Are James and Max Down with Pope Ratz? Friday, Sep 11 2009
transhumanism 7:48 pm
James Hughes and Max More are both trying to get Catholics into transhumanism. It’s funny that they’re doing the same thing in a similar way (using non-partisan arguments!) when James’ organization (IEET) recently directed unwarranted drama towards Max More. Just to clarify, I am not making fun of their efforts, this post title is totally tongue-in-cheek and just a ploy to get people to read it. It’s all a big lie.
James Hughes: An Epistle on H+ to the Italian Catholics
Max More: Why Catholics Should Support the Transhumanist Goal of Extended Life
Good luck guys! Lol@ “epistle”. Here’s a comment from James’ article by Matt Brown:
If I may Mr. Hughes. While it is nice to see the transhumanist community reaching out to demographics that historically have not supported us is it really necessary to pander to the Church by saying things like, “No matter how long humans attempt to live they cannot escape divine judgment or live longer than was divinely planned.” I count myself as one of the two-thirds of transhumanist that identify as an atheist and find this statement a little strange.
Also, as far as your statement that transhumanism offers “no competing understanding of life’s meaning and purpose,” you are aware that some transhumanists believe exactly that. Simon Young comes to mind. I’m not saying they’re a majority in the community but they do exist.
Then, Lincoln Cannon (head of the Mormon Transhumanist Association) says
James, I admire and value your efforts at communication and mutual understanding with religious persons.
Personally, I think it’s funny that people still believe that there is some all-powerful entity watching them that liked massacring people in the Stone Age and favors the Hebrew people and will return with symbolic imagery at the end of the world. I feel sort of bad being honest because I don’t want to single out Jewish people, and I don’t want to offend any of my friends of Jewish religion or culture, but isn’t it sort of amazing that a religious worldview cooked up by some Hebrew elders has reproduced and evolved to the extent that more than half the world’s people believe in some religion that starts with Adam and Abraham and the Pentateuch? We are talking about some Stone Age shepherd nomad elders whose ideas didn’t even start to die for thousands of years. It provides evidence for the hypothesis that memetics consists of winner-take-all markets, just like a lot of other things. Also for the idea that the Hebrews were really damn smart and were able to locate a fat fitness peak in the potential memespace that no one else really ever bested yet.
James Hughes remarks in the comments that there is all this hostility from transhumanist atheists about reaching out to religious people. I haven’t seen that much extreme hostility. Even though I disagree with James on lots and lots of things I trust him to do what he thinks is best. I really think he wants to help people and tries to spread progressive bioethical ideas because they will make everyone’s life better. If he wants to market transhumanism to Italian Catholics, some of whom seem remarkably enthusiastic about the whole idea, that’s his business. My position, though, is that religion is a joke. I understand that it guides many people’s moral worldviews, but I respect the morals themselves, not the mythological narrative they’re embedded in. You have to read the Bible as a bunch of metaphors because it looks really silly if you take it very seriously. Keep in mind that Jesus said he approved of all the old prophets and believed that Jonah was really swallowed by a whale.
The Pope, who I sometimes dub the Ratz-man, is obviously some traditionalist old guy. He is no Jesus of Nazareth, who I probably would be interested in and respect if I could have known him, even if he thought he was a Messiah. As everyone knows, The Ratz said that condoms worsen the HIV problem. The moment he said that, he threw away all credibility. So, any Catholics who do not specifically rebuke the Pope also lack credibility in my eyes. That means most. The fact that Ratzinger also approved a Holocaust denialist bishop also pisses me off, big time. The Vatican never did shit to protect Jews during WWII.
Anyway, check out the program of this conference of Italian Catholics on transhumanism. Here is the blurb:
Two thousand years ago, the Gospel announced the good news that man is not done at death, but is created to live forever…
Today, after two millennia, at the dawn of a new century, advanced science and technology raise another voice suggesting that man can achieve immortality on earth through science and technology…
Is earthly death a curse or a liberation for man? Is it a diabolical temptation or the will of God that man acquires divine attributes? Can science and faith coexist?…
We’ll talk with the leading Italian scholars who have published texts on the topic concerned, with a concluding synthesis from the bishop.
Get ready for some true ideological acrobatics as theists try to reconcile Stone Age mythology with modern science!
As for adopting transhumanism as a religion-analogue or whatever (as discussed in the comments of James’ article), I think transhumanist ideas are better as a source of meaning and explaining than religion or traditional secular ideas. I honestly don’t think it matters that much what people pick as their ultimate philosophy because we are all being manipulated by the same evolutionary puppet strings anyway. We can’t really follow our philosophies in complete earnest, because we are restricted to species-typical behaviors and thoughts. Until we can reprogram our brains at the code level, that’s how it’s going to be.
(Disclosure: I am of full Russian descent, not Jewish, and raised in the Russian Orthodox Church. I was an altar boy and good friends with my priest, who liked me due to my intelligence. I think the whole ritual is fun and I like how it provokes thought about the higher things in life, but I think that God/Jesus is basically Santa Claus for adults.)
Good theology isn’t actually that hard to do. It’s just that no-one tries to do it. I honestly think that if I could communicate “Tegmark level 4″ to a large fraction of theists they would agree with it and recognize it as their religion. Probably more than would agree with whatever their nominal theology was if it wasn’t labeled as such and identified as the correct belief in belief to mark them as a member of their fictive kinship group…
or “what Robert Write said” (when not talking to Daniel Dennett).
Sometimes restated as “Carl, you think our universe is likely to have been created by a far more intelligent and powerful entity, and that people have a good chance of living forever in a largely perfected world and state… hate to break it to you, but you aren’t an atheist any more.”
Based on my experiences of living 5 years in an Italian speaking place, I could see some Italian Catholics going for this. For most Italians, the Catholic church and being Catholic is a cultural thing: your grandparents got married in the same church in roughly the same way as you will. When the Pope declares that contraception is immoral and against God’s will, the vast majority of Italian’s I’ve met just shrug their shoulders, laugh and say, “Yeah, well, he’s just old fashioned.” Italy currently has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe.
It’s easy to be cynical about this — as I often am (especially as person who was raised Catholic) — but it’s important to remember that the RCC is the largest Christian organization in the world, boasting an estimated 1 billion adherents. So reaching out to them is clearly important.
But looking at this situation critically, the RCC is, for all intents and purposes, an orthodoxy. They haven’t had any true reforms since…..well, ever. The Council of Trent doesn’t really count because it was merely a retrenchment of values and a widespread mobilization effort. Similarly, the 2nd Vatican Council reaffirmed the RCC’s opposition to birth control etc, while its ‘reforms’ were mostly on the surface (eg mass could be read in non-Latin languages).
It’s worth noting, however, that the RCC has recognized certain scientific axioms, including Darwinian evolution. But even that claim is dubious as I doubt the Church considers this a truly autonomous process; I doubt that Catholic ‘scientists’ are truly naturalists by strict definition of the term.
As part of the militant atheist minority at the IEET, I’m not enthralled with the concept of “reaching out” to Christians — nor to anyone else, for that matter, who values irrational beliefs more highly than scientific truth.
I worry about the potential dilution of our strong support for reasoned ethics and about the danger of appeasement in a quest for accommodation. Thus I don’t approve of or condone any effort to be wholly inclusive.
However, the IEET is a broadly-based group and our ranks include many who hold some form of spiritual faith, so I must content myself with being a vocal critic.
In my view, religion is a poison that slowly destroys reason, tolerance, and liberality. Those of us who oppose religion can’t, and shouldn’t, expect to stamp it out legally or by force, though. The best approach is a continued strong commitment to educational equality. In the long run, truth will out, even if some generations must suffer in the meantime.
Also, on the subject of transhumanism as religion, take a look at this.
“I honestly don’t think it matters that much what people pick as their ultimate philosophy because we are all being manipulated by the same evolutionary puppet strings anyway. We can’t really follow our philosophies in complete earnest, because we are restricted to species-typical behaviors and thoughts”
Well said, Michael.
George, reaching out to them is not important. There are almost five billion others available.
Religion is already dropping off fast in places like Europe. Many more Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious” and don’t attend church than 20 years ago.
I fail at the mental acrobatics necessary for the miraculous brain reconfiguration called ‘belief’. Can’t do the backflip no matter how I try! My brain just leaves me panting, sweaty and breathless. Too puny mental powers I possess, apparently, poor me, never to know the joys of true mind-engulfing belief.
I fail to see where there is need for the word ‘theism’ describing my world view. It’s about as accuare as calling me ‘asatanist’.
‘Amemetist’ might be a good alternative to ‘atheism’ since theism is just memeism.
What my point is in not associating with atheism is that as an “evidenceist”, I’m not against anyone or any world view in particular, however far-fetched. I’m just overwhelmingly pro-evidence. Evidence, evidence, evidence! It’s all about the evidence, baby! So if you got evidence, I’m listening, in fact, you’ve already won over my mind and heart and control of my every future decision. If not, you have nothing to offer to me. Come back when you have the goods and we can talk.
I think Catholicism has a future as a form of creative anachronism. After all, the Pope’s daily life resembles a Renaissance Faire.
As for your Russian Orthodox background, Michael: I’ve wondered why Western Christians got so worked up over the persecution of Orthodox Christians in the Soviet Union, considering that many of them in other contexts would consider that form of Christianity weird and heretical. (Crusaders sacked the Orthodox stronghold of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 in part because they didn’t recognize the city’s population as fellow Christians.) If Soviet communists went out of their way to suppress a form of belief many Western Christians considered false any way, why did these Christians accuse the communists of hostility towards god?
BTW, regarding Abrahamic religionsts’ attitudes towards radical life extension, Ronald Bailey in his book “Liberation Biology” (which fell dead-born from the press) writes that in his experience at bioethics conferences, the strongest opposition towards a long, healthy, earthly life comes from conservative Catholic bioethicists, abetted by the Jewish Leon Klass. Jewish theologians and bioethicists other than Klass, by contrast, tend to come out in favor of radical life extension.
I haven’t heard of where Islamic bioethicists, if any exist, stand on the issue, though I suspect they would tend to agree more with the Catholics because both Islam and Christianity emphasize “going to heaven” after death, whatever that means, even though both religions also have strong health care traditions. (A thousand years ago, Catholics from all over Europe went to Islamic schools in Spain to study medicine, not vice versa.)
Modern Judaism, by contrast, has weak or vague beliefs about an afterlife, and a more positive view of earthly life (where the Jewish covenant with god operates), so that might account for the difference.
Hi Michael. I posted some thoughts in response here:
http://transfigurism.org/blogs/lincoln-cannon/2009/09/if-thats-god-im-atheist-too.aspx
I know you have some disagreements with my assessment, and I’d like to discuss those. Thanks.
Dear victim of the meme ‘Mormon’,
Doing good or having good values doesn’t require the existence of supernatural entities. Nothing in our universe requires anything outside of it.
I live a quiet, peaceful, and most importantly, fully productive life, unlike the religious, who waste a large percent of their waking hours just on REPEATING and DUPLICATING memes to their helpless offspring – or, like you, to even strangers overseas (I’ve met some of you meme infectants) so that they will become time wasters too. Wasting people’s time is reducing their useful lifetime and potential to do good. Anyway you look at it is Just.Totally.NOT A GOOD THING. That’s EVIL. Religions, like all memes, just waste the time of their host. They don’t care about you. All they care about is that they get copied.
When you say in your reply “I’ve chosen to remain a believer despite those.” I’m reminded of the line “I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE WHAT I WAS PROGRAMMED TO BELIEVE !!” of an anonymous robot on Futurama. You don’t see that’s exactly how the memes work? Too bad.
Kick the memes out and see what you can do when you have 100% of time to yourself. During a lifetime, 16 hours per day is a LOT more than even 15 hours 50 minutes (the rest of your time taken by rituals, incantations, magic spells – which you call prayers – and reading and talking about those memes you call the Truth). How many more minutes and hours you spend on your “chosen” memes per day? There is NO greater waste of human time and potential than memes.
Memes, such as religions, test your mental capacity to filter untrue ideas. They test your mental immune system. If it’s strong enough, they stay out. Your response to memes, “stay out” or “come on in”, is the response to an intelligence test. Which you, like billions of others, fail, and billions more will fail. As a species, we just aren’t smart enough, yet.
Hi Evidenceist.
Please know that you’ve mischaracterizated me and my religion. Like many Mormons, I posit no supernatural or immaterial entities and recognize little meaning in existential claims regarding such entities. Additionally, few persons who are well acquainted with Mormon culture would seriously characterize Mormons as time wasters; to the contrary, we’re commonly considered to be work-addicted.
Please also consider that you’ve engaged, in your post, in the sort of behavior that you’re criticizing. You, too, are propagating memes. I point this out not because I think you’re wrong or immoral in doing so, but rather as an observation of what it is that we all engage in, whether or not we’re religious.
Your memes are without the supernatural? That’s a philosophy, not a religion, right? It doesn’t really matter if a supernatural being is said to be involved or not. If you need some texts or teachings to tell you how to behave and conduct your life, you’re in trouble. I mean, you seriously lack common sense.
After I had made complex, age-old mystical tapping gestures with my fingers on the Holy Board of Keys, by the grace of the Net of the Nets – the Internets (Speed Be Upon Him) – an angel named Wikipedia appeared in my room with a latency of 163 milliseconds and revealed to me:
Humanistic Mormonism
* A Mormon is someone who identifies with the history, culture and future of the LDS way of life.
* People possess the power and responsibility to shape their own lives independent of supernatural authority.
* Ethics and morality should serve human needs and choices should be based upon consideration of the consequences of actions rather than pre-ordained rules or commandments.
* The Bible, Book of Mormon or other religious texts are purely human and natural phenomena. Biblical and other traditional texts are the products of human activity and are best understood by scientific analysis.
I just don’t get the first point. What do you need it for? Why not just live without ANY teachings or association to anything. Oh, wait, that wouldn’t be called Mormonism, but just humanism. There has to be something really great about the Mormon-specific things. If you don’t mind telling, what keeps you in?
The memes made *me* say it? Oh, yes, of course you’re right; I am indeed propagating the meme of the meme. My motivation for doing so is not to put more memes into your head but to take the trash out. This is a special case of meme propagation, like homicide is a special case of crime. I’m not breathing more life into memes. I’m depriving them of that which they need most to survive: remaining undetected. By letting you realize that you’re not living an entirely self-motivated and self-directed life but rather one controlled by memes you were infected with sometime in the past, I hope to give you a choice of kicking the habit.
The problem is being a “something”, like a “Mormon” or “Zeusian”. I, on the other hand, am a “nothing”. I’m an empty set, zero. There’s no framework of memes that I adhere to. Just logic, rationality, and evidence. To me it’s just common sense. To you, it’s apparently something extraordinary to trust solely your own judgment without having anyone or anything tell you how things are – except for that one thing, of course, evidence.
In a world without memes-gone-wild, that is only possible with a population with knowledge and immunity to harmful memes, these kinds of discussions never take place. This kind of exchange is not people talking; this is memes talking.
I welcome you to a world where nothing is accepted just “because the meme says so”, but just “because the evidence says so”.
Hi Evidenceist.
You’re making several assumptions that facilitate misunderstanding – I don’t blame you, but rather the meme you’re propagating. ;-) Here are a few of my perspectives that may help. (1) Religion is popular philosophy – some Mormons agree with this. (2) Appeals to authority (scriptural or otherwise) are fallible and less reliable than appeals to shared experience – most Mormons agree with this. (3) Archaic religious language can map into contemporary language – most Mormons agree with this.
I agree that you’re a special case, but not the one you’ve claimed to be. To the extent that you acknowledge and willfully transmit memes, you’re a special case. However, that special case is also represented among religous persons that are aware of what they’re doing. The additional difference to which you appeal, that you’re not communally or ideologically affiliated (a “nothing”), is simply one of philosophic taste, and one that is not consistent with your behavior (otherwise, you wouldn’t be engaged in this or any other conversation). My taste is for acknowledging my similarities and affiliations with others, despite the imperfections in the similarities. In my experience, these affiliations have been, on the whole, more empowering than not.
One more thought for now. Evidence is not independent of or antecedent to memes. We simply do not consciously think even remotely close to the level of something like raw sensory inputs (if such a thing exists), but rather at a relatively high level that is presumably filtered by innumerable anatomical constraints, which in turn reflect historical evolutionary pressures from communal and environmental constraints. In other words, the evidence says so, in our estimation, because the meme says so.