Panel Discussion

Speaker 1

I really want to give some thanks to the people who worked really hard to organize the conference. Carl was the head of that effort, so thank you very much to Carl. Carl. And he also got some very helpful assistance from Michael Ann Bradley. Brian Smith, Nathan Hadfield in the back, and Linda Nauman, who was helping us with the refreshments in the back, and setting up the table. So thank you to all of them.

Speaker 1

Second, we have a tradition to Present some gifts to our keynote speakers. Those gifts have not arrived yet, so we’ll have to provide those to you after the fact. But we’re going to be presenting Rosalind with a copy of Eric’s book. And Eric will be receiving Wrestling the Angel, Terrell Gibbons book.

Speaker 1

And finally, we’d like to invite Eric and Rosalind to come join me up here for a few minutes. I think we have probably about between 15 and 20 minutes. Oh, yes, Nee.

Speaker 3

to have a spring and more people to work. So in a society that you said that will be happy my benefit or whatever. Is making with someone else. How would that work in a society in terms of politics, diplomacy, international affairs? How would that work?

Speaker 4

I have no idea. I mean, look, it obviously works to some extent, for instance, in, for instance, the polyamorous communities on the West Coast or the few that are on the East Coast. Go to Eugene, Oregon, ask them. They’re into that stuff. Well, I mean, they are.

Speaker 4

And so somehow, I don’t think that those future One of the things about transhumanism is transcending humanity, and I know that I have a lot of human failures. I can be aggressive in inappropriate ways. I can be sexual in inappropriate ways. I can be have all sorts of emotions that come from a background that I would hope that transhuman Ericss would transcend. And so I would hope that transhuman politics in future universes would be a superior form of politics, something more virtuous.

Speaker 4

I enjoyed the thing on Zion, that one would think that somehow I would posit a transfinite series of Zions, but those will not have the same kind of politics we have here. And hopefully, they would be better politics.

Speaker 5

No, no. We had we had been chatting earlier in our specifics.

Speaker 6

Okay, um the LDS um mythos begins in the beginning of the sense of a war in heaven. That very concept war heaven. is really part of our tradition. The way I see transhumanism is we can have more wars that have happened. I mean if they’re possible once, they’re possible again. What are the conditions for that you would, all three of you, what are the conditions that would um pro provoke a war in the presence of the most advanced type, the most loving being that’s exuding love upon everyone in the What conditions are there?

Speaker 4

I’ll just say one thing, then I’m going to give it to you because this is your department. So I I don’t um I don’t have to subscribe to the Mythos of a war in heaven. But I certainly like, for instance, John Hick, who says, look, he describes a plurality of heavens, a series of heavens, and so forth. And much of My original ideas are based on John Hick.

Speaker 4

Conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be war. I like chess. Nobody dies. The pieces come back. And so Hicks says, for instance, well, in the future worlds, there will be struggle. But the struggle that we have here is defective in many ways, or incomplete in many ways. When I fight my opponent, even if I honor him or her or whatever, they die and they’re killed. That’s not, I don’t see that that’s required in a superior world. Right?

Speaker 4

And so what If there are wars in future heaven, they’re going to be a lot. Maybe it’ll be like Valhalla, right? We’ll all go out and fight, and it’ll be great, and we’ll have a great time slaughtering each other, and our bodies will rise at the end of the day, and we’ll go and get drunk. And do it again tomorrow. You know, so. Yeah, why not? But maybe you got you were asked for all three, you just asked for

Speaker 1

So you asked what conditions would give rise to a war in the presence of a supremely loving being. And I think. There’s really only one condition that’s necessary, and that is conflicting desires. Love by its nature Is something that grants freedom. Love cannot be coerced, and it is not coercive. And as a consequence, if there is a sufficient degree of freedom to have a conflicting desire, I think that’s a sufficient condition. To allow for a war.

Speaker 1

Now, obviously, love can be very persuasive. but I don’t think it guarantees the avoidance of war. And I don’t know that there is a way to guarantee that that isn’t simply the elimination of The desire that conflicts with yours.

Speaker 7

Oh, sorry, you were about to ask. I was just going to see if we can get the two of you to sort of address each other’s ideas in some way.

Speaker 2

We would love to do that. Please feel free to answer the question. Okay, okay.

Speaker 5

Well, I mean, I I’m hesitating because I don’t really know. I mean, I have I haven’t given a lot of thought. I would say I think The conditions that could give rise to another war in heaven are the same conditions, presumably, that structure A material cosmos as we know it. That is, that matter has two aspects, right? One is resistance and one is availability. And resistance is Is the difference in the particularity. The availability is the willingness to enter into forms of relation.

Speaker 5

And even, of course, in a war, you have You’ve got both, right? You have the conflict, but you also have the alliances and the cooperation on opposing sides. So I don’t think that any other new condition needs to arise. I think the conditions are already present and always will be.

Speaker 6

My understanding is different from this gentleman. The war in heaven was a war of words, not of fighting.

Speaker 4

Can we should we address each other’s thing then? Because I want to say that uh so you’re Rosalind Rosalind and I’m terrible with names. Who was the we what You with the camera. What’s your name? Blair.

Speaker 4

I was struck not being a Mormon and following, I do follow some of the things that go on in. in all sorts of religious groups in the United States today. And I’ve just been struck by the emergence of female voices in Mormonism. And I don’t know if it’s appropriate or not to say Mormon feminism. not being involved in it? Well, I don’t I don’t wanna speak for others. I mean, but if there is, then fine. I’ve I’ve been following that and I I say that I know there are vast religious changes, especially in younger generations. And certainly as a non-Mormon from what I’ve seen here, looks like Mormonism has a fascinating, fascinating future. That would be my take on a lot of the things that I’ve heard here.

Speaker 5

No. I think we should call on another. Oh, okay.

Speaker 8

Um, so this um is something that I’ve been thinking about that I may be completely wrong about, but your comment reminded me of this. We talked earlier today about how unity and altruism are important things that And how that’s two fundamental principles to be a design community. So, why do we have segregation in heaven? And yeah.

Speaker 5

Is that directed towards me? Yeah. So um can you expand on that? What do you mean by segregation?

Speaker 8

Um actually. Just yeah, this so the kingdoms thing bothers me. I come from a family with a lot of I I guess this is why I kingdoms. I come from a family with a lot of religions. And everyone’s religion is a part of their identity, and I don’t want them to change that necessarily, unless they’d like to. And so in heaven, there’s a lot of missionary work going on. On. And it’s all in the name of converting to a singular, I guess, unified religion. But if you don’t, then you get to have you have to sit in a different spatial camp. And I have problems with this because I love my family, and I think Mormons love their families. And so that doesn’t resonate with me, the the idea that we’ll be separated because of that. And of me to a potential spouse who might be separated because of that. And so why in this afterlife are families so important? Why do we segregate?

Speaker 5

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to defend that particular proposition. I am not certain that that is indeed how it will be. I don’t know that that’s necessarily an inevitable reading of our understanding of you know the the degrees of glory. I think there’s a much more developmental and universal reading that’s possible of eternal progression, not eternal stasis and eternal sorting into Into the division. So I think that there is a much more developmental and dynamic if we believe in

Speaker 5

In a material universe that cannot escape from time, right? then we really can’t conceive of sort of eternal sorting into the laundry baskets and sitting there for all of eternity. That’s not how I think we need to, or even can, read it. So I think you are free to I think you’re you’re free to think of it in a different way.

Speaker 1

All right, so we’ll have just, what, five more, three more minutes? All right. I just wanted to reinforce a little bit with a fun anecdote. When I attended BYU, I took. Some religion classes from Joseph Fielding McConkie, the son of Bruce R. McConkie. And he loved to tell the story about how he and his father always disagreed about whether these These various groupings in heaven were physical separation, or whether they were more like a state of being. His father had thought they were physical separation, and he. Thought they were a state of being, and he says, and now that he’s dead, he knows that I’m right, James.

Speaker 7

Your reinterpretation of the proclamation against other people’s families is far more feminist and palpitable than the church leaderships. So that’s great. But um since Mormonism seems to run from the top down rather than the bottom up in in how it’s being dictated to us, I should recommend me from the bottom try to either make the confirmation go I think would be my preference. Or at least make it interpretable in a way that isn’t so ridiculously horrible. And then make that spread.

Speaker 5

Yeah. So that other people wanna so that so The damage it’s doing to LGBT people, Septeminus goes away in the church. I’m not going to engage with your interpretation of the effects of the proclamation. I think we, you know, I we’ve seen those those we’ve seen those conversations happen. So

Speaker 5

I think we want to hold on to the proclamation, though. A, we’re going to. It’s not going to go away. So it’s here. I think we want to, though. I think it’s really. Can you imagine anything in the Hebrew Bible conceptualizing men and women as equal partners, right? There’s nothing like it in canonized scripture. This is the closest that we have to having a canonized basis for gender equality.

Speaker 5

Now, maybe we would want it to be different, we would want to change it, but it’s there and is there to be used in the way that every religious community has used its sacred texts. Right? Has reread, reinterpreted, redeemed, and saved relevant bits of its sacred texts And applied them moving forward.

Speaker 5

I think that’s exactly what we are called to do with the proclamation, as we are with all of the texts that, you know, canonization, and the proclamation is not canonized. Perhaps that may happen some day, that that the relationship that canonization structures between the believer and the text. So I I um The problem of authority in Mormonism won’t go away, and I don’t have a solution to it. So I can’t tell you what to do about church leaders who keep on saying things you don’t like to hear, you know. But all I can say is that we have it. I think we should read it and use it. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Speaker 4

I’ll say, can I say one thing as a non-Mormon? The problem of authority might go away much faster than you think. There’s nothing been in religion that’s been fixed or eternal on this earth. And one of the things that if you study the history of religions, you see that not always, but very often, radical religious change can happen in a matter of years. So who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 4

The um church leaders clearly think that the implications of Propagation is a call to action against gay marriage basically. So the the partnerships from being legally recognized. And I wanted to agree that the that the proclamation does apply that to the NSR project. But I feel like there’s that, you know, I’m in I mean it’s like

Speaker 5

Question: Where I’m not exactly sure what I’m saying if I say yes or no. I think that all scripture says much more than it’s Then it’s Revelator understands. I think we see that with Joseph, right? He didn’t understand the meaning of every revelation that he produced. And that doesn’t detract from the divinity of the revelation process. In fact, it may add to its mystery. So I don’t know whether the current church authorities fully understand what the proclamation means and especially what it will mean going forward.

Speaker 9

Thanks. That’s the time we have. See you all at the end. Thank you.