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The call for papers for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) is now open with a deadline of 11:59 pm, March 13. You are invited to submit a proposal for the Transhumanism and Religion Group. The AAR annual meeting is November 17-20, 2012 in Chicago. Below are the call and the mission statement of the Transhumanism and Religion Group. If you do not hold AAR membership and would like to submit a proposal as a guest, please go to the following link and follow instructions:

[http://www.rsnonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=975&Itemid=1071]

Call for Proposals

IMAGE: PHOTO OF FUTURE DAY

Future Day is a future-oriented holiday. Events will take place in several locations around the world on March 1st, including Hong Kong and Australia. A virtual event will be taking place in Second Life. Thanks to Ben Goertzel for creating the concept and Adam Ford for his work in coordinating it!

See article on Future Day at H+ Magazine. See information about the Second Life Future Day event^[1][1].

Future Day - A Holiday Specifically Devoted to the Future

Transhumanism, a small but growing international movement advocating various technologies of human enhancement, has often been lampooned as a pseudo-religion, a “rapture of the geeks” or a “robot cult.” Yet those within the movement characterize it as a secular, rational humanist philosophy. Further complicating the matter is the recent appearance of syncretistic, transhumanist versions of various faiths. How should we characterize the movement known as transhumanism? What difference does this make in shaping a Christian theological and ethical response to the movement?

IMAGE: PHOTO OF 2012 MTA CONFERENCE LOGO

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 from 9am to 5pm at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The conference is open to the public.

Previous conferences sponsored by the Mormon Transhumanist Association include the 2010 Transhumanism and Spirituality conference and the 2009 Mormonism and Engineering conference.

Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion.

Here is a preliminary list of speakers and topics:

The 2012 conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will be held on 6 April 2012 at the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake CIty, Utah. The conference will be open to the public. Speakers will address the themes of Mormonism, Transhumanism and Transfigurism, with particular attention to topics at the intersection of technology, spirituality, science and religion.

Travel Assistance Available

The association may cover up to 50% of your travel costs to attend the conference if you meet the following criteria:

You can now access the third issue of Transfigurist Quarterly, a publication covering the activities of the Association, here.

Also, please remember the 31 January 2012 submission deadline of the Call for Papers for the upcoming Association Conference (6 April 2012, SLC Public Library, Utah).

Thank you,

Bradley Carmack MTA Secretary

On December 11, 2011, the Mormon Transhumanist Association received an email from Google for Nonprofits: “Grants Enrollment has been approved!”

What are Google Grants? “The Google Grants program empowers non-profit organizations to achieve their goals by helping them promote their websites via advertising on Google. Google AdWords ads appear when users search on Google and when you click on one of the ads, you are brought to the website being advertised.”

The association’s application for free advertising of up to $10,000 per month is now approved. Thanks, Google!

The Mormon Transhumanist Association continually seeks input from all interested parties for improving our operations and goals. As part of this effort, we have made the Association’s financial reports available to the public. You can find them at [http://transfigurism.org/pages/about/finances/]. If you are interested in understanding more about what decisions drive our spending or have input regarding those decisions, please contact us at [[email protected]].

Karl Hale

The list of projects on the [transhumanism.org] community page has been updated to reflect the many projects the Mormon Transhumanist Association is doing, such as Rosetta@home and the Transfigurist Quarterly. However, there are several more exciting projects in need of a project manager to help move them along! Check them out in detail here; a brief list follows. See a project you like? Volunteer to lead it today!

The Turing Church Online Workshop 2 will be held on Sunday 11 December, 2011. The Workshop will explore transhumanist spirituality and “Religion 2.0” as a summit of persons, groups and organizations active in this area, including members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. Fully interactive participation will be free, invitation-only. If you wish to participate and for more information, visit the Turing Church web site.