Could Transhumanism Render Religion Obsolete?
Offline Transhumanism(H+) has been called by it's critics, a "secular religious viewpoint", which to me sounds oxymoronic. One poster on another forum called some of the propsed futuristic ideas a "Rapture fantasy for atheists". Here is a Wiki article on H+.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
Some of the things I've heard propsed are: increasing human lifespan to hundreds of years,increasing human brain capacity, increasing IQ's by as much several hundred percent. Downloading human consciousness into quantum computers until a suitable replacement body can be utilised.
How does the contemplation of these ideas work with religion? Could religion survive if some of the dreams of transhumanists became reality? What if death could scientifically be rendered obsolete? What purpose, then would religion serve?
"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings."
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On my own...well I will admit that while I find the idea fascinating I find it kind of silly. But I suppose that religion might still endure, even if death was rendered obsolete certain religious views would probably change or adapt but I can imagine some of them would still exist. One big thing is that religion is endlessly malleable, we would likely either see new religions form up or existing ones would alter themselves to fit. They would probably look less at the concept of life after death and more at questions of morality as well as the questions of infinite justice or punishment. Some people would probably argue for an equivalent of multiple century 'hell' prison sentences for people that they view as horrid criminals and the like. I think that we'd also probably see more esoteric stuff involving the soul and spirit/body duality since it would be quite possible to create a self that is truly and fully independent of a body.