Transhumanism: A Religion Without Religion

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dc.contributor.advisorCauchi, Mark
dc.contributor.authorSherbert, Michael Gilbert
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-18T21:31:22Z
dc.date.available2024-07-18T21:31:22Z
dc.date.copyright2024-06-25
dc.date.issued2024-07-18
dc.date.updated2024-07-18T21:31:22Z
dc.degree.disciplineHumanities
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis project seeks to dispel the belief that transhumanism (a movement advocating for human-enhancement through technology) is diametrically opposed to religion. Transhumanism, rather than being a non-religious or secular movement, is instead a survival of Christian religious ideology shorn of its explicit religious character and transformed into a less religiously-apparent secular-scientific guise, retaining both beneficial and dangerous religious structures that continue to persist in transhumanist discourse. Many of the foundational religious structures that are largely unrecognized by transhumanists that I discuss include: the elimination of death, the sacredness of human life, the imposition of human-exceptionalism by understanding humanity as God-like, and finally, an unwavering faith in predetermined and unalterable messianic future events. Regardless of their presentation in a secular-scientific idiom, transhumanism’s retention of religious structures appropriates and continues the history of religious ideas deeply ingrained in Western culture, in what I call, following Jacques Derrida, transhumanism’s “religion without religion.” My argument employs a deconstructive logic of the X without X, or in this case, a “religion without religion,” to examine some of the ways religion may be extended by non-religious means, such as through the secular-scientific discourse of transhumanism. The value of thinking of transhumanism as a religion without religion, an approach lacking in current scholarship, is its ability to recognize the discursive histories of transhumanism’s religious past, while also recognizing the new, religious and non-religious possibilities of transhumanism’s future. My deconstructive perspective highlights the religious structures within transhumanism, showing how transhumanism unwittingly perpetuates dogmatic formulations of religious structures, like a determinate messianism, that may inflict incalculable harm to humanity and nonhuman beings alike. Recognizing these religious structures reveals how transhumanism can draw strength from the religious structures they too often ignore by being more self-critical and acknowledging the need for the non-knowledge of faith even in scientific pursuits, while also avoiding the dangers of religion, such as the over-confidence in technology to solve the problem of death. This project uncovers some of the harmful effects of the religious structures that survive in transhumanist discourse in the hopes that these dangers may be mitigated or avoided in the future.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42218
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectPhilosophy of Religion
dc.subjectCultural anthropology
dc.subjectReligion
dc.subject.keywordsAldous Huxley
dc.subject.keywordsAnthropocentrism
dc.subject.keywordsAnthropotheism
dc.subject.keywordsAutoimmune supplement
dc.subject.keywordsAutoimmunity
dc.subject.keywordsCarl Schmitt
dc.subject.keywordsCary Wolfe
dc.subject.keywordsChristian Enlightenment
dc.subject.keywordsChristian ideology
dc.subject.keywordsCritical self-awareness
dc.subject.keywordsCritical self-reflection
dc.subject.keywordsCultural anthropology
dc.subject.keywordsCultural history
dc.subject.keywordsDangers of religion
dc.subject.keywordsDavid Pearce
dc.subject.keywordsDavid Wills
dc.subject.keywordsDeath
dc.subject.keywordsDeath-drive
dc.subject.keywordsDeconstruction
dc.subject.keywordsDiscursive histories
dc.subject.keywordsDogma
dc.subject.keywordsEmpty
dc.subject.keywordsEmpirical science
dc.subject.keywordsEthical implications
dc.subject.keywordsFaith
dc.subject.keywordsFuture of transhumanism
dc.subject.keywordsGeorges Bataille
dc.subject.keywordsHans Moravec
dc.subject.keywordsHistory of ideas
dc.subject.keywordsHumanism
dc.subject.keywordsHumanist
dc.subject.keywordsHumanity+
dc.subject.keywordsHuman enhancement
dc.subject.keywordsHuman-exceptionalism
dc.subject.keywordsIntellectual and cultural movement
dc.subject.keywordsJacques Derrida
dc.subject.keywordsJohn Caputo
dc.subject.keywordsKenosis
dc.subject.keywordsLogic of the sans
dc.subject.keywordsLudwig Feuerbach
dc.subject.keywordsMartin Heidegger
dc.subject.keywordsMax More
dc.subject.keywordsMessianic
dc.subject.keywordsMessianism
dc.subject.keywordsMessianism without messiah
dc.subject.keywordsMichael Naas
dc.subject.keywordsMichael Sherbert
dc.subject.keywordsNeil Badmington
dc.subject.keywordsNick Bostrom
dc.subject.keywordsPredetermined future
dc.subject.keywordsPharmakon
dc.subject.keywordsPhilosophical analysis
dc.subject.keywordsPhilosophy
dc.subject.keywordsPierre Teilhard de Chardin
dc.subject.keywordsPosthumanism
dc.subject.keywordsPosthumanist
dc.subject.keywordsProsthesis
dc.subject.keywordsRay Kurzweil
dc.subject.keywordsReligion
dc.subject.keywordsReligion without religion
dc.subject.keywordsReligious contamination
dc.subject.keywordsReligious continuity
dc.subject.keywordsReligious elements
dc.subject.keywordsReligious history
dc.subject.keywordsReligious ideology
dc.subject.keywordsReligious influence
dc.subject.keywordsReligious past
dc.subject.keywordsReligious/secular concepts
dc.subject.keywordsReligious structures
dc.subject.keywordsSacrifice
dc.subject.keywordsSacrificial supplementarity
dc.subject.keywordsSacrificial emptying
dc.subject.keywordsSacred
dc.subject.keywordsSacred without sacred
dc.subject.keywordsSacredness of human life
dc.subject.keywordsSacredness of the human
dc.subject.keywordsScientific discourse
dc.subject.keywordsScientific reason
dc.subject.keywordsSecular spaces
dc.subject.keywordsSecular worldview
dc.subject.keywordsSecularism
dc.subject.keywordsSecularization
dc.subject.keywordsSovereignty
dc.subject.keywordsSupplement
dc.subject.keywordsTechnological supplement
dc.subject.keywordsTechnology
dc.subject.keywordsTheological concepts
dc.subject.keywordsTheological heritage
dc.subject.keywordsThe sacred without the sacred
dc.subject.keywordsTranshumanism
dc.subject.keywordsTranshumanism a religion without religion
dc.subject.keywordsTranshumanist discourse
dc.subject.keywordsWestern culture
dc.subject.keywordsWestern religious thought
dc.subject.keywordsWestern science
dc.subject.keywordsWestern society
dc.subject.keywordsWorld Transhumanist Association
dc.subject.keywordsX without X
dc.titleTranshumanism: A Religion Without Religion
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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