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Long live Han Solo. We love the space pirate. That’s because he was a reluctant hero.

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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.

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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.

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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: Andrea Loper Johnson.

Now that I have your attention ...

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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?”

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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!

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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.

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

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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.

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.