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The Mormon Transhumanist Movement (An Interview)
We interview leaders of the Mormon Transhumanist movement, an association of Mormons interested in using technology to improve life. They explain core Mormon beliefs like humans can become gods, the purpose of existence is to bring about immortality/eternal life, and there are multiple heavens you go to based on your desires. We find many similarities with our ideologies and possibilities for cooperation to build intergenerational religious communities.
Lincoln: [00:00:00] The second president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association has what?
Eight children.
Malcolm Collins: Do you know if there's any second generation transhumanist Mormons yet, i. e. kids where this belief system has been successfully passed between generations?
Lincoln: All of my children are Mormon transhumanists. They're all adults.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, wow. So it's working. Okay, then the next thing I really want to talk to you about, cause I think that this is the most interesting thing about it, is the large following in Africa.
Carl Youngblood: Yeah, so that's, that's pretty recent. I was approached earlier this year by a guy in Senegal whose name is Kwasi Ngesen. And he was like, I really love what you guys are talking about. He went to our website and read some things and was really excited about it. And he said, I'd like to spread it to Africa.
And I guess he's a pretty good community builder. So, suddenly we have like, Almost 30 different groups that he has opened up in various African countries and is currently [00:01:00] Sharing some ideas with them
Would you like to know more?
Carl Youngblood: Hello
Malcolm Collins: everyone! We have a very special guest here today that I am really excited and could not be more on topic for our podcast. Or I think of more interest to a lot of our listeners who are interested in the more religious stuff. But we have with us today the Co founders of the transhumanist Mormon branch of Mormonism, or I'd say movement.
I don't like to say movement because I think it's a bit more than that. And I'd really love you guys to introduce yourself. And I'd love to start just by talking about what it is as a concept. And how you see it as contiguous with the traditional Mormon tradition.
Carl Youngblood: Awesome. I guess I'll start.
My name is Carl Youngblood. I'm the current president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. And I'm one of the co founders of the association. But, and Lincoln is as well, but there are several others, so I feel I need to give credit [00:02:00] to The whole group. There's, I think, what was it, Lincoln? Like 14 people or so who co founded the association.
And I do want to clarify that several of us are active Latter day Saints. We consider ourselves to be kind of in the mainstream church, as well. Although it's not required to be a member of The LDS church to be a member of the association. So we have Several active members. We have some who are not active in the church That's a term we use for like whether you are a practicing member.
I should say Sometimes we use this lingo inside Mormonism. That is a little bit confusing. So So yeah, there are practicing Latter day Saints in our, in our midst in the association. There are others who are not practicing and others who've never even been Latter day Saints, but just found a lot of interesting things to talk about in the group and, and kind of gravitated towards us for [00:03:00] various reasons.
And I'll let Lincoln talk a little bit more about it as well. Go ahead Lincoln.
Lincoln: Sure. Thanks, Carl. Yeah, my name's Lincoln Cannon. Like Carl said, I'm one of the co founders of the association, and I served as the association's president for 10 years from its inception until 2016. As Carl poi
Published on 1 year, 11 months ago