Carl Youngblood from the Depths
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.
My friend Carl Youngblood has finally published his long-promised blog, From the Depths. The title comes from Psalm 130: De profundis clamavi ad te Domine – “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” It’s a fitting name for what Carl has been working out over the past two decades.
De Profundis
Carl is a founder and current president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. He and I have been thinking together since before the MTA existed, when a small group of us began asking what it should look like to live a more practical faith, to take seriously the prophetic visions of immortality, resurrection, and worlds without end. Carl has been essential to that conversation from the beginning.
Now, finally, he’s sharing his voice and vision more broadly. As of today, his blog presents articles spanning over a decade, many originally presented at MTA conferences. In them, you’ll read the thoughts of someone wrestling with questions that matter – momentous questions with practical consequence.
How do we navigate faith crisis without losing faith’s power? How do we see Christ in the marginalized when our codes tell us to pass by? How do we redeem our past, not just genealogically but morally, confronting the erased and subjugated? How do we think about resurrection as something we participate in rather than passively receive?
A few highlights:
“Help Thou Mine Unbelief” draws on Paul Tillich to articulate the postsecular challenge facing Mormonism, calling for “disciples of the second sort” who develop doctrine rather than merely repeat it.
“Celestial Forensics” is a meditation on quantum archeology and participatory resurrection, rendered as devotional prose – and echoing the haunting vision: “There will come a day when it’s harder to stay dead than alive.”
“Algorithmic Advent” and “What Is Intelligence?” engage AI through Mormon theology, applying the Grand Council narrative to alignment, and exploring intelligence as eternal, organized, and multifaceted.
“Religion as Social Technology” provides a theoretical foundation, drawing on Habermas, Bellah, and William James to explain why religion persists and why it matters.
Carl writes with warmth and accessibility. His articles parallel my own with similar ideas, different voices, and complementary emphases. Together, we’ve been building a theology to meet the challenges of our technologically accelerating world.
I encourage you to explore Carl’s blog, subscribe to his RSS feed, and share his work with others. In some ways, the conversation between theology and technology has just begun. But Carl has been contributing to it for over two decades. I’m happy we can finally see more of his work.
Syndicated from Lincoln Cannon.