for Abraham, seeking ordination may be for her a manifestation of faithful and righteous desires.

I would ask Mormon women who do not desire the priesthood to empathize with those who have perhaps had less favorable circumstances, and to contemplate how women could benefit from ordination in ways they have perhaps not yet considered.

I would also ask Mormon women to consider that not all men desire priesthood ordination either, yet we encourage young males to develop a strong and earnest desire to serve with priesthood authority, as exemplified in the Aaronic Priesthood manual: "Each young man will understand the duties of a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood and will desire to magnify his calling as an Aaronic Priesthood holder."

I trust that if the opportunity presented itself, faithful young women would be more than capable of developing a similar desire and would embrace the responsibility and duty just as our faithful young men have.

"This Society a Kingdom of Priests"

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PAINTING OF 17TH CENTURY WOMEN

Some believe that "asking for the priesthood" is counterproductive and actually undermines the authority of both God and women, in an attempt to receive authority from men. However, the priesthood is not men’s authority to give. Men are simply the current conduit for priesthood.

Could the ordination of women, through presently available conduits, be an essential step in the Restoration of the Gospel? Nowhere is it established in Mormon doctrine that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. And there is strong evidence to suggest that ordination of women may be part of the Restoration.

During the early formation of the Church, women were granted priesthood responsibilities that now seem lost. In Latter-day Saint Women and the Priesthood of God, written by a fellow Mormon Transhumanist Association member, Mark Koltko-Rivera suggests that Joseph Smith intended the Relief Society to be "A Kingdom of Priests". On March 31, 1842, Joseph Smith spoke to the sisters of the Relief Society. The minutes read, "… that the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood, hence there should be a select Society separate from all the evils of the world, choice and virtuous and holy — said he was going to make of this Society a Kingdom of Priests as in Enoch’s day — as in Paul’s day …" (page 14)

The Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book (1842-1844) also reads,

“

“… that the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them, that they may be able to detect every false — as well as to the Elders. This Society is to get instruction thro’ the order which God established — thro’ the medium of those appointed to lead — and I now turn the Key to you in the name of God and this Society shall rejoice and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time.”

”

—

pages 37-38

These recordings of the Prophet strongly suggest ordination of the "Relief Society" as well as the " Elders". Was Joseph acting on behalf of God? Could an all-female Relief Society be ordained as priests? Why would Joseph call them "Priests"? Surely he knew they were female and also created in the image of God and fully capable of acting on behalf of that God.

The priesthood is commonly assumed to have a male aesthetic, but this is an oversimplification. From Genesis, we may infer that God is both male and female, as "both male and female" are created in the "image of God". Heavenly Mother’s presence in Mormonism also suggests an equitable duality of God’s gender. The priesthood is no more male than female, and no more masculine than feminine.

The priesthood is expressed in infinite diversity through each individual who is authorized to exercise it. One can hypothesize the Relief Society’s expression of the priesthood would be different than the Elder's, yet both would come from the same source of unified power and authority of Godly Parents. Equal opportunity does not need to be conflated with congruency. Our genders are different, but the priesthood itself does not have a gender, nor is it limited to a male aesthetic.

Sidney Rigdon said, "Emma was the one to whom the first female priesthood was given." (June 1868, communication to Stephen Post, LDS Archives)

On September 17, 1843, Patriarch Hyrum Smith blessed Olive G. Frost, one of Joseph’s plural wives, that "you shall be blessed with the knowledge of the mysteries of God as well as the fullness of the Priesthood."

New Revelation

If revelation came once could it come again?

The Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book continues, "Prest. S. then offered instruction respecting the propriety of females administering to the sick by the laying on of hands said it was according to revelation." (pages 37-38)

As expressed in the Ninth Article of Faith, we believe God "will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God."

But how would that revelation manifest itself? The symbiotic relationship between God, prophets, and ourselves allows varied opportunities for revelation to manifest, especially when not all revelation is received by a personified vision of God.

Yes, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are in the position to embrace any potential revelation concerning the ordination of women. But it is still our responsibility to assist in creation and presentation of the opportunity, according to our faith and desires. God cannot reveal what we would not accept as revelation.

In a 1997 ABCCompass interview, President Gordon B Hinckley was asked, “Is it possible that the rule could change in the future, as the rules have on Blacks?"

He responded, "He could change them yes. If He were to change them that’s the only way it would happen."

The interviewer continued, "So you’d have to get a revelation?"

President Hinckley replied, "Yes. But there’s no agitation for that. We don't find it. Our Women are happy. They’re satisfied."

Perhaps some agitation is required before revelation, and since the time of President Hinckley's statement in 1997, there has certainly been agitation.

Ordination of Black Men

IMAGE: PHOTO OF BLACK PRIEST ACTIVISTS

I would consider the revelation of ordaining black men to the priesthood in 1978 as an act of collective revelation — inspired by the people and sanctioned by the leaders of the Church.

Were black men’s desires for ordination any less righteous before their ordination actually occurred? Did manifestation denote righteousness? Or was manifestation a product of those righteous desires? I trust God celebrated the desires and advocacies of these men who desired the priesthood before their actual ordination.

Yes, there were other members during that transition that deemed black’s desires for priesthood ordination as unrighteous or unnecessary. But nonetheless, black men’s desires to serve with the priesthood were eventually embraced. I trust God was pleased with the desires, progress, acceptance, and inclusion that resulted in black men's ordination.

Of course there would be risks and logistical issues with the ordination of women, just as there were with the ordination of black men. Of course we should mitigate those risks. But should we wait stagnantly in fear of the unknown? No. We should carefully embrace the possibilities of glorious vistas we have yet to behold. How could God meaningfully reveal such a divine image, if we would not willingly accept it as revelation?

Those who would accept the revelation of female ordination should not be fearful of expressing encouragement and support of such a revelation, just as Abraham and Black men sought and expressed their desire for ordination before it occurred.

##The Morality of Female Ordination

It is also worth considering if denying women priesthood ordination is actually immoral. In Parallels and Convergences, compiled by A. Scott Howe and Richard L. Bushman, we learn about quantifying morality through a "potentiality test":

“

“A better way to intuitively explore morality issues is to use the ‘potentiality test’. The potentiality test helps expand the number of choices and opportunities available and eliminates all boundaries. Actions and consequences are placed on a scale by degree rather than being black and white, motivation is built into the test because it attempts to increase the number of choices available in the future. The participant becomes less and less a victim of circumstances and gains more and truer freedom. An outcome that results in a greater number of potentialities has greater value.”

”

—

p 95

As I see it, the ordination of women would greatly increase the number of choices in the future, and each participant would become "less a victim of circumstance". This is not to say that female ordination should proceed haphazardly, without deliberation, or carelessly in relation to traditional order. Quite to the contrary, caution and tradition can also expand opportunities to the extent that they do not become oppressive. Carefully combined, tradition and inclusion would increase future potentialities for priesthood influence, thus making ordination a moral action by the standard of the potentiality test.

This is My Voice

Each day we wait, we lose one more woman, one more woman is marginalized, one more child goes without a priesthood blessing, and one more woman realizes her desires to be like Christ are not supported by her religion. One by one, more hearts become jaded by the ignorance of those who won’t share her pain. When she becomes disenchanted with the priesthood and its potential influence for good, she may leave her religion altogether, believing that the priesthood is nothing more than a superstitious tool used by an elitist power structure to manipulate and subjugate women.

Surely, God is waiting on us to exercise our agency, love, and compassion to "comfort those that stand in need of comfort". In a time when it seems more people are leaving their religions than ever before, there are women who are still willing to contribute. Let’s not let another moment go by where a woman goes unsupported in her desires to be Christ. Let’s greet her with enthusiasm and excitement. I trust in a benevolent God that would encourage those righteous desires.

Imagine the opportunities of love and compassion we could create for families and communities if women were granted equitable authorization to the priesthood technology. Now should be a time of celebration!

Joseph Smith once said, “Who are better qualified to administer than our faithful and zealous sisters whose hearts are full of faith, tenderness, sympathy, and compassion? No one.” (Relief Society Minutes, April 28 1842)

More recently, the encouraging words of Elder Nelson called to women in October 2015 General Conference,

I feel obliged by the request of Elder Nelson to step forward. This is my courage. This is my strength. This is my conviction. This is my insight. This is my inspiration. This is my vision.

I am one such "zealous sister" and this is my voice.

Human initiative and God's desires

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CLASSICAL ART MAN

We are admonished in the scriptures to let our will be swallowed up in the will of God, suggesting that our desires can only be inferior to God's, whose desires for us far surpass our own. There is certainly something right about this; if our concept of God does not acknowledge the superiority of divinity to humanity, we are merely worshipping ourselves.

On the other hand, the account of God's encounter with the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon (Ether 2:18-25) suggests that there is an important aspect of reciprocity in God's relationship to us. The brother of Jared clearly defers to God's superior wisdom in asking what is to be done about the darkness and lack of air in the vessels they will use to cross the ocean. God comes across to me as a bit amused in the exchange and explanation of stopping up holes if water comes in, etc.

But further, when it comes to having light, God completely defers to the brother of Jared: "What will ye that I should do?" And it is only after the brother of Jared acts on his own initiative that he is able to pierce the veil -- indeed, "he could not be kept from within the veil" (Ether 3:19). Some of what God desires for us is precisely to grant unto us according to our own desires: "I know that [God] granteth unto men [and women] according to their desire ... yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills" (Alma 29:4).

Jesus expressed a similar desire in John 14:14, immediately preceding his famous instruction or explanation of the connection between our love and doing his will (keeping his commandments), his expression of the connection between his love and doing our will: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."

Being reconciled to God is not a passive submission to God's will in which our own desires are merely subjugated to God's. Rather, it is the process of learning as we work through our own desires how to align our desires with divine purposes -- and by so doing, experience the degrees of freedom manifest within the divine unity.

“Verily I say, men [and women] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness. For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.” (D&C 58:27-28)

Carl Youngblood Discusses Myth-Breaking on A Thoughtful Faith Podcast

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CARL YOUNGBLOOD

Carl Youngblood, VP and COO of the MTA, was recently interviewed by James Patterson of A Thoughtful Faith podcast. The interview touches on transhumanism and Carl's involvement in the Mormon Transhumanist Association, as well as his research on how Mormon narratives can be demythologized in our post-secular era to revitalize faith.

What happens when the stories we’ve grown up with turn out to not be as historically accurate as we thought they were? For many, this not only causes cognitive dissonance, but plenty of pain. Carl joins A Thoughtful Faith contributor James Patterson to talk about the hermeneutic concept of “demythologization,” also known as breaking myths, its application to Mormonism, and its relation to Mormon Transhumanism.

Carl Youngblood on Transhumanism and Mormon Myth-Breaking

Almost an Atheist: A Mormon Welcome to Transhumanist Atheists

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF STARRY SKY AND PERSON

If theism is simply belief in God or Gods, then I am clearly a theist. What flavor of theism is more complex, and I don't know the closest words, but I believe in a very Mormon structure of families of Gods going back in time perhaps longer than we can imagine. But look for a moment at this definition of atheism from Michael Shermer:

Of course, no one is agnostic behaviorally. When we act in the world, we act as if there is a God or as if there is no God, so by default we must make a choice, if not intellectually then at least behaviorally. To this extent, I assume that there is no God and I live my life accordingly, which makes me an atheist. In other words, agnosticism is an intellectual position, a statement about the existence or nonexistence of the deity and our ability to know it with certainty, whereas atheism is a behavioral position, a statement about what assumptions we make about the world in which we behave.

By this definition of atheism, belief in God would be better described as gnosticism (an intellectual position), while theism could be defined as acting as if there is a God. In this light I am almost an atheist.

I study to learn things. After starting on antidepressants, the experiences I had identified as messages from God vanished. I don't believe the messages I was given were bad. I don't believe this means no one has real messages from God. I'm not even sure mine weren't from God, I just realized it was a choice to believe they were. I had to seek for more reliable sources of light and knowledge in my life. I found some that work for me. They happen to rely heavily on publicly available data and analysis and shared human experience, and very little on publicly inaccessible experience of the Divine. In practice, I look for truth in ways very like an atheist skeptic.
I pray, but not because I expect God to specifically intervene in any way. Intellectually I accept that Heavenly Parents can intervene, but I expect any intervention to be human mediated and that any connection to the Divine will be unprovable -- even untestable. I'm willing to let others identify events and emotions as answers to prayer from God. They may be. But I don't expect it. So prayer is almost completely a human and personal form of meditation, for me. It would serve the same function in my life if God weren't listening. So I'm more atheist than theist in my prayers. I don't aspire to stay this way, but it is where I'm at.
I love church. I love being part of the community. I sustain my church leaders, and assent to the proposition that they are called by God and receive direct revelation. But all the evidence I see points to a human organization that is nearly indistinguishable in its function from many others. I value the details that are different, but I value them for their window on new ideas and their effects on people in this world. I value how sacred service gets us to do more mundane service than most others. I value how looking to our past and future families often makes us better in our current families. I value how the sacred and ritual settings unite people of different classes, races, educations. I value how missions open young people's eyes to many many things. I believe God has a hand in this, but most ways I act could as well be lived by an atheist.
I believe in the pervasiveness of agency. That it extends in simple forms to subatomic particles. Consequently, I believe in Gods who act pervasively through persuasion of all the matter that comprises our universe. In this way, acts of God are indistinguishable from acts of Nature. In seeing God's hand in all things, I approach the same functional position as seeing God's hand in nothing, and only the guiding forces of Mother Nature.

That describes how I am almost an atheist, but also interesting to me is how close many atheists are to belief in my God. Although Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris generally condemn religion, both allow for the possibility of God-like beings having created us. Since the Gods I believe in are within nature and evolved into the beings they are, Dawkins and Harris assent to the possibility of these Gods.

A cosmologist, Lee Smolin, has argued that our observable universe came to be through a process called cosmological natural selection. By this process, existing universes are spawned from massive black holes within other, pre-existing, causally connected universes. There is no conflict in cosmological selection with the evolved Gods I believe in, but Smolin doesn't invoke Gods in his explanation.

What these three men have in common is denying the likelihood or relevance of Gods, not the possibility of evolved, super-intelligent, creator beings. For example, Dawkins and Harris point to a lack of evidence for super-intelligent beings being involved with humanity. Smolin argues that universes optimize for creation of the largest numbers of black holes and new universes without intelligent intervention. Yes, each of these positions involves assumptions about things like what divine intervention would look like, or the ability of unintelligent processes to optimize black hole production, but they are reasonable assumptions and parsimonious explanations of human experience.

So why do I insist on going a step beyond? If I can explain existence as well without reference to God as with, why do I pose the questions: What would happen if intelligence could increase cosmic reproductive rates? (It would mean Gods are probable.) Assume there are Gods, what would be the significance of only allowing circumstantial evidence for their existence? What does it mean if we are akin to the Gods?

Why is it preferable to seek answers for these unanswerable questions rather than maintaining the functional position of atheism? Because I don't really live like an atheist. I live as if humanity can follow the example of older beings -- intelligent, compassionate, ancient creators.

So yes, I'm almost an atheist. I don't expect God to do the learning for me. I don't expect God to do the loving for me. I don't expect God to do the creating for me. I kind of expect that the Gods have already arranged my long life, but I'm certainly interested in how They did it. But I'm not an atheist because I act as if we can become Gods.

I act as if the atonement can bring humanity together into salvation -- a state that the Gods who went before us have found. A state that they invite us to join. A state that they inspire us to grow into. A state that can't be reached alone, and can't be reached without the grace of all the Gods who enter it. But a state of hope that all of humanity can live and grow in happiness, peace, knowledge, and creation forward into the eternities.

And really, any atheist who acts with hope for the long future of humanity, who seeks creation, and who acts as if our future requires love, compassion, and unity, such a person is a living witness of my God. Welcome to the fold.

Who or what is God?

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OUTER SPACE GALAXY

Funny how the lessons of life recur. We see them in one form, glean insights, and years later in a different guise. We build lesson upon lesson and are architects of sorts. From where do the raw materials stem? From where do the lessons which become our personal thesis arise?

When I was in my early 30s, I was called for jury duty. I lived in Illinois at the time and being called was simply the price of being a registered voter. It was a day away from work, probably nothing more. Before jury selection began, the judge asked everyone in the room if there was anyone who could not uphold the laws of the state of Illinois. Who would dare raise their hand to that? So no one did.

The judge then informed us we were there to be considered for a jury which could carry a death penalty. The room stirred, Illinois having no moratorium on the death penalty back then. A variety of emotions leaking from separate bodies as inhalation of air and squirms and eyes darting about. He asked his question again, and hands rose. I, being agnostic on the death penalty, sat with curiosity and watched as the judge interrogated the first person. “You said you would uphold the law?” “You have a duty as a citizen.” And on it went. The judge’s inquiry bordered on shaming, rooting out conscience from not wanting to serve. Finally, the person was dismissed. That was repeated for each person, and I was uncomfortable as an observer and thankful to not be under scrutiny. It never struck me as in any way relevant to me, though. I would never be selected and if I were, well, the law is the law for a reason.

But, as it turns out, a young, educated, liberal women whose personal hero was Ted Koppel seemed to be a good fit for this jury. Go figure. We were impaneled and sat through two trials. The first was the evidence, to determine whether or not this young, poor, African American male had stolen cash and was the shooter. We determined that he was.

Then came the sentencing phase. For me, the detachment and mix of boredom and excitement that had accompanied Phase One receded. Now, in the sentencing phase, I couldn’t sleep at night. I dreaded going to court. I couldn’t understand how anything in the world gave me the right to sit in judgement as to whether or not this man should live or die. “The law is what gives you the right” is what I would tell myself but I knew (knew to the core of my being) if nothing gave me the right, nothing gave anyone else the right either. Laws being a human construct are subject to the same logic. If an individual is not so empowered to make life and death decisions, neither can a collection of humans be justified. There was no branch to grab, because the only tree was the tree of life and those branches were all out of reach. “Wait,” I hear you say, “there is that other tree,” but we have been told not to eat of it, either. Nothing gave the State of Illinois the right to pass such a law.

In due time, the verdict was reached and my vote was inconsequential. Life went on.

More than a decade passed. When I had my spiritual awakening, I went on a quest to understand “who or what is God?” I read a great deal, prayed, had spiritual experiences, attended church, took classes, and talked to anyone who would engage with me about it. I even got a degree in theology. And after all these years I understand: there is no way I can know for sure how to answer that question. Sure, I have had moments of revelation, large and small, but they are personal. Sure, I have perspective on it, but that too is just personal.

Do I have a personal relationship with God? I’d like to think so. I find God at my dinner table, sitting around among my friend, trying to give me advice when I’m making decisions, with me at the death bed of those I love. I’m sometimes even aware of God when doing mundane things like driving or brushing my teeth. But people who perceive God very differently than I do would say the same.

“Who or what is God?” God only knows.

Pragmatic Prayer

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMAN PRAYING

While reading some comments on social media concerning prayer, I’ve found that too many of my fellow believers and non-believers have sorely lost sight of the function of prayer.

Before discussing prayer, I’d like to address agency. In Mormonism, agency is "…the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and to act for ourselves. Agency is essential in the plan of salvation."

We are granted agency to act as autonomous individuals. Agency allows us to govern ourselves and allows for optimal growth and development in our endeavors to become compassionate creators. With agency also comes the risk of suffering.

2 Nephi 2:27 reads,

“Wherefore, men are free according to their flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”

Along with articulating the risks and rewards of agency, Nephi offers a warning that Satan desires us to be miserable. As the narrative goes, "One primary issue in the conflict between God and Satan is agency. Agency is a precious gift from God; it is essential to His plan for His children. In Satan’s rebellion against God, Satan

“sought to destroy the agency of man" (Moses 4:3). He said: "I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost," (Moses 4:1).

Accordingly, God will not intervene on humanity’s agency as it would be in direct conflict with the purpose of our existence. Intervention was Satan’s plan — the plan of misery. If one believes that God is in control then God has relinquished that power in allowing us ultimate governance and stewardship.

For the Strength of the Youth manual speaks on agency and accountability,

“You are responsible for the choices you make. … While you are free to choose your course of action, you are not free to choose the consequences. Whether for good or bad, consequences follow as a natural result of the choices you make. Righteous choices lead to lasting happiness and eternal life.“

As autonomous agents, we are at risk for grand consequences — positive and negative consequences that we cannot escape. If we decide to build weapons of mass destruction to annihilate each other, God will not intervene (and has not intervened) on our agency. We will kill each other. We may find ourselves asking, why would any loving God allow so much suffering, pain, and death in this world? Why do children painfully starve to death? Why does cancer have to exist? What about racism, slavery, sexism, heterosexism, violence, war, global warming, or terrorism? Doesn’t God hear our prayers?

Suffering is an inescapable consequence when each of us is endowed with the power of agency. We can use that power to create or destroy. When we hurt and destroy, when we are idle and useless, when we are apathetic and careless, we will suffer, as will those around us.

In Nephi we read, “there is an opposition in all things”. Can we ever experience joy without sadness? Can we know peace without anger? Can we feel strength without weakness? One without the other becomes meaningless. This life is full of undeniable opposition. However, God doesn’t intervene and stop our suffering any more than God would intervene and stop our joy. To intervene would be to hinder our evolutionary progress.

What a terrifying, yet beautifully empowering idea to comprehend ourselves as individual agents. We are responsible and accountable not just for ourselves, but for one another through the consequences of agency. We are our brother’s keeper.

But some of you may ask yourselves, what is the point of prayer if God won’t intervene? Is prayer useful even if we omit God from the equation?

Prayer is practical and useful when carried out with real intent. I must admit, I recently commented to one of my atheist friends that even in times when I have been apathetic toward the existence of God, I have continued the ritual of prayer. There are simply far too many benefits, even if I am the only one hearing them.

One benefit of prayer is the verbal expression of gratitude. As Paul noted to the Colossians, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.” Prayer is a time to reflect on the grand and vast abundance of life in the spirit of appreciation. Even if you are disinclined to acknowledge God, the daily ritual of prayerful gratitude can increase your mental health and well-being.

Prayer is also a ritual of empathy that causes us to reflect on how to better improve humanity by receiving inspiration when pondering the concerns and needs of others. When we pray and meditate, our minds can access inspired opportunities to serve one another.

Moroni 7: 9 states,

“And likewise also is it counted evil unto man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.” But what does Moroni mean when he says to pray “with real intent”?

To understand prayer with “real intent”, I am reminded of the words of Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency,

“When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer—no matter how eloquent the oration.”

We should not pray and passively wait. We should pray and get to work. When prayers are said with genuine intent, our works will reflect our intentions. Our prayers are far more valuable and effective when coupled with action.

Unfortunately, prayer can be mistakenly used as an idle stool people passively sit upon while waiting for God’s interventions. If you are praying in repetitious vanity for supernatural answers then you are sorely misinterpreting the function of prayer. We cannot insensibly pray and expect God to do the work when we are endowed with the power of agency. I’m inclined to believe that “the power of our prayers depends on us”.

Too many make the mistake of waiting on God to answer our prayers when surely it is God who is waiting on us!

I deeply value the influence of prayer in my life as an expression of gratitude, recognition of empathy, and ritual of inspiration.

My husband and I encountered many difficulties in having our three children. During the pregnancy of our daughter, I was faced with life-threatening risks. Before my scheduled c-section, I prayed with a genuine desire that my daughter and I would survive. I wanted nothing more than to be her mother.

Coupled with my prayer were my efforts. I researched the risks of my pregnancy, equipped myself with the best available physicians, and took advantage of the latest medical technologies — which, I’ll admit, were a product of my affluent privilege. But even with my works and privilege I was still unable to safely deliver my baby alone.

The answer to my prayer came in the form of compassionate physicians, technologists, and specialists. They not only saved my daughter, but they saved me. God did not compel these people to be saviors. God did not part the skies and safely place my daughter in my arms. No, individual agents did. Humanity, God’s children, took it upon themselves to use their agency to be the body of Christ. They became the answers to prayers they had never heard.

How many times in your life have you had another person be an answer to a humble prayer or desire in your heart? Perhaps it was a parent or a friend? Perhaps it was a spiritual leader or a teacher? Or maybe even a child? Did you take the time to notice?

Whose prayers will you answer? Whose lives will you touch? How will you use your agency? How will you use your privilege? How many missed opportunities have idly gone by while waiting on God to intervene on our agency?

Too often I hear, “Why doesn’t God answer the prayers of the starving children?” When what we should be asking ourselves, “How can we answer the prayers of the starving children?"

They ask, “Why does God not save the dying woman from cancer?” When we should be asking, "How can we save the dying woman from cancer?"

You don’t have to hear a prayer to become the solution. If you simply lack the inspiration, pray. You may find the answer in becoming the answer. The power of prayer doesn’t lie in mysticism nor should the power of prayer be dismissed with cynicism. The power of prayer lies within our agency when we use and create technologies that empower us to act.

Not Dying to See the Singularity: A Young Physician's Evaluation of the Ray Kurzweil Regimen

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WOMAN SELECTING FRUIT AT MARKET

The futurist Ray Kurzweil is not only famous for consistently predicting a technological singularity within decades, but also for his unusual habit of consuming more than 250 supplements per day in an attempt to live to see it. His logic: that if one can live long enough to witness the singularity, one may achieve "longevity escape velocity" and, perhaps, biological immortality (not to mention conscious immortality via mind uploading). While most professing transhumanists cannot afford Kurzweil's fountain-of-youth cocktail, there are many practical, evidence-based interventions that can extend our lives and health.

Getting Old Is Not For the Faint of Heart

First of all, why do we age? This is both a biochemical and a sociological question. The SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) has identified seven biochemical causes of senescence:

Cell loss and atrophy 2.Nuclear mutations/epigenetic alterations
Mitochondrial mutations
Death resistant cells
Extracellular crosslinks
Extracellular aggregates
Intracellular aggregates

SENS also has lines of research and therapies targeted at each of these biochemical pathways, with the aim of developing a complete anti-aging chemotherapy regimen. Attempts to reduce the complex process of senescence to an axiomatic classification system have traditionally been met with great skepticism, especially as the stochastic/biochemical first causes of aging do not address the larger sociological/ecological roles of aging and death.

The term "selective shadowing" has been used to describe the accumulation of deleterious pleiotropic effects that occur on the tissue and organismal levels after the process of reproduction (and child-rearing for animals that follow the K-type selection strategy) has produced the next generation. The famous biologist J.B.S. Haldane is credited for observing this phenomenon in human families where lethal, late-onset diseases persist. Despite the obvious negative selective pressure for harmful genetic mutations, late onset diseases such as Huntington's, Alzheimer's, and many of the genetically inherited cancers persist because these diseases do not affect the first few generations of carriers until after the reproductive years.

Whatever the first causes, the effects of aging are well known and feared: sensory loss, debility, osteomalacia, cardiovascular disease, cancers, memory loss, dementia, loss of freedom/autonomy, loss of friends and family with associated grief and depression. Old or young, bond or free, from infection, trauma or "natural" causes, death has been our constant companion -- the great equalizer. Everyone who has ever lived for the last 3,000 generations of modern humans has died. Is it foolish to think we may see this change?

A student of aging is called a gerontologist, and one who cares for the aged, a geriatrician. Call Aubrey de Grey the latter and you will be in for an earful. Perhaps the world's most recognized expert of rejuvenating technologies, this bewhiskered druidic shaman has prophesied that the first human to live to 1000 years oldhas already been born. As the scientific head of the SENS Research Foundation, de Grey also maintains that the gradual adoption of anti-aging/rejuvenating technologies will extend the lives of people until, theoretically, we can escape the gravid pull of aging and live forever.

Don't Fear the Reaper

The study of death, thanatology, has traditionally been a much neglected subject in the fields of sociology and ecology. Approaches to death in sociology are traditionally split, as are most subjects, between functional and conflict theory-based explanations. Functionalists see death as part of the well-oiled machine of society necessary to recycle resources, free up niches, etc. Conflict theorists see it in terms of competition between old and young, predator and prey. If you want to know what ecologists have to say about death, you would do well to start with the (in)famous work of Malthus on populations, which was an essential piece to Darwin's theory of natural selection. In essence, without the hot breath of death on our necks, evolution would not happen.

Psychology has been much more robust in dealing with the emotional and behavioral responses to death, in humans at least, with the development of terror management theory. As far as we know, we are the only animals who know we will die. This uniquely human condition leads to three traditional responses to death: hedonism (YOLO!), stoicism (No pain, no gain!), and Eastern escapism (Get me off of this crazy thing!).

In his very popular online course, Yale professor of philosophy Shelly Kagan takes on the topic of death, critiquing belief in the soul or an afterlife, defending the mind-brain hypothesis, and embracing what we call "the Good Death." Third-wave CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) which focuses on acceptance and mindfulness, follows closely the long-held humanist philosophy of "living in the present" and balancing the desires of your current and future selves. It provides a framework to balance the spontaneity of hedonism with the responsibility of stoicism, and provides well documented relief to a variety of existential pains. These approaches raise the question: is it wrong to want to live forever?

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying!" (Woody Allen, aka Ray Kurzweil with a sense of humor)

The transhumanist response to death (neo-vitalism/techno-vitalism) is an oddity in this milieu of philosophies which all accept death a priori as the natural and right conclusion of existence. Transhumanism is a collection of philosophies and ambitions, which seeks human enhancement, life extension and the synthesis of the biological and technological towards a non-Darwinian, guided evolution aimed at nothing short of economies of abundance, immortality, apotheosis and rescuing the universe from the Big Chill.

Through this lens, the death of a sentient human being is a tragedy, an incalculable loss of subjective experience and memory, genetic diversity and reproductive potential. To make matters worse, this tragedy occurs 150,000 times every day and the vast majority of these deaths are now non-infectious and non-traumatic -- they are due to inborn errors of homeostasis, and potentially curable. The race for the cure of death is on.

Ray's Regimen and Other Singularity Diets

Of the 250 supplements Ray takes per day, he lists his top three for living to see the singularity as coenzyme Q10, an important substrate for oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria; phosphatidylcholine, a more stable and less inflammatory phospholipid monomer for cell membranes; and Vitamin D, which is thought to have global endocrine and immunologic activities in the body but so far in clinical trials has only shown value in preventing falls in the elderly and slightly decreasing all-cause mortality (as an aside, my medical school scholarly project was in Vitamin D which large swaths of the medical community still consider on par with snake oil for anything but bones). In addition to these he ingests omega-3 fats, large quantities of electrolyzed alkaline water with Magnesium, green tea, resveratrol found in red wine, the dependable statin found in red yeast rice, as well as regularly donating blood to prevent iron overload and stimulate the bone marrow.

Ray has teamed up with Terry Grossman M.D., a specialist in anti-aging medicine from Denver CO. They have written two books together, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and Transcend: 9 Steps to Living Well Forever. Their Q&A page for the first is informative. They also run a site where their entire regimen is available, but keep in mind that it will cost you about $1500 for a 3 month supply.

The life extending options en vogue within the transhumanist community, including aggressive supplementation and cryopreservation, are well beyond the means of most transhumanists. This may lead to a sense of individual anomie if professing followers are unable to live out their values.

Beyond cost, there are also significant concerns about the efficacy of these activities. After all, there have been no recorded, successful human resuscitations after cryo and there have been no large, longitudinal, randomized studies of the Kurzweil-Grossman cocktail on survival, much less for safety. Such studies would be feasible, although relatively complex to carry out due to the sheer number of supplements, and would require funding, staff, subjects and lots of time.

Studies have been conducted on many of these supplements individually, with absent to minimal significant differences in primary outcomes from placebo. Attempts to extrapolate the additive effects of all of these together are fraught with methodological problems (confounders, biases, insufficient power to support primary hypothesis, etc.). Simply put: the data does not support, or is insufficient to say whether or not Ray's regimen is better than placebo. Where experimental data has not illuminated our understanding it is reasonable to look at observational data, or natural experiments which broach the same topics.

There are areas around the world where small, culturally homogeneous groups live into their hundreds in statistically significant numbers. These "Blue Zones" include Loma Linda, California; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy; Icaria, Greece; and Okinawa, Japan. Studies of the diets and habits of these groups have revealed striking similarities, including high integration of the elderly into community life, vegetarianism, low rates of smoking, sunshine, a culture of physical activity, and relative caloric restriction. The diets of these communities are most consistent with the Mediterranean type, high in healthy fats, vegetables, legumes and lean protein.

A popular book entitled The China Study (2005) by T. Colin Campbell (a biochemist), Thomas Campbell, his son (a physician), and Jacob Schurman (a nutritional biochemist), looked at the relatively lower rates of Western diseases such as atherosclerosis causing coronary artery disease and strokes, diabetes, breast, prostate and bowel cancers among the Chinese and attempted to draw causal relationships between plant-based diets, lower cholesterol and lower levels of these diseases. It is on my reading list for the near future.

I recently had a patient who came to me after seeing his dentist who noticed a suspicious growth in his mouth. He had stayed away from doctors prior to this and was understandably distraught and in need of my help. We created an open and healing relationship, and the patient revealed to me his plans to begin an "anti-cancer" diet, based on vegetarianism, also known as the alkaline ash diet. I had heard of this hypothesis before, but not in medical school or other reputable, scientific contexts. Desiring to continue our relationship of mutual trust and cooperation, I gave my assent as I did not see any serious harm inherent in this. I also involved the help of a specialist who biopsied the lesion, and the result was a benign growth. As we discussed these results he was relieved and expressed a desire to continue the diet anyway as a means of controlling high blood pressure and blood sugar which we had discovered during his workup, as he was very hesitant to begin taking prescription medications to treat these problems. I expressed that lifestyle modification is the most important intervention for these problems, but that he would probably require pharmacological help to achieve his goals and decrease his risk in a meaningful way.

Herein lies the danger of such alternative approaches: they are not effective substitutes for proven medical therapies. Other anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory anti-oxidant diets are currently making the rounds. Enticing in their simplicity, the basic science behind these interventions may appear to lend credibility to the average person, but as with any medical therapy they should also lend themselves to scientific scrutiny and evidence before they should be trusted.

Several years ago I became aware of a Kansas-based Mormon pseudo-scientist named R. Webster Kehr and responded publicly to some of his claims about medicine and science in general and his abuse of religious authority. As a supporter of science and a believer in evidence I encourage my patients and readers to ask for help from qualified professionals before investing your time, money and potentially your life and health in a new or unproven alternative therapy. The quacks are out there: be skeptical and demand evidence. If I can be of help, I will be happy.

That's Nice, Now Show Me the Evidence

A search in PubMed, the central database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, for citations containing the term "transhuman" reveals only about 5 results (mostly from the French International Journal of Bioethics), the term "human enhancement" yields about 80, and the term "anti-aging" about 1,920 (see the image below: the inflection point is about the year 2002, the bar on the far right represents the current year). This is a picture of a movement that is already in place, but has not yet coalesced into a recognizable field of scientific study.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF ANTI AGING GRAPH

The US Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF), a panel of independent experts under the auspices of the HHS (Dept. of Human Health Services) and the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) issues recommendations for prevention of morbidity and mortality tailored to age, sex and risk factors, based on rigorous assessment of quality evidence currently available for various conditions (see figure below for hierarchy of quality evidence). These recommendations are categorized by letter grade with an "A" grade meaning the evidence strongly supports that the intervention prevents disease and the benefit is greater than the risk on the population level. These guidelines are widely accepted and followed by the medical community, but individual circumstances often require further customization for each patient. I would recommend visiting their site and putting in your own information to see what recommendations are applicable to you, and discuss these with your doctor.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF STUDY PYRAMID

What Would You Do, Doctor?

As a first-year resident fresh out of medical school, it is difficult for me to objectively evaluate the evidence behind each of these supplements and lifestyle modifications, so I can only imagine the challenge a lay person would have deciding what advice to follow. One of the reasons why fad diets and supplements are so alluring is the novelty, while the sound advice hasn't changed much since the time of Hippocrates.

The mainstay of medical advice is a healthy diet, regular exercise and restful sleep. Diet, in medical terms, does not apply to a transient experiment in intake modification, but what you eat over the long term. Healthy diets can consist of almost anything, except excessive refined or simple carbohydrates, but usually include multiple servings of vegetables, unsaturated fats and lean protein. Regular exercise is considered maintaining an elevated heart rate for greater than 45 minutes 5 times per week. Restful sleep requires good sleep hygiene, proper oxygenation and avoiding swing shifts, alcohol and blue light exposure within one hour of retiring for bed.

Beyond these no-brainers there is still little modern medicine has to offer for weight control (short of bariatric surgery) or sleeping aid, and there is currently no safe substitute for exercise. Surgical weight loss is the most effective medical intervention for morbid obesity (BMI greater than 40), with the Roux en Y gastric bypass leading the field of surgeries in terms of long term weight loss and maintenance, reversal of diabetes and other metabolic derangements, but is associated with vitamin deficiencies and the usual significant risks of surgery. There are several new medical devices which are less invasive to place than having gastric bypass (or sleeve) such as the Vagal nerve blocker and intragastric balloon, but long-term data for these has not yet been gathered, and the data for lap bands has shown more harm than benefit. Medical weight loss is another booming field, however, and for the first time in 10 years, two new weight loss drugs were approved by the FDA last year, Belviq-Lorcasserin and Qysimia, a combination of two older drugs, phentermine and topiramate. The jury is still out on their effectiveness, as most of the initial, promising data come from industry studies and the drugs are still under patent limiting their widespread use.

So far I have raised the questions, "Is it foolish to think we may witness a cure for death?" and "Is it wrong to want to live forever?" The first question may be answerable by science in the future, but the second is a question of values and would be better explored in the realms of ethics, morality and spirituality. My top evidence-based recommendations for the average transhumanist who wishes to extend the life and health of their body would be the following:

Wear sunscreen while you get plenty of sunshine
Eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can stand
Control your blood pressure and cholesterol, with medication if needed
Receive recommended immunizations
Stop smoking (alcohol and caffeine are OK in limited amounts)
Improve sleep hygiene
Reduce stress and increase conscious action through mindfulness
Find somebody to love safely and responsibly
Exercise as much as you can, but avoid injuries and overexertion
Don’t take stupid risks: a long life is a risk-averse one

It's not new, and it's not sexy, but that is solid advice that we can all apply and find something to do better. I'll be on the lookout for new and proven medical enhancements and be here to take your questions and take on the quacks as we witness the accelerating changes of these exciting times.

In the meantime, May You Be Well, Live Long and Prosper!

What is Transhumanism? A Network Analysis of Wikipedia Pages

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF RAINBOW BRAIN

portion of actual link network of transhuman wikipedia pages

Often times I get asked, "So, what is transhumanism?" While I'm sure not all transhumanists agree on a single definition, one of the most concise definitions I use is, "The belief that technology can not only improve the human condition but fundamentally change it."

Another way to understand transhumanism (or any topic for that matter) is to start at its Wikipedia article and just start browsing. The disadvantage to this, however, is that there's simply too much information to for someone to practically browse. What is needed is a map of sorts. While Wikipedia does have topic pages which help, sometimes a map that has done the browsing for you can provide additional navigational insights. This is exactly what network analysis can do -- a passion of mine.

As a hobby and profession I do network analysis on all sorts of connected data sets, finding interesting communities and patterns in the networks contained in data when analyzed topologically. I've done this at my personal blog [AllThingsGraphed.com] as well as professionally in my day job. I'm always surprised what insights can be found when networks inside data are analyzed as a whole. Emergent attributes of the data are discovered that simply could not be discovered when only looking at single data points in the network.

Methodology

For this analysis I used a web crawler I've written which can take a number of starting HTML pages, a description of how to traverse their links, and a maximum depth to traverse. I started at the transhumanism Wikipedia article and chose a max depth of 3. As my program crawled the Wikipedia articles and their links, it constructed what that network of links and pages looked like.

The result is ~23,000 pages and ~41,000 links. I filtered the network down by removing Wikipedia pages frequently linked to like help pages and pages used by administrators to identify pages which are in need of revision. I also filtered out pages only linked to once biasing the analysis towards pages which are more connected in the network. After filtering, I had ~5000 pages and ~26,000 links.

This would be a daunting task for someone to read through who just wants an informed idea of what transhumanism is. This is where network analysis comes in. Once I had this dataset, I ran a degree analysis which measures how many links (in or out) each page has. I then ran a community detection algorithm which finds groups of pages which are more interconnected with each other than the rest of the network.

Having done these analysis, we can now begin to answer questions like:

What larger topics does transhumanism entail?
What are key philosophies referenced?
Who are key people and groups active in transhumanism?

There are other types of questions that can be asked and analysis that can be done. But, in order to keep this post short, I will just focus on these questions which can give someone an edge on quickly learning about transhumanism over someone just pointed at the transhumanism Wikipedia article and left to themselves.

As a note, this data was acquired in early 2015. Current Wikipedia pages may have different links.

What topics does transhumanism entail?

First off, here's the image of the network. It is colored by the communities that were detected and nodes are sized based on the number of links pointing to them.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF RAINBOW GRAPH

Community detection is a bit of an art. You tune the sensitivity of the detection until it forms meaningful groups. Too sensitive and the groups loose any meaning or significance. Not sensitive enough and it becomes unaware of obvious groupings. I labeled each community by looking at the overall theme consistent with most of the vast majority of members in that community.

And taking the titles of the articles, here's a word cloud:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF WORDS GRAPH

Finally, we can look at what pages have the most links into them:

So, if you want a high-level idea of transhumanism, these graphs and topics should get you off to a good start.

What are the key philosophies referenced?

The above might give you an idea of the "What?" in transhumanism. But answering this question will help you understand the "Why?" motivating transhumanism. Of course, not all transhumanists share all the same motivations as all other transhumanists. But these provide some outline to the philosophies driving transhumanism today. I break this into lists of the top most referenced "-isms" and "-ologies" pages surrounding transhumanism. I include brief definitions in these lists so readers can get a feel for the taxonomy of transhumanism:

-isms:

Singularitarianism - the belief that a technological singularity—the creation of superintelligence—will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the Singularity benefits humans.
Extropianism - Extropians believe that advances in science and technology will some day let people live indefinitely.
Technogaianism - a stance of active support for the research, development and use of emerging and future technologies to help restore Earth's environment.
Techno-progressivism - a belief that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities.
Postgenderism - postgenderists believe that sex for reproductive purposes will either become obsolete, or that all post-gendered humans will have the ability, if they so choose, to both carry a pregnancy to term and 'father' a child.
Abolitionism (bioethics) - a bioethical school and socio-political movement that promotes the use of biotechnology to eliminate suffering.
Technological utopianism - a belief that advances in science and technology will eventually bring about a utopia.
Democratic transhumanism
- refers to the stance of transhumanists who espouse liberal, social and/or radical democratic political views.
Technocriticism - treats technological transformation as historically specific changes in personal and social practices rather than as an autonomous or socially indifferent accumulation of useful inventions.
Technorealism - is an attempt to expand the middle ground between Techno-utopianism and Neo-Luddism by continuous critical examination of how technologies might help or hinder people in the struggle to improve the quality of their lives.

(non technology) -ologies:

Cybermethodology - focuses on the creative development and use of computational and technological research methodologies for the analysis of next-generation data sources such as the Internet.
Arcology - a vision of architectural design principles for very densely populated habitats.
Gerontology - the study of the social, psychological, cognitive, and biological aspects of aging.
Ideology - a set of conscious and unconscious ideas which make up one's goals, expectations, and motivations
Pharmacology - the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function.
Psychology - the study of mind and behavior.
Biology - the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
Tribology - the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion.
Futurology - the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them.
Sociology - the academic study of social behavior, including its origins, development, organization, and institutions.

Who are key people and groups active in transhumanism?

Finally, it's important to ask the "Who?" questions. I break this into individuals and groups (again sorted by the number of times they are linked to--descending):

Individuals:

Groups:

2045 Initiative
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Immortality Institute
World Transhumanist Association
Applied Foresight Network
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
American Cryonics Society
KrioRus
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Worldwide Aeros Corp

Mormon Transhumanism

So where does Mormon Transhumanism fit into all of this? We can get the beginning of an idea by looking at what pages link to it:

Or what about religion in general? How does it fit into this network of transhumanism? What pages link to the religion Wikipedia page?

Conclusion

This is just an overview of some of the insights gained through a network analysis of Transhumanism and surrounding pages on Wikipedia. But overall, I feel the findings resonated with the intuition I've gained about the shape and contours of transhumanism: a melding of science, technology, medicine, biology, and informed by the philosophies and religious sentiments of humanity as we look into the future. And certainly these lists of Wikipedia pages selected because of their relevance are much more manageable and fruitful to browse than the thousands we were initially faced with. But this is only a map. You have to begin exploring it in order to discover and understand transhumanism.

The Future of Real: Meaning and Social Intelligence in a Transhuman Age

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

[NOTE: This is a condensed version of the talk by the same title delivered at the Extreme Tech Conference on July 19, 2015 in Redmond, WA]

I remember seeing the children falling through the air, their limbs akimbo, grasping for land or any anchor that would save them from the fall. I remember the feelings of terror, panic, pity and helplessness as I watched, unable to intervene. And then I awoke – alone, scared and slowly came to the realization that it was simply a dream, though still I feared closing my eyes again too soon lest I return. That dream took place more than 30 years ago. Much of the detail has faded – how did they come to fall? Were they pushed or did they jump like lemmings? – still I remember the images, can recall the emotions. It was just a dream; it wasn’t real. But I recall the experience of the dream. The personal semiotics that the dream contained were real, telling me something about my own psyche, my own sense of self and so making it an experience with meaning.

How does the mingling of the external and the internal create our lives and how will the coming emerging technologies influence that interactive loop?

You may know more about the technology than I. Where I hope to add value is in questioning how the technology will influence our understanding of reality. So, to explore this, let’s start with what real means today.

Real is fungible and it is paradoxical.

In part it means we can trust what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell to map to imprints which have created memories for us. It is our ability to trust or rely on sensory inputs to verify or validate what our past experience tells us. It is related to purpose and function, but also to trust and value.

Today, real may imply sensory boundaries. To taste, our tongues are involved, we trust our eyes, for the most part, and screens signal where the tangible world ends. The screen serves as a frame and limits the expectation of experience.

How, then, will we react when technology has no boundary, when the experience is immersive, when it is embedded in our bodies and even our DNA reflects design? What does it mean for trust when the experience of our minds and eyes do not meet actual circumstances of our feet and arms?

Which brings us to reality as factual. This is the first essential hallmark of the transhuman age: the application of evidence-based methods to get at root causes to solve problems. It is the amniotic environment of STEM. Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are powerful in their ability to reveal factual reality. They are excellent at identifying patterns; so much so they’ve made breakthroughs in cancer research by finding patterns and identifying hypotheses missed by humans. Social Intelligence data are applying the same techniques to human behaviors, piecing together the electronic footprints of tastes and queries, purchases and posts, media consumed and information absorbed.

But not all experiences leave electronic footprints. Often the most important and indelible of human experiences are interior, absent technology altogether. Our feeling of fulfillment from connection, our sense of pride after being tested, that feeling from excitement that our skin can’t contain us, the rage we feel when threatened, the healing that comes from unearned forgiveness: all these and more are not reflected digitally.

Reality, then, is already rife with ambiguity, with paradox. And, the tectonic plates are shifting still. In the coming decades many of the external signals which we rely upon will themselves undergo changes.

That our perception of reality is shaped by the lessons we learn early in life, is an important part of culture. For most of human history, we’ve thought of culture as related to religion, politics and/or country or place of origin. Increasingly, our perceptual worlds (e.g. meaning, significance and social customs) are being shaped by technology. IEET.org recently ran an essay on the various world views among transhumanists. We are segmenting based in part on our attitudes toward technology and its role in the world.

Emerging technologies such as robotics, AI, nano-tech, 3D printing, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will alter our environments. Technology will provide digital wallpaper, allow us to select whatever view we wish to see from our windows. The opt-in visual inputs will allow for digital isolation from want, fear, and boredom. What happens when we can choose to screen out, to not even be exposed to, any sensation or bit of information which we might find jarring? At a minimum, it is a loss of collective reality.

We’re anticipating robotics becoming a part of our social landscapes. These may be humanoid and also something altogether different. We will become accustomed to dealing with a machine that simulates interaction, but which lacks empathy. Already, according to recent article in Newsweek, in Japan, a company decided to discontinue making the robotic dog it had introduced in 1999. Parts became scarce and repairs difficult to come by. People have held funerals for their robot dogs who no longer function and have formed support groups to help them deal with the loss. What then, happens when robotics begin to be used for service jobs, care-giving and intimacy? Where is the line between real feelings and projections of acceptance?

Full body sensing technology will allow our environments to adapt to us. This alone, if it were the only shift, would be a re-writing of reality. After all, what is evolution if not adaptation to our environment? Full-body sensing will put light, temperature, noise in the service of our comfort, perhaps delivered via clothing, intuited by our bodily responses, and, maybe even our thoughts. It will in effect reverse the response mechanisms which today we take for granted.

It is possible visual technologies will change our understanding of what it means to see. A common example is additional light spectrum, for example, night vision. While the first generation of users may find the experience novel, over time, it is more likely to just be taken for granted. Our competency becomes extended over more hours, provides us with a sense of security in dark places, adds to a feeling of invulnerability, enables us to better modulate our activities so we are no longer at the mercy of daylight. In short it changes our understanding of what “darkness” means. This is the second hallmark of the transhuman age: our ability to transcend the limits of our biology. Each generation may become progressively endowed with, not simply a reduction of deficit, but an expansion of enhancement.

AR will add fantasy elements to our “real” worlds and VR will allow us to step into immersive imaginary environments. Put another way, they’ll make the conceptual experiential. Overlay sight may create a sense of an “anything is possible” world. That may be a third hallmark of the transhuman age. How readily will we distinguish between the various kinds of applications to which we have access? I saw the Magic Leap demo video at the top of this post. It shows a first-person shooter game of “aliens” overlayed onto a workplace setting. It gives me chills because public mass shootings have already become all too common. We, coming from a time when the technology is not “always on,” will easily be able to distinguish the images as illusions. We’ll know it is a game. What happens, though, for someone who is already delusional? Or, what happens to a generation growing up where AR is normal vision and overlay sight is not the exception? Without the boundaries of a screen to differentiate to what extent do real and imaginary blur? Will it be like a dream, where the experience of the dream has characters and logic and a reality of its own beyond our waking consciousness?

How does the technology influence a developing sense of empathy? It easily could. What if we could literally see things from another person’s vantage point? What does it mean when the “selfie” is actually seeing what our loved ones see, hearing what they hear, or perhaps via haptics, even feeling what they feel?

As we move further into the transhuman age, the rate at which “normal” changes will likely quicken. This aspect of expecting variability over stasis is another aspect of the future of real. The coming technologies from genetic re-assembly to nano-assembly to VR will reshape our ability to be surprised. What will be the meaning of the familiar? What will stillness mean?

What will it mean for interpersonal attachments? How will it influence our sense of objectivity? What will shortening the learning curve mean for our expectations of others? Part of maturity is greater and deeper levels of self-awareness and sensitivity to the perspectives of others. How can the technology be designed to help us to become wiser, sooner?

Just as I am a digital immigrant, so too all of us will eventually be cyber-reality immigrants. We will be the ones who remember what it was like when people had a shared reality, experienced gradual adaptation, anchored in external stimulus and limited by what was technically possible. Imagine the people who grow up as immersed in AR as some of you have been immersed in your array of screens? In the future of Real, reality may be defined by meaning alone.

At risk is each previous generation becoming increasingly obsolete at faster and faster rates. What does that mean when combined with radical life extension? While people may live healthier, for longer periods of time, will they also be able to keep up with constant sensory and cognitive upgrades? Will a nostalgia for youth be replaced with a longing for future tech? What does it mean for a sense of self-esteem? Already it is difficult (the work of a lifetime really) to develop a sense of fluid identity. What happens when the changes are both more rapid and less gradual? Does it become easier or more difficult to forgive ourselves for being human?

It is likely that for AR and VR, gaming will be the powerhouse applications that get the technology rolled out. Perhaps, they may eventually become the standard for tutorials. But it would be a squandering of power if the technology stopped there or if compassionate uses were relegated to B-corporations. The great potential is to help us build intimacy, establish fictive kinship and provide a powerful tool to boost kindness competency. They can increase our awareness of others, teach us empathy, train us in inter-personal relationship skills, heal our traumas and psychic pain, and perhaps even trigger transcendent experiences and guide us toward awe.

In the future of real, among the most pressing of challenges will be sustaining a sense of social intelligence. Not social intelligence in terms of AI’s ability to farm us as consumers, but social intelligence in terms of our interpersonal skills.

Ensuring that the advantages of technology are shared, if not equally at least minimally, will require intention. How do we engineer for crossing the digital divide? How do we engineer for bridging points of view? How do we engineer for experience and meaning?

There's talk among transhumanists about taking evolution into our hands and evolving into different species of humans. Thinking about the coming changes in terms of radical life extension, genetics, and how technologies are likely to extend our capabilities and alter our interior sense of ourselves, I can absolutely understand the rationale. I get it. Still, I argue for “humans” being a social term and do not wish to see the language of evolution and species applied. It will be all too easy to see the differences, all too simple to apply value judgments, all too common to not even notice those who are left out of the technology-advantaged world. In the future of real, the hard part will be maintaining a sense of compassion and continuing to keep the doors between worlds open.

Mormonism and Transhumanism: A match made in heaven

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF I'M IN SIGN

I'm in. That was my first thought when I read just a couple of pieces about Mormon Transhumanism. It was a Wednesday evening early this summer. I had read a description of Transhumanism in a Huffington Post article:

“Transhumanists' main goals are to overcome mortality and ... in essence, to become godlike.”

It reminded me that Mormonism centers around this idea, found in a scripture God gave to Joseph Smith:

“This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

So Mormonism is about overcoming death and transcending mortal life. And Transhumanism is about, through technology and science, overcoming death and transcending mortal life. They fit together like a hand in a (medical) glove.

Then I read about the Mormon Transhumanist Association, and I realized that I had come across a good thing -- really, really good. Salvational, even.

Are technology and science not keys to immortality?

Many Mormons believe that God gives us technology for a reason. Some say technological and scientific development figure into God’s plan of salvation. And past progress in those fields signaled that God’s spirit was moving on the Earth as part of the restoration of the gospel. Why would technology and science stop playing a role in God’s plan after the time of restorer, Joseph Smith? If overcoming death and transcending mortal life are necessary and key parts of the gospel, why wouldn't technology and science continue to play a role?

Many Mormons also believe that we are God’s hands, as the scripture says, and called to do God’s work. Why would we not help in the process of immortality? It would be empowering. Many of the geniuses in our world today could play a role in helping us become immortal, as God intended. After all, Mormon prophets have said we'll help others after we overcome death ourselves.

As a Mormon, I am a post-secularist – a believer in religion after secularism. I believe that the gospel, being God’s everlasting word, will endure despite the popularity of new attitudes and activities that may seem to have no basis in religion or spirituality, as we've known them.

Transhumanism is usually regarded as secular, but some have suggested that it's a post-secular “religion.” Finding such a symbiosis between Mormonism and Transhumanism, I see the two converging as one. I nearly expect them to. As the gospel says, “all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole.”

Equating Christianity with Mormonism, consider what Christopher Benek wrote in a piece titled, “Why Christians Should Embrace Transhumanism”:

“... by not embracing transhumanism, Christianity may be ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ ... followers of Christ have a moral responsibility, as good stewards, to help guide the direction of this exponential technological growth for the betterment of humanity and the world ... the only thing truly delaying the development and utilization of technology for Christ's redemptive purposes is Christians' failure to advocate for such goals.”

Let’s go do God’s work. Technology and science are asking for it.

The Cosmos as Imagined in the Beatitudes

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF JESUS CLASSICAL PAINTING

I more than once have learned that "Blessed" in the Beatitudes is a word that implies the happy state that the Gods are in. What if one were to take this meaning very literally, and set the Sermon on the Mount in the context of the Mormon and Transhumanist ideals of humanity actually approaching or achieving Godhood? Where our Heavenly Father and Mother had parents of their own and went through the same process we are now experiencing? Then the Beatitudes would begin:

Of the state of the Gods are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The beatitude goes so far as to say that heaven will belong to the the poor in spirit. The Book of Mormon makes an interesting addition here: "blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me." We are blessed to be in the state of the Gods if we are humble AND come to God. Now iterate this thought -- who did God come to? Could it be that to be a God, God was humble and came to his own God? Is this chain of connectedness a necessary part of godhood?

I'm not sure what exactly poor in spirit means. One possible translation is "those living in uprightness, or 'perfection.'" A chain of reasoning could be followed from this back to claiming that those who do what they covenant to do (here and previous to this life) will become Gods, and this integrity between word and deed comes up specifically later in the sermon. But humility is an idea that is here, and is frequently repeated in the scriptures in various contexts. Gods are humble. In what cosmos is humility an advantageous trait? Humility in the face of what?

Mourning as a sign of empathy and imagination

The sermon continues:

Of the state of the gods are all they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

How does mourning make one like God? Equally importantly, how does mourning make God God? What evolutionary advantage could it give? One answer to that seems obvious to me: a strong sense of empathy is a characteristic of humanity, and it has likely contributed to the vast societal accomplishments of humanity. Mourning is a sign of empathy and imagination. The God of Mormonism is one who weeps at the suffering of his children (Moses 7:28-32). We know of one universe where empathy and imagination engender evolutionary success, so it isn't such a stretch to imagine a cosmos where these same traits are beneficial to flourishing. On the other hand, insects are extremely successful, and many microorganisms are extremely successful, and I am unaware of a highly developed sense of empathy or imagination in them. But they also aren't on the brink of driving biological expansion beyond the Earth. The importance of mourning has interesting possibilities for constraining our view of the cosmos.

Earthly meekness projected into the heavens

Of the state of the gods are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

God is meek. This is rather remarkable, and seems to me good reason to throw out a variety of absurd, stereotypical assumptions about God both within and without Mormonism. However, it does lead to some new problems. We clearly can't apply every common definition of meek to the Gods. Whatever definition we use must be one that can be applied to the rulers of worlds. Somehow meekness must be possible while also wielding immense power. One way this can be explained was shared by Christ himself when he said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." This meekness is at least a willingness of God to share with us the work that has to be done to become Gods ourselves. This isn't a God who says, I'm past that stage, and now it's up to you to sort things out yourselves. Here are the physics and chemistry labs, with all the equipment, supplies, and instruments. You've got brains. Good luck -- and by the way, if you blow everything up, including yourselves, you've got only yourselves to blame. I gave you all the tools. It's not my fault if you didn't take the time to figure out how to use them right!

I know this idea of an involved God is a big sticking point, for many, but I believe it is an essential part of understanding the Mormon Transhumanist cosmos. In this cosmos, we aren't talking about a God that does things because they are arbitrarily good, or punishes things because they are arbitrarily evil. We are talking about Gods who have arrived at what is good and evil through an evolutionary process, themselves. Good things are the things that lead to cosmic evolutionary success. Evil is what interferes with radical flourishing. This may be a flawed picture, and is almost certainly an incomplete picture of good and evil, but I don't know how to avoid it as a minimum. So it appears we have a cosmos where Gods in later stages have greater reproductive success when they are involved in the lives of their offspring and relatives in earlier stages of godhood. But God must be involved meekly. Somehow the invitation to share a yoke is the most effective way.

I also see an additional way God is meek. He allows that the meek will inherit the earth. I think for years I read that as the meek will get to live on this earth in a future, more perfect state, while the proud aren't going to have a place on it. The problem with that is I can't think of another time we use the word inherit to mean something so passive. When you inherit something, it is yours. It is your responsibility. It is yours to dispose of as you will. In this case, the meek aren't going to inherit the earth because God dies. So God plans to willingly relinquish something he created and ruled over to another group of people. Once again I have to ask, in what kind of cosmos is this advantageous?

Gods who hunger and thirst

Of the state of the gods are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.

The Gods hunger and thirst after righteousness. Perhaps an intense, ceaseless, primal drive to devour truth can be claimed as a characteristic of the Gods. This is an uncomfortable idea for anyone who believes that all righteousness can, at least theoretically, be obtained by God. Gods who hunger and thirst eternally -- as part of their very being, or state -- reveal quite a different cosmos. If this hungering and thirsting is truly the state of the Gods, then it isn't something with an end. Something out there is so vast that even the eternal, unimaginably powerful Gods only ever obtain a portion. If some absolute sum of all righteousness, or even some absolute understanding of all laws that govern all of the cosmos could be achieved, given enough time and mental capacity, then there would be no need for a God to continue in a state of hungering and thirsting after more. This state would not really be the state of the Gods, but only a preparatory state. The Gods would not hunger and thirst in this way.

Accepting that God does hunger and thirst implies some mind-boggling things about the cosmos. There must be more possible laws governing worlds that can be than any God or group of Gods can fully explore and understand. But we can make a claim even stronger than that. Not only is it a cosmos with so many dimensions of complexity that the Gods can't comprehend it fully, it is so complex that the Gods must continue to learn about what they don't know or they will be eclipsed reproductively. It is not possible to become the fastest reproducing Gods in the cosmos by finding a single strategy that works best and then ceasing to experiment. If Gods could figure out the best way to reproduce, all possible Gods would converge on that method, and they would not need to hunger and thirst after more knowledge. In fact, hungering and thirsting after more knowledge -- beyond what is needed to run this optimal reproductive scheme -- would potentially be a waste of resources that could be better spent on other parts of the scheme, and at best would allow Gods who don't hunger and thirst to reproduce equally as quickly as those who continue to hunger and thirst. The cosmos implied by hungering and thirsting Gods is possibly of infinite dimensional complexity -- at least of greater dimensional complexity that the learning capacity of the Gods.

IMAGE: PHOTO OF COSMOS GRAPH

If you are having troubles visualizing these dimensions of complexity, I offer a mathematically imprecise analogy (you mathematicians can insert your own analogies, but you already know this principle is correct, so I'm not writing to you). Think of all of human experience, influence, and knowledge, including the knowledge that we will have and that we have lost, as a single dimension -- a line headed out toward infinity. If Gods are able to experience or influence a class of things that are beyond any possibility of humanity (in our current state) ever knowing -- some examples might be Gods possessing some additional sense or living in dimensions of space or time that we do not experience -- then Gods could appear unlimited (or selectively unlimited) within our single dimension. Even if humanity could partially access this second dimension, the Gods could still know, do, or be infinitely more, but this totality would still be limited to two dimensions. If all that was, is, or might be encompasses even one more dimension that is inaccessible, or only partially accessible, to the Gods, then it is fairly trivial to conceive of Gods that are infinite and all powerful (relative to current human perception), unchanging (if they have optimized certain traits for reproductive success), and eternally progressing (if there is greater knowledge or other traits that have not yet been or can never be optimized).

Knowing God

This is only the beginning of what one could learn about the Gods and the cosmos from the Beatitudes. I don't really imagine that these sayings were intended with the kind of literal interpretation I have given them. Yet in reading them in this way, I find a God -- or a Heavenly Family -- that is

humble
loving
concerned
involved
seeking
and never ceasing in their journey of making Heaven.

As I project the God I wish to become, I hope I can hang onto these traits as a guiding light. And I hope the cosmos really is such that these Gods are its rulers.

God-fearing Atheist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OPEN FALL ROAD

You’ve probably heard the old saying “everyone is born an atheist; we have to be taught religion”. In my case, that might actually be true.

Even at a young age, doubting the absoluteness of my religion, Mormonism, came quite naturally to me.

I can vividly recall, at age seven, sitting in Primary with the rest of my peers discussing the Plan of Salvation. More often than not, I found myself disengaged with boredom. However, on this particular day I was open to the discussion. I decided to raise my hand. When my teacher called on me, words poured from my mouth. I thoroughly articulated the entire Plan of Salvation with perfection and ended confidently with, “Yep, and that’s how we can live with God again. Well, that’s the story, but I don’t believe all that crap.”

The word crap resonated in the air with a profound discomfiture. We all sat in a pit of silence, as my poor primary teacher stared at me in bewilderment like I was a small reincarnated minion of the anti-Christ. Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration, but that was certainly the impression.

I assure you I wasn’t a minion of the anti-Christ. She simply didn’t understand that I grew up in a home where we could talk about anything. We didn’t have taboo topics. It was perfectly acceptable to discuss anything we wanted and even dissent without being rejected. No matter what opinions we held, we still loved one another and found reconciliation. It never occurred to me the rest of Mormonism functioned differently.

However, in the awkward silence of Sunday School it was very clear I said something iniquitous. My young mind tried to make sense of the social norm I disrupted. Was my teacher upset I said crap or that I didn’t believe?

At the end of Church, my mother came from Relief Society to pick me up. My Primary teacher pulled her aside with serious concern and told my mother what I had said during Sunday School. I remember looking up at them from an awkward subordinate angle, awaiting my mother’s response.

After my primary teacher finished speaking, my mother looked down at me as if she was benevolently gazing upon an adorable child who just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She smiled and laughed while holding my hand and said, “Oh Blaire, what are we going to do with you? Let’s go home.”

And that was the final word of the matter. She never brought it up again.

I learned three valuable lessons that day. First, for some strange reason, it is unacceptable to publicly express doubt or dissent in Mormonism, as it can result in social alienation. Second, regardless of what I said or believed, my mother would always love me. Instead of shaming, shunning or lecturing me, she simply loved me. Third, perhaps I should consider eliminating the word "crap" from my vocabulary.

. . .

More recently, I sat next to my seven-year-old son during sacrament meeting. One of his peers stood at the podium and bore their testimony beginning with the common phrase, “I know the Church is true”. Immediately following the phrase, my son abruptly stood up from the pew, his book and pencils falling to the floor while he confidently stated, “That’s not true! That’s not what God told me.”

Wide-eyed congregants stared at my son like he was a small reincarnated minion of the anti-Christ. Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration, but that was certainly the impression. Maybe our resemblance is genetic. In either case, I didn’t take the time to evaluate the expressions of onlookers as I quickly ushered my son into the foyer.

I’ll admit I was slightly embarrassed by the outburst, but I also couldn’t help the smile creeping across my face. I’m sure my expression was similar to my mother’s. I loved my son, his questions and his concerns, just as my mother loved me, and nothing he believed or didn’t believe was going to change how much I loved and accepted him—Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Atheist or anywhere in between—my love and acceptance would not be limited to any label of his choosing.

My son, like so many of us, is simply seeking meaning, understanding, and value in our brief existence. Would his explanation be any more accurate than mine? I didn’t know, but I was more than willing to listen.

. . .

I’ve learned the most important concepts of love, truth, and reconciliation in Primary, and thanks to my mother’s example, I understood what it meant to be a disciple of Christ.

It seems odd how quickly Christians forget one, if not the most important, of the commandments that Jesus exemplified: as I have loved you, love one another. Jesus exuded this radical love repeatedly. When he spoke to the woman taken in adultery did he shame her, excommunicate her, or shun her? The customary punishment for a woman committing adultery was to stone her, but what did Jesus do? He said, “Neither do I condemn thee.” He walked among the meek, poor, and lowly. He healed, consoled and comforted. He didn’t reject the doubter who said, “Help thou mine unbelief.”

How do we love one another? How do we show love to those in other religious traditions? How do we love atheists? How do we love the child who simply states, I don’t believe all that crap? I’m confident in saying that if we are going to make any significant progress we’re going to have to learn how to work together without condemnation or ridicule.

As Christians, too often we find ourselves dependant on our religion for our salvation—uselessly waiting for prayers to be answered, relying on promises to be fulfilled while we idly sit on prideful thrones, all the while depending upon the legitimacy of ancient texts to dictate how we live. Have we stopped to consider the hindrances of having a religious perspective filled with eternal promises?

If we live under the premise that there is nothing beyond this existence, no God, it really puts into perspective our mortal priorities. When our time becomes finite, how will we choose to use it? When a lifetime has limits, how will we push those limits? There’s no need to waste time constantly trying to reconcile the cognitive dissonance that often accompanies religion when we become creators of our own destiny. Motivation and altruism can be self-emanate.

On the other hand, have we stopped to consider the benefits of having a religious perspective filled with eternal promises? God has commanded us to be creators of our own destiny. Religion inspires and motivates. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of a thoughtful narrative—the power to immerse ourselves in a life-changing paradigm shift that allows a person to perceive themselves as one with the divine, as children of God. If faith without works is dead then God has commanded us to act and to keep searching for the truths of our existence, not just through our faith, but also with our works. Renowned scientist and Mormon Henry Eyring stated, “In this Church you have only to believe the truth. Find out what the truth is.” (Faith of a Scientist, pg. 41)

Think of the benefits of applying religion as an active enhancement to our righteous endeavors rather than a set of irrational parameters to define an intelligence we clearly do not comprehend.

I love my atheist family members just as I love my believing family members. Believers and atheists alike can not only coexist, but can also become co-creators of our salvation when we transcend our differences in our common goal to radically improve humanity. Whether you believe it to be the will of God, the work of Christ, or the altruistic responsibility of humanity, I’ll take that journey with you.

# My Grandma is a 98 year-old Transhumanist

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OLDER WOMAN

I had the opportunity recently to sit down with my wife's 98 year-old grandmother. The occasion was an LDS temple sealing of my niece and her, now, husband. As we waited for the party to arrive, I made my way over to where "GG" (great-grandma) sat next to her rather modern-looking walker which doubles as a portable oxygen system -- a machine extending her life. Once she recognized people who sat down next to her, she was eager to have very lucid and engaging conversation with the wisdom of a 98 year-old smile and laugh.

She asked about how my wife and I and our kids were doing. She asked about my job, and she was interested in what "distributed computing" was, asking very good questions. The event being a religious occasion, conversation naturally gravitated towards each other's faith and hopes. She talked about the afterlife as if it were a destination she already had a ticket to. I guess we all have that ticket. She talked about hopes and apprehensions of meeting long lost friends, family, spouses, etc. But she also hoped there were opportunities for forgiveness and repentance in Christ to mend relationships that were left frayed.

She spoke of the art she created as she painted -- many in the family have her lovely paintings in their homes. She showed me how if you ever wanted to learn about something, that one of the best ways to do so is to paint it. I sat awed by just how engaged I was with someone removed not just by a different generation and era but multiple generations and eras from me.

Wondering how a 98 year-old woman would reflect on her life experience, I asked her,

"What has been the biggest change you've experienced in your life?"

Without hesitation she said, "Oh, definitely computers."

This was from a woman who remembers being pulled by horse carriage as her family's primary means of transportation. Someone who lived with only outdoor plumbing early in her life. Who lived through WWI, WWII, prohibition, FDR, JFK, the Cold War, a space race, expansion of commercial aviation, the great depression, woman's suffrage, television, anti-segregation, and much more -- to say nothing of her courageous personal life. She even mentioned she is writing a poem on what she has seen and experienced in her life. "I have it all finished in my head," she said proudly.

"Computers?", I replied, somewhat elated. "Why?"

She talked about how amazed she is at the things we can do with computers, that computers are getting smarter and more powerful every day. We talked about the great amounts of computing resources used to make possible LDS temple work, which is driven by genealogies. She mentioned that things that took years before are now at people's fingertips. She worried about the negative aspects of technological power and the need for us to find good ways to use it.

I brought up how computers keep getting smaller, more powerful, and cheaper. She said she can remember when computers were the size of large rooms and only did basic things and that now we carry tremendous computing power literally in our pockets. I asked her what she thought the future of computers might hold; suggesting that, perhaps, we might have computers the size of our cells. She said she wouldn't be surprised.

I rhetorically asked her,

“I wonder if God, with all of this technology, is helping us learn the tools of the resurrection.”

Her eyes lit up and she said, with a smile,

“Oh, absolutely!”

I suddenly had the realization that I was talking to the oldest transhumanist I'd ever met: a 98 year-old Mormon transhumanist.

Futurists and transhumanists often wonder what might humanity do with technology and long life. I felt like I caught a glimpse of a possible answer as I sat and talked to a woman whose own life has been greatly affected and extended by technology as she reminisced about the joy and sorrow of human relationships across generations and the grave, the enduring aesthetic knowledge of art, empowering exponential technologies, human strivings for forgiveness, and a future where all of these find realization in the hope for an instrumented resurrection.

What the Serpent Wrought

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF PROSTETHIC LEG

It starts with a small opening, not even a wound But the opening grows, intensifies, parts It is the rift of the world; a rift that begins to tear and to bleed and to rend the mind and the lungs and the flesh. We are no longer together, no longer one, no longer whole. Instead there is a rupture so great there is no going back; the history of the world is changing.

The pain is too much to bear. It pulls the breath, gasping for air, gasping for relief. The agony is all around, agony that blurs the vision and scars the mind. This is a pain that will never be forgotten, a pain deep as the core of the human soul. It will be remembered even by those who have not witnessed it.

The mind fills with fear, with anger, trying to make sense, trying to stave off the pain; but finally yielding to desperation, to nothing more than screams. Pulling, tearing, separating. The pain ebbs for what seems like seconds then it comes flooding again, stealing away all thoughts, all passions, all comforts. How can love ever again follow?

All around, there is sweat, and tears and blood There is nowhere to hide, nowhere to go to not know the misery now upon us. We long for yesterday, we long for tomorrow because this moment, these hours are too much, too overwhelming, too far from peace.

And the wound tears open more, letting loose blood and fear and the very real threat of death if unchecked.

And then the child is born.

Divine Privacy

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CARTOON DRAWING

I remember being told in my youth that God saw everything we did, and that when we did wrong His spirit would go away. I know variations on this are common teachings, and it did cause me a little distress at times, knowing that God saw the things I had done wrong and would judge me for it. But God was pretty impersonal for me, despite intellectually believing in Him as my father, so the impact never lasted long. It didn't make me choose right, although it did likely foster feelings of shame. The shame of being watched really hit home when I thought about the spirits of my Mormon ancestors and children to be floating around and caring about my welfare. It was always presented that way -- they were cheering me on to make good choices -- but it was a whole lot more emotional to imagine them watching me as I obsessed over a lingerie catalog, and I couldn't help but make the connection.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but probably sometime after my Grandpas died, maybe when I was 22 or 23. Now they were spirits who could look in on me. I finally accepted that they did want the best for me. They did love me. They had seen life. They knew the stupid, silly, weak, and even evil things that people did. They loved me anyway. Nothing I could do would surprise them. If they didn't want to be around when I was sinning, they could go. If they did want to be around me, even with my faults, they could deal with it. It was their problem how they judged me, not mine. And I believe they judge me with love.

A recurring theme in our increasingly digitized and connected world is that of privacy. This is probably big everywhere, but with our constitutional right to it in the U.S. I know it's an especially big deal for many Americans. My gut reaction is consistently to fight for privacy, but when I get down to what I really care about, it isn't privacy. What I care about is safety and freedom. I don't want my personal choices to be abused by those seeking gain, or even seeking to harm me. I want to be able to think freely and make choices without judgment by those who don't really know my life or my heart. I want to be able to make mistakes without someone capitalizing on it to gain an advantage or put me down. I don't value privacy for its own sake, but because I fear the very real abuses of intimate knowledge.

This thought struck me in recent years because I aspire to a future where there is no real privacy. I want to be a God. God knows an awful lot. God lives in a society that has atoned, or become one. I want to live with people who know me intimately, and may have power to know me completely. No more secrets -- not even the ultimately harmless but really embarrassing ones I'm not sure any other human knows about me -- or would really care to know (I've shared all the ones that are true failings with somebody -- often many people -- when I needed to get help). Zion is an open place. People are of one heart and one mind. I'm convinced now that this means unity inclusive of great diversity rather than unity from sameness.

How does this view of Zion and of heaven fit together with technological erosion of privacy? I see in our loss of privacy a two-edged sword. Human rights are being abused by unscrupulous people and the misuse of amoral knowledge collection engines, I'm sure. But knowledge of me makes my world better, too. Search engines pull up the results I want more often and more quickly than when I was completely anonymous to them. I connect with friends, and the stories from friends, that most interest me without seeing every posting about what band my nephew next plans to see (love you!) or every game milestone my "addicted" acquaintances surpass (I just don't let mine be posted online -- too embarrassing for a 40 yo). Surveillance devices may be used abusively or to protect people and make the world safer. I can learn about people, businesses, charities, products, etc. much more quickly than ever before, and with reputations built through hundreds and thousands of relevant, first hand interactions (e.g. Amazon reviews), I can judge likely outcomes much more accurately. The erosion of privacy may even be necessary to preparing us for exaltation.

I hope we will harness the erosion of privacy to bring us closer to perfection rather than fight to simply maintain privacy as if it were a primary virtue. We can work to curtail its abuses as we move step by step toward openness and unity. We can work on mindfulness and shamelessness to improve our personal lives and prepare ourselves to better live with less privacy. We can learn to judge not that we be not judged, and to give no place to gossip in our lives. We can become the kind of people with whom others wish to be one. We can do many things to make our eventual loss of all privacy be a free and joyful day for humanity and for each of us. Maybe that day is an exaggeration -- God is not an open book to me, and I imagine there will always be beings without full knowledge of me -- but I sincerely hope for a happy end to privacy.

Can Mormonism save Western civilization from Submission?

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF OPEN CITY SQUARE

I was very sad when I heard of the terrorist attack against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7. I have been in the Middle East many times, and I only had good experiences with Muslims, but it seems that the Western and Islamic civilizations are on a violent collision course, and nothing good can come from that.

The attack against Charlie Hebdo was an attack against freedom of thought and the free press, and as such it can only be vigorously condemned. At the same time, I agree with those who, while firmly condemning the shootings, observed that many Charlie Hebdo cartoons against Islam were really over the top. “Je suis Charlie” because I support freedom of expression, but “Je ne suis pas Charlie” because I don’t insult others’ religion just for the fun of it. I will fight for the freedom to publish Charlie Hebdo … but I won’t read the magazine. I will fight to protect our civilization, but the war against Islam is not my war.

On the same day of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, January 7, the long-awaited new book of French novelist Michel Houllebeq, “Soumission” (Submission) was published by Flammarion. The English translation hasn’t been published yet. If you speak French, I encourage you to read the original - otherwise there is a good critical review on The New Yorker.

I am a big fan of Houllebeq, so I rushed to read Submission. The novel is set in a near-future (2022) France where an Islamic party led by charismatic politician Mohammed Ben Abbes is about to make a big win in the elections. Ben Abbes will end up second after Marine Le Pen’s National Front, and the socialists and other mainstream parties will rally with him to avoid an otherwise inevitable victory of the National Front. Ben Abbes will become President, and France will become an Islamic nation.

Ben Abbes never appears in the novel, which is narrated from the point of view of university professor of literature, François, a specialist of 19th century French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans. François is a typical Houllebeq anti-hero. Like Daniel, the main character in Houllebeq’s “The Possibility of an Island,” François is portrayed as an intelligent but essentially weak person, unable to form strong relationships with people or ideas, and obsessed with sex - especially with younger women.

Of the other main characters, the most important for the story’s tight narrative are a Secret Services staffer with a clear understanding of contemporary historical and cultural currents and, especially, Robert Rediger, a powerful intellectual who converted to Islam. At the end, Rediger will persuade François to convert with well constructed arguments, but what really persuades François is the prospect of having many young wives – whom he won’t even have to choose and court, because they will be assigned to him by the authorities.

Islamic activists aren’t violent – the only violent act in the novel is committed against them - and always sound reasonable and pragmatic. They are ready to negotiate and compromise on secondary issues, but stand adamantly firm on the main issues, such as an Islamic public education system. Ben Abbes is presented as the first great French politician after Mitterand, and when the book ends he is poised to (gradually and pragmatically) unify Europe and the Mediterranean region under an illuminated political entity inspired by Islam.

Compared with the Islamic strength and purity, the leftovers of the once great Western culture seem decadent and ineffectual, lacking conviction and strenuous mood, obsessed with unimportant things and unwilling to fight for survival. The word that comes to mind is “weak.” The main achievements of the Western civilization – the separation of religion and state, the freedom of inquiry and speech, and the emancipation of women – are presented as symptoms of the effete, sedate weakness of an aging civilization that is no longer able to resist the youthful force of Islam.

Typically, conservatives oppose the Islamic “invasion” of Western societies and liberals accept it as a welcome sign of openness, but according to some of Houllebeq’s characters, conservatives should ally with Islam against effete liberalism, because their core values are the same: a strong society inspired by a strong religion, and a return to the firm social structures that, according to both, are better able to support a strong civilization.

I don’t know if that’s what Houllebeq thinks. I suspect not – rather, I think he is observing today’s historical moment from a distance, without taking a side explicitly. It’s certainly not what I think: on the contrary, I believe that Western civilization has achieved great things, which must be preserved. But at the same time, I am afraid I agree with the central thesis of Submission – our Western culture is aged and weak, while Islamic culture is young and strong.

Italian philosopher and politician Gianni Vattimo has often applied the terms “weak” and ‘strong” to cultural and philosophical stances. Cutting through all the big words, involved sentences and qualifiers that Vattimo – a weak thinker himself - likes to use, strong thinking is characterized by firm convictions and a powerful sense of duty, which take precedence over less important niceties like openness, tolerance and personal rights.

Islam is strong.

Christianity was also strong – a few hundred years ago. It isn’t strong now, as François realizes in the powerful atmosphere of some old ruins of Christian Europe in rural France. Then he goes back to Paris, and converts to Islam. Mostly for the submissive girls, but he also persuades himself intellectually that Islam is the new thing.

2022 isn’t that far. Should we accept Submission as the inevitable fate of our Western civilization? If not, what trends in the contemporary Western civilization can make it young and strong again?

When I first visited the “Mormon neverland” in Utah a few years ago, I was surprised to find a strong culture right in the middle of the weak America of today. Mormonism, a new religion born in the strong America of the century before last, has created a community of strong thinkers with firm convictions and a powerful sense of duty. Actually, I am hardly the first to notice interesting parallels between Mormonism and Islam.

Mormonism is often defined as a (radically novel) reformulation of Christianity, but I think it qualifies as a new religion. In particular, some central aspects of Mormon doctrine, such as the idea that God was once a limited being like us, and we ourselves will become more like God in an endless progression, would sound dangerously heretical to most mainstream Christians. Therefore, I consider Mormonism as a genuinely new religion – and please don’t tell me that religion doesn’t define culture in today’s “enlightened” world: that would be naïve. Just go to Utah and take a look.

Mormons are powered by the calm happiness that comes from knowing one’s place in a good world, and a quiet determination to make the world even better, step by step, with good works including science and technology. They are blessed with a firm conviction that they will see their loved departed ones again after a life of good works building Zion – on Earth and beyond.

Not that my friends in the Mormon Transhumanst Association are that two-dimensional. On the contrary, they – and their families and friends that I had the pleasure to meet – are as complex and multi-dimensional persons as everyone else on our planet. They feel sorry for the problems of the Mormon homosexuals, the women who prefer not to stay at home and bake cakes, the intellectuals who are excommunicated from the Mormon Church, and perhaps even for the smokers and coffee drinkers (like me) who aren’t allowed to enter the inner Temple. But protecting the Mormon religion, culture, community and social organization comes a strong first in their scale of priority, and takes precedence over less important niceties.

If Robert Rediger hadn’t converted to Islam, I think he would consider converting to Mormonism. And François too – the Mormon Church renounced polygamy to appease the rest of the U.S. with a smoke screen hiding the otherness of their religion, but I guess a sovereign Mormon nation would be open to polygamy. Perhaps Houllebeq should consider writing another novel set in a near-future Mormon America.

From my perspective – the perspective of a smoker who can’t live without hot coffee and doesn’t judge others’ personal lifestyle choices – I wonder whether Mormonism could become much more open and tolerant without losing its strength. I am not sure it could: other Western cultures did become much more open and tolerant, but at the cost of becoming weak. However, I know many Mormons who share my opinions on social issues while remaining strong about what really matters, so let’s wait and see.

Perhaps Mormonism can save the Western Civilization from Submission.

Another possibility is the emergence of new religions focused on strong cosmic visions without petty, provincial aspects. All religions, at least all the Western religions that I am more familiar with, have both cosmic and provincial aspects, at times difficult to disentangle. I often refer to the cosmic aspects of religion as “cosmology,” as opposed to provincial “geography and zoning norms.” My God does cosmology and only cosmology– He is not interested in the petty details of our daily life, as long as we act with love and compassion and do good works to bring humanity closer to Him. Perhaps new strong, powerful religions with awesome cosmologies not encumbered by geographies and zoning norms will become popular and help our Western civilization recover its former strength. I am not very optimist: Based on the lukewarm reactions to Cosmist ideas so far, I suspect that geography and zoning norms might be essential to establish and keep strong convictions and a powerful sense of duty. But another possibility is that I, and many others who think along similar ways, have been unable to find the best ways to communicate our message, in which case we must work hard to become better communicators, and develop a new generation of better communicators.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Windy Days

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF RAINBOW WIND PAINTING

I love windy days. They remind me to have faith in the beauty of things I can’t see. Though the wind is intangible I can feel it all around me, and though I can’t see it I can see continual evidence of its presence. I believe the same is true of God.

The wind can easily be explained using a basic knowledge of temperature, geography and air pressure, but that wasn’t always the case. There was once a time in history when stories, mythologies and theories arose trying to explain the mystical force of wind. Today, with modern science, the numinous nature of the wind has subsided, but it hasn’t taken away its beauty. Is the wind any more or less real because our understanding of it has changed? Is the wind still not governed by the same laws of physics even though our explanations are more sophisticated?

I don’t believe we are much different than our ancestors. We still use mythologies, theories, religion and a narrow understanding of science to explain what we don’t know. We scramble around trying to make sense of our world and quickly come to definitive conclusions based on our imperfect data. Why do we pretend to “know” science or God when our knowledge of both is so incomplete?

Perhaps there will be a time when religion catches up to science, or rather science catches up with God. Maybe there will be a time when we could live in a post-theist and postsecular world, and our understanding of all things mystical, spiritual, secular, and scientific will seamlessly merge into a single comprehensive understanding of our existence.

I don’t “know” when or if that day will occur, but for now, I choose faith—faith in all the things I do not know, but bring joy and beauty to my life. I have faith in science, religion, history, theories, technology, mythology, ideas, the future and God.

I won’t pretend to know what I clearly do not, but I won’t lose faith in what I hope to know either.

# Dorothy Deasy Appointed Chief Humanitarian Officer of the Mormon Transhumanist Association

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DOROTHY DEASY

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is pleased to announce that it has appointed Dorothy Deasy to serve as Chief Humanitarian Officer. Dorothy will continue to serve in her positions as board member and secretary of the board. Humanitarian managers, Hank Pellissier and Roger Hansen, will also continue to serve in their positions.

The Association engages in humanitarian efforts for a variety of reasons. Partly it is because the projects reflect the motivations and passions of their respective project leaders, such Hank Pellissier's desire to help people in Uganda to reach their potential, Kathy Wilson's hope to ease the hardship of dalits in India, or Roger Hansen's work to bring joy to children growing up in poverty in Africa. The over-arching reason is that we are inspired by the idea of transfiguration and aspire to follow the example of Christ by reaching out with love.

Dorothy believes that transfiguration calls us both to traditional expressions of charity and to more. Her hope is that the Association will influence many to imagine the promise of transhuman advances and technology as an opportunity to provide greater access to those on the margins, and to position anticipation of the Technological Singularity as an urgent reason for work to ensure that all human potential matters.

The Mormon Transhumanist Association is eager to work with others on projects that enable people to participate in their own transformation and that of their communities for the better. We need your help, resources, passions, and projects. Join us to ensure emerging technologies are applied where and how they are most needed in our society, culture, and world.

Christopher Bradford and Dorothy Deasy at Transhumanism and the Church Conference

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF STAIN GLASS WINDOW

Two board members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Christopher Bradford and Dorothy Deasy, will present papers at Samford University’s Transhumanism and the Church conference. The conference will take place on September 24-26 in Birmingham, Alabama. Bradford’s talk is titled “Transhumanism as Grace: God's Hand in the Radical Remaking of Human Nature.” Deasy’s presentation is titled “The Narrow Gate: Vulnerability in a Transhuman Age.” The conference is open to those who wish to attend. More information on the conference may be found here:

[http://www.samford.edu/science-and-religion/transhumanism-conference/]

IMAGE: PHOTO OF CHRISTOPHER BRADFORD Christopher Bradford

IMAGE: PHOTO OF DOROTHY DEASY Dorothy Deasy

Creator Status: Are We There Yet?

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF SUNSET WITH DINOSAURS

One day we’ll know how our universe came into existence, and how such complexity was accomplished with such basic materials over so vast a space-time. We may even be able to recreate such complexity. We have made tiny accomplishments towards that end, making small simulated environments that are very well defined and static (as in CGI movies), and making other amazingly vast dynamic worlds with extremely simple rendering (such as Minecraft). At some point on this car ride to Creator status, we’ll start asking, “Are we there yet?” Well, we can start asking now. And the answer may be that we are almost there. Case in point: No Man’s Sky.

No Man’s Sky ([www.no-mans-sky.com], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man's_Sky]) is a video game produced by Hello Games being released on PC and PS4 in the next 12 months. What sets it apart from every video game you’ve ever seen is this: it hosts a fully explorable galaxy with up to 18 quintillion distinct planets. The sheer massiveness of that is beyond words, and unlike Minecraft or World of Warcraft, the worlds are FULL, not blocky or pre-defined. They may have fully distinct animal and plant species on each habitable planet, of various sizes and shapes and colors. See for yourself:

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

The way you play is to explore and discover. All players inhabit the same universe, but start out far apart from each other on the rim of this enormous galaxy, so even though you can fly or space-jump from planet to planet in your spaceship and land on innumerable worlds, get out and explore them on foot, you would rarely, or perhaps never, meet another player. So you would just keep exploring, being the first person ever to find and discover the corners of each planet or star you come across, naming and classifying things like a cross between Charles Darwin and Neil Armstrong, surviving the dangers of the natural environments of space, stars, planets and asteroids, gathering materials and improving your craft.

How is it possible for a virtually infinite universe to be created and managed? The answer is that it is procedural, meaning that every star system, orbiting body, continent, feature, plant and animal is generated just beyond your observable view as a product of hundreds of mathematical formulae. Only what you see is managed on the game servers. Nothing you can’t see exists at all in any way, but as soon as you look, it’s there, fully-formed. Leave and come back and it will be exactly as you left it, it being the product of math. How much farther would one have to go in the development of a simulated universe to get something that so closely resembles our vast universe? Maybe not very far at all.

Could God have started our universe as simply as No Man's Sky? Could it be that the entire universe is the product of 100 or 1000 formulas? Physics seems to say so. We only have 100 or so naturally occurring elements, differentiated for the most part by just 3 major particles and a handful of other ones, themselves all just various configurations of energy. The rest is just what happens when those particles get near each other, and the dominoes start falling.

Given the distance we’ve traveled in the last few decades, becoming a Creator of a universe like ours may only be a few decades away.

Post-secular Mormonism and the Role of Revelatory, Covenant Faith

carl@youngbloods.org (Carl Youngblood)

IMAGE: PHOTO OF COLONIAL SHIPS

So much angst in debates either for or against religion comes from pitting a dogmatic pre-secular attitude towards religion against reductive secular-only world-views. Often both see no possible way forward. And if religion can only ever be pre-secular and if secularly-informed world views can only ever be secular-reductive then perhaps that might be the case. But between these two extremes there lies a faith which delights in the truths gained through honest secular endeavors but that still acknowledges the reality and power of God.

Mormonism has not been spared from this debate. For some, Mormonism is something to tie down, preserve, and fence in -- to protect it from danger. For others, Mormonism is something that soars, must sail in a direction, and so must be free -- it mustn't be tied down. Maybe there's a role for both; for us to together figure out what God would have us bind to and what God is eager for us to let loose and sail.

I lean very much towards the latter type. I understand the dangers of "looking beyond the mark" (Jacob 4:14), inverting priorities, or confusing worldly wisdom with Godly wisdom. But I am wholly uninterested in a form of Mormonism that defines itself as static or finished (1). As something that has already arrived and so our only task is to keep it tied to a dock or permanently anchored in a harbor. That, I feel, would go against what Joseph Smith worked for. I want my faith's sails fully deployed, full of revelatory winds, and taking us to new places more beautiful than we ever imagined. And post-secularly informed faith can be a way to do so.

Post-secularism

Post-secularism offers a way forward. It's not an option that makes everyone happy. Pre-secular religious attitudes may disagree with its inclusion of secular knowledge and secular-only world-views may insist there is no value in including religion. But those tired of reductive or dogmatic arguments and dialogues that assume an adversarial tone can find a way forward in post-secularism. What emerges is a faith and world view that sees great value and truth in both religion and secular understanding and seeks to find a way forward with both learning from and correcting each other.

A quick definition on post-secularism:

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“[post-secularism is] the idea [that] modernity is perceived as failing and, at times, morally unsuccessful, so that, rather than a stratification or separation, a new peaceful dialogue and tolerant coexistence between the spheres of faith and reason must be sought in order to learn mutually. In this sense, [it] insists that both religious people and secularist people should not exclude each other, but to learn from one another and coexist tolerantly.”

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