Synopses & Reviews
As a result of the fast-developing array of human enhancement therapies and technologies - commonly subsumed under the term "transhumanism" - the "flesh and blood" body of the human species may be significantly modified in the immediate future, or eventually eliminated, if some have their way. The proposed collection of original articles, a sequel of sorts to the 2009 Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (Palgrave Macmillan), is the first sustained reflection, by scholars with expertise in the faith traditions, on how the transhumanist agenda might impact the body.
Review
"It's time for religious folks to take a look at their bodies. Just how valuable is our body? It's time to ask this, because transhumanists are proposing a more highly evolved bodiless existence. Mercer and Maher ask us: do we really want to go there?" - Ted Peters, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union, USA
"Technological progress entails manipulating nature for our own ends, so is easily seen by people of faith as challenging the wisdom of the Creator. But were we not created with the ability and desire to engage in technology? Was it a sin to develop fire, or medicine? These essays will forcefully reassure readers that further technological progress, even if sometimes burdened with the unnecessarily scary label 'transhumanism,' will also be God's work." - Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer, SENS Research Foundation, UK
Synopsis
This collection of original articles, a sequel of sorts to the 2009 Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (Palgrave Macmillan), is the first sustained reflection, by scholars with expertise in the faith traditions, on how the transhumanist agenda might impact the body.
About the Author
Calvin Mercer's four books and 25 articles are in biblical studies and religion and culture. Also trained in clinical psychology, he practiced professionally part-time for about a decade, and has utilized insights from this discipline in his published work on religion, as exampled in Slaves to Faith: A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind (2008). He co-edited, with Derek F. Maher, Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (2009) and he was a founding member and chair for six years of the American Academy of Religion's "Transhumanism and Religion" group. He is professor of religion and director of the Religious Studies Program at East Carolina University, USA, frequently gives public lectures, and is co-editor, with Steve Fuller, of the series Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors.
Derek F. Maher's publications include 20 articles, his annotated translation of the classic two-volume One Hundred Thousand Moons: A Political History of Tibet by Tsepon Shakabpa (2010), Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension, (2009), co-edited with Calvin Mercer, and the forthcoming volume co-edited with Tsering Wangchuk, The Tulku Institution in Tibetan Buddhism: Past, Present, and Future Prospects of the Reincarnation System (2014). Maher is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences and teaches courses on Buddhism, Hinduism, methodology, and religion and violence at East Carolina University, USA.
Table of Contents
Foreword; James J. Hughes
Introduction; Calvin Mercer and Derek Maher
1. The Transhumanist FAQ; Nick Bostrom
2. Buddhism; Derek Maher
3. Daoism; Livia Kohn
4. Hinduism
5. Islam; Hamid Mavani
6. Jainism; Christopher Chapple
7. Judaism; Rabbi Elliot Dorff
8. Mormonism; Adam Miller
9. Protestant Christianity; Calvin Mercer
10. Roman Catholic Christianity; James F. Keenan
11. Concluding Reflections; Ron Cole-Turner