ABSTRACT
Keeping in mind the rejection-adoption-adaptation framework that we have been using, we now move to consider communities and new improvisations that further express the entanglements of AI and religion. In this chapter, we will explore transhumanism and how it is entangled with religion in both its rejection of religion and its adoption of religion’s rhetoric, narratives, tropes, and eschatological frameworks. Transhumanism has also emerged within a religious cultural history, including religious ideas that are sometimes viewed by transhumanists as precursors to its current form – or as ‘proto-transhumanist’. Transhumanism ordinarily positions itself as a rational, secular, even anti-religious movement. However, the second and third case studies in this chapter will also highlight continuities of thought and enchantment to reveal that theism – of many kinds – finds expression in transhumanism. Transhumanism partakes of the telos and eschatology inherent in AI discourse and expands on them with new imagery and aesthetics that can inspire adherents in a similar way to religious iconography. Exploring this will unpack more of the religion versus science discourse that is found in transhumanist conversations and in which AI is also located – as we will see in Case Study 12. Throughout this chapter, elements of transhumanism in non-religious and non-transhumanist discourse reflect the wider impact of this thinking on society and visions of progress.
