What Is Mormon Transhumanism?

In April 2015, the journal of Theology and Science published my paper on “What Is Mormon Transhumanism?” Access to the version of record requires a fee. However, I am now making the accepted manuscript available for free.

Theology and Science journal editor, Ted Peters, and I met at the Religion and Transhumanism Conference in Piedmont, California, in 2014. Ted gave a fascinating talk on “The Future of Transhumanism as a New Religious Movement”. I presented on Mormon Transhumanism. Afterwards, Ted invited me to submit a paper on Mormon Transhumanism to the journal. I did, and I was excited when they accepted and published it.

There are primarily three kinds of differences between the version of record and the accepted manuscript. First, the reviewer recommended some word choice changes, which I implemented for the version of record. Second, the reviewer asked for some additional details on various footnotes, which I also provided for the version of record. And third, the version of record is formatted for the journal. Everything else is mostly the same.

Here’s the abstract:

Mormon transhumanism is the idea that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is essential to Mormonism, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Mormon transhumanists are not limited to traditional or popular accounts of religion, and embrace opportunities and risks of technological evolution. Although usually considered secular, transhumanism has some religious origins and sometimes functions as religion. Accelerating change contextualizes a Mormon transhumanist narrative of common expectations, aspirations, and parallels between Mormonism and transhumanism. Mormon transhumanism has produced secular arguments for faith in God and religious arguments for transhumanism.

And here’s a link to download the free accepted manuscript of “What Is Mormon Transhumanism?”