Christian Transhumanism: Made in the Image of God
The traditional attitude of Christians towards areas of science and technology that radically change or mimic the acts of God is that we’re “playing God” as if that’s a bad thing, that it’s something prideful and arrogant. Something that imposes on some proprietary territory of things that only He can do.
I’m making this article, my first on Christian Transhumanism, to challenge that assumption and to make an introduction to further articles about Transhumanist technology as Christians should apply it. Let’s begin.
First of all, Adam named all the animals (Genesis 2:20). Not God. God brought them to him to see what HE would name them. He delegated something of immense importance to him.
Second of all, we’re children of God and made in His image. We are by definition made Godlike. And children are supposed to grow up. In “What’s so Great about Christianity” by Dinesh D’Souza, it talks about how the history of mankind has been about using advancement in technology and society to get back to the status of the Garden of Eden. More power, longer lifespans, greater capability of manipulating ourselves and the world around us.
Finally, in the End Times, evil forces will definitely not care what God thinks about transhumanism. They will just use it. All those false signs, and the Antichrist surviving a head injury will probably be using sophisticated near-technological singularity technology like brain computer interfaces, nanotechnology, and more. Nanotechnology could easily enable things of miraculous magnitude. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” No wonder people will want to shun God and oppress believers when it will appear as if becoming Gods themselves is on the horizon. Most likely, believers will be trying to suppress transhumanism unless Christian Transhumanism picks up. In The Transhumanist Wager — a transhumanist scifi novel depicted in the present — it practically depicts the main character as the antichrist. He gets fed up with religion and traditional authorities, both things of God, and takes over the world establishing an atheist One World Government dedicated to achieving Godhood. It outright oppresses Christian thought, just like in the Bible. I don’t think the author even intended this whatsoever. It’s coming about naturally.
This is how many mainstream transhumanists think, and most of them are very bright people. I used to be a big fan of the Transhumanist Wager myself. It’s a blueprint for fighting against religious oppression of scientific and technological development. It’s sad that religion is depicted as being completely opposed to something like achieving perfection and trying to emulate God when that’s exactly what it instructs to do in the Bible. (Matthew 5:48)
Rather than shunning transhumanist technology when it isn’t even a sin, but rather something virtuous and that enables virtue, we should use it to prepare ourselves as well. If the enemy is going to be using advanced neural upgrades and nanotechnology, then we should be too. The oppressed Christian minority in the End Times will need to use advanced technology to fight against evil and protect themselves.
Why start thinking in terms of the end times? Because a technological singularity would be on the horizon if not for some limiting factor. Technology is growing at an exponential rate. We can now read individual neurons through flesh and bone and the skull. https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/9d7hsz/huge_breakthrough_they_can_now_use_red_light_to/
This enables the sort of technology that the antichrist would most likely use to survive a headshot or anything of the sort by using neural backups. It enables powerful artificial intelligence and the reverse engineering of the human brain at the level of individual neurons.
Now, the other possibility is that these aren’t the end times and what will happen is a nuclear war followed by years of stagnation. What if there was just a nuclear war, followed by three hundred or three thousand years before the Second Coming of Christ and an end put to this mess? This is the sort of thing suggested by a Canticle for Leibowitz. A Christian post-apocalyptic novel that depicts multiple nuclear wars and thousands of years of stagnation.
