Religia i Bóg w świecie transhumanizmu

Abstract

While the notion of technological progress as such has become an obvious truth nowadays, the actual technological advances provoke ambivalent attitudes. The technological potential has generated the actual possibility of implementing the vision of a new man, described as the transhumanist project, the ‘H+,’ ‘h+,’ or the ‘>H.’ In its anthropological component transhumanism surmises that the human being, in her present shape, has reached a merely temporary stage of human development which is to be succeeded by a higher form of being. The overall effect of this project seems to be not only transformations of the bodily structure of the human being, but, in the ultimate sense, uploading the human mind from its biological setting to the computer. In this way – according to transhumanists – ‘enhanced humanity’ may be accomplished, together with a radically higher form of being than the current, ‘unenhanced’ form of humanity. The radical nature of this project finds its expression, among others, in the conceptual sphere, in which the notion of the ‘posthuman being’ has supplanted that of a ‘new man,’ which has recurred in the numerous so far created Promethean anthropologies. However, the transhumanist vision of the ‘posthuman being’ is absolutely incompatible with the classical rendition of man as an imago Dei. Moreover, the new anthropology offered by transhumanism involves a new theology and a new faith in God. The new faith in question demands a vision conceived of as removing ‘the veil’ and thus results in the theovirtual world allowing merely limited transcendence. The new vision presupposes a critical attitude in the evaluation of the technological progress, as well as a critical attitude in the evaluation of transcendence: a constant verification of its authenticity. The problematic issue, however, is the criterion of this authenticity. Skepticism towards objective truth is the reason why the vision of God in the transhumanist perspective assumes qualities of messianism and apocalyptic cybertheology, as well as pantheism. Within the space of postreligion the human being becomes her own savior, which is tantamount to a refutation of the objective history of salvation offering the best opportunity of human development.