Videos

Lincoln Cannon reinterprets the prophecy of Christ’s return through the lens of Christian theosis and Mormon theology. Examining the Hebrew Bible’s multiple “Christs”—including King David and Cyrus of Persia—alongside Paul’s teaching that “Christ is in you,” he argues that the “Son of Man” refers not exclusively to Jesus but to all the children of humanity. When Jesus says his return will be “as lightning visible from east to west,” he speaks of a collective transformation: the return of Christ is the moment when we become Christ, loving, healing, and raising the dead as Jesus commanded his disciples to do.

Ben Blair argues that strong communities are byproducts of pursuing worthy aims rather than ends in themselves. He critiques both religious institutions that equate themselves with the kingdom of God and secular groups that make community their primary goal, suggesting that both miss the driving force of shared purpose. Drawing on examples from the D-Day invasion to the Mormon pioneers, Blair proposes that the Mormon Transhumanist Association’s aspirational vision—working collaboratively toward becoming gods who lift each other up—provides the kind of “work cut out for us” that sustains robust, long-lasting communities.

Joseph West addresses the “lost children of Mormonism” through Nietzsche’s parable of the camel, lion, and child. The camel gladly bears burdens; the lion rebels against old values with a sacred “no”; but only the child can offer the sacred “yes” needed for genuine creation. West argues that Mormonism’s radical heritage—alternative family structures, innovative economics, the belief that humans can become gods—was suppressed when the community capitulated to mainstream American values. He calls for reconciliation between faithful “camels” and disaffected “lions,” urging both to seek the “sacred feminine” wisdom that can guide them out of the wilderness.

This presentation critiques the standard top-down model of divine authority in Mormonism—where God delegates power downward and refuses to recognize unauthorized rituals—and proposes an alternative bottom-up model rooted in Mormon scripture. Drawing on Doctrine and Covenants 29 and 121, the speaker argues that God’s power derives from honor freely given by those who trust in divine love, not from coercive imposition. Using analogies from computer science, including certificate authorities and distributed systems, the talk reframes authority as emerging from community consent and ritual as aspirational rather than mechanically efficacious—a projection of faith toward a future divine community that will ultimately validate the covenants made in hope.

Lincoln Cannon presents the New God Argument, a logical framework demonstrating that trust in humanity’s posthuman potential should lead to faith in God. The argument combines three sub-arguments: the angel argument (if prehumans are probable, posthumans probably already exist), the benevolence argument (posthumans are probably more benevolent than us), and the creation argument (posthumans probably created our world). Cannon shows how this reasoning aligns with Mormon theology—particularly Joseph Smith’s teaching that God was once as we are now—and responds to Richard Dawkins’s observation that sufficiently advanced extraterrestrials would be indistinguishable from gods.

Lincoln Cannon adapts Joseph Smith’s King Follett Sermon for a transhumanist age, offering consolation to those mourning the loss of loved ones. He argues that God was once as we are now and became posthuman through the same creative process we ourselves may follow. Information, like matter and energy, is eternal and cannot be created from nothing or annihilated—our dead persist in the causal fabric of reality, awaiting resurrection through the work of compassionate creators. Cannon calls for a synthesis of ritual and engineering: sacraments without technology are impotent, while technology without meaning is empty.