Re: the evangelical mass media debating transhumanism...

Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Wed, 17 Nov 1999 20:55:27 -0500

john grigg wrote:

> Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 12:58:12 -0800
> From: John Thomas <jwthom@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: Sasha's Web Page
>
> At 11:52 AM -0800 11/16/1999, J. R. Molloy wrote:
>
> >Happily, it seems religious fanatics spend too much time quarreling >among
> >themselves to take up a quarrel with extropy.
>
> You'll find them hard at work on the sci.skeptic, sci.astro, alt.origins and
> alt.atheist newsgroups. Not much energy left for us.
> (end of reproduction)
>
> It is only a matter of time before transhumanism and extropianism is taken
> up as a target for evangelical criticism, mark my words. In time there will
> be at least several evangelical websites that will have articles denouncing
> transhumanism.
>
> I am a Mormon and I can tell you a huge amount of energy goes toward
> debating my church.
>
> It is just a matter of time for these events to happen. It should be very
> interesting to watch them play out.

In fact, John, two young Mormon fellows visit me every week-end -- not for the purpose of religious conversion, but to discuss theological matters and the relationship of Religion to Society. Of course, I have been educated in the Doctrine in the process, and consider it a valuable addition to my knowledge base. At least my visitors do NOT have a seige mentality, but a very mature attitude toward ideological wars.

My question is: what wait? Why not launch a non-lethal pre-emptive strike? Mission: to demonstrate that an ideological attack would be self-defeating, and to emphasize common points, like the belief in the perfectibility of human life (without getting lost in purely semantic issues)?



Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA