I'm pleased to announce that "Parallels and Convergences: Mormon Thought and Engineering Vision" is now available for purchase.

In 2009, the Claremont School of Religion, the LDS Council on Mormon Studies and the Mormon Scholars Foundation sponsored the Mormonism and Engineering conference. Richard Bushman (Claremont College Howard W Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies, and author of "Rough Stone Rolling") and Scott Howe (specialist in robotic construction at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) organized the conference, and the Mormon Transhumanist Association assisted with video recording and web site hosting. Several members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association also presented at the conference.

In conversation with a friend today, he commented that Paul in the New Testament seems to tell us to leave behind Christ (Hebrews 6: 1). I don't think that's an accurate interpretation of the passage, but I do think Paul invites us to leave behind the infancy of following Christ for the maturity of being Christ.

Scientists Anders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong are working on a paper that explores the relation between theoretical engineering capacities and colonization of the universe. Of course, this is not a new topic. For decades, scientists and philosophers have analyzed what has come to be known as the "Fermi paradox", named after physicist Enrico Fermi, who called attention to two apparently conflicting observations: on the one hand, the universe appears old and large enough to have produced many Earth-like planets capable of supporting intelligent life; yet on the other hand, we have no objective evidence for the existence of intelligent life beyond humanity on Earth. Many have argued that if intelligent life existed elsewhere then it should have been able to colonize the universe many times over by now, but perhaps "many times" grossly underestimates just how many times it could have happened by now.