Actually, not as absurd or incongruous as it seems at first sight. According to my (admitedly very limited) knowledge of Mormonism, some tenets of the religion resonate with transhumanist principles an awful lot. I'm thinking of the physical nature of God, the belief in continual eternal progression, the possibility of, in time, becoming a god yourself, and so on.
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.
(Joseph Smith, Jr. : King Follett Discourse)
To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.
(ibid.)
If there were a point where a man in his progression could not proceed any further, the very idea would throw a gloom over every intelligent and reflecting mind. God himself is increasing in knowledge, power and dominion, and will do so, worlds without end. It is just so with us.
(Wilford Woodruff: Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6)
I wonder about the relative compatibility of other religions with transhumanism. Could there be a transhumanist Buddhism? A transhumanist Christianity?
Transhumanism itself could be understood as a secular religion for nerds, a movement based more on wishful thinking than in sound science or an understanding of human nature.
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