Transhumanist Holy Week: Good Friday

2019.04.19

IMAGE: PHOTO OF GOLD DISCIPLES AROUND TABLE

Among the things contemplated this Good Friday are the events of Jesus' last moments: broken bread, betrayal, suffering, crucifixion, darkness, and burial.

At the 2017 Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA) conference, Michaelann Bradley spoke about her impressions as she contemplated some of these same topics in light of human history and technology's role for good and evil in it:

“The communion or sacrament is the moment when Christ breaks bread and shares wine with his apostles shortly before being taken by the Jews. These two symbols - the taking of communion, the dying on the cross - are, arguably, the two greatest, most universal symbols of Christianity. These are the two moments that every sect, every denomination must incorporate into their theology and must return to again and again for insight, for purpose, and for meaning. As Mormon Transhumanists, another iteration in the great, ever-branching story of Christianity, we too must incorporate, wrestle with, and seek to understand these two great symbols.
Furthermore, transhumanism is a story about the methods that we humans use to accomplish our ends, a story about the history of mankind, and what we are pursuing and what we have inherited: a story that looks to our past to predict our future. As Christian transhumanists, surely there must be a lesson to learn from this weird, wonderful, miraculous story of Jesus Christ slain and risen again. Today I want to well you a technological re-interpretation of the end of Jesus' life: a transhumanist morality tale about the choices humanity made long before Christ came to earth. I want to tell it to you as a story of how these two moments came to be: how the bread came to be and how the crucifixion came to be.”

The rest of her wonderful impressions can be viewed here (video jumps to 2:40 where she makes the statement above).

IMAGE: PHOTO OF VIDEO PLAY BUTTON

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