Transhumanism: An Online Network of Technoprogressive Quasi-Religions

Abstract

Transhumanism is a serious intellectual movement, focused on the revolutionary potential of technology to transform humanity, which functions as an online network of organizations, operating through websites, forums, and Facebook groups with thousands of members. They debate whether it is a religious movement, but it does contain the Turing Church, named after the Church-Turing thesis in physics, and a Cyborg Buddha Project. Its fundamental principle is that technological progress is capable of achieving the Singularity at which everything becomes possible including human immortality. One prominent organization is the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which chiefly seeks to develop an ethical system for managing technological innovation for human benefit. Another is Terasem which describes itself as “a transreligion that includes all religions the way a forest includes its trees.” In addition, the Mormon Transhumanist Association believes that Mormonism naturally advocates the use of advanced technology to achieve transcendence from the human condition. Among the movement’s influential leaders is Max More, who adopted this name as part of a rational conversion experience, organized a branch called Extropianism for a number of years, and now heads the Alcor Institute that freezes humans at death and preserves them in “cryonic suspension” until such time as medical science can hopefully revive them and cure them of all defects. Transhumanism is the most respectable and influential social movement today that specifically advocates replacement of traditional religions with a science-based alternative that could achieve all the traditional supernatural goals.