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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.

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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:

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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."

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[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]

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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:

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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:

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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.