Light
Lincoln Cannon is an American philosopher and technologist who co-founded the Mormon Transhumanist Association in 2006, serving as its president from 2006 to 2016. He is a leading advocate of technological evolution and postsecular religion, combining software engineering expertise with degrees in philosophy and business. ¶ Cannon is also a founder and board member of the Christian Transhumanist Association. He formulated the New God Argument, a logical argument for faith in God that has become popular among religious transhumanists. His academic work includes “Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism” published in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and “Transfigurism: A Future of Religion as Exemplified by Religious Transhumanists” published in The Transhumanism Handbook (Springer Verlag, 2019). ¶ Mormon transhumanism, as articulated by Cannon, holds that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is central to the Mormon theological tradition, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Cannon’s work bridges religious faith with scientific advancement, advocating for the ethical use of technology to extend human abilities in ways consistent with a religious worldview.
This is a poem that I wrote while I was serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Southern France around 1995. The poem is a sonnet in iambic pentameter. Each couplet is associated with a color of the rainbow. And there are both obvious and subtle allusions to scripture.
An apple stains the hands and wine the breath
betrayed by blood for pottage and a horse.
“Come home I love you, fire lights the course
and smoke the trials”: Stumble-blind from death.
Light
A lemon orb abreast familiar earth
illuminates the flavor of remorse;
yet verdant hills in peace endow the force
of life restoring love, endear the dearth.
Emerging, once immersed in thunder-highs,
to pure reflection of the heavens and
be indigoed; the spirit testifies
that good becomes reality again.
The summit sets, the stars and moon defies;
at last remains the light without an end.
Syndicated from Lincoln Cannon.