Having and raising children is a critical part of the propagation of the species. Until Immortality or other reproductive options are realized, or otherwise finally engineered, it is critical to our long term survival. Children are therefore our most important resource.
A growing mind needs room for stillness as much as access to the world.
As Henry V is wooing Katherine of France, entreating her for a kiss, she objects that it is not the fashion in France to kiss before marriage. He responds that they should not be constrained by custom, but be “the makers of manners”—and he gets his kiss.
Every shared world begins as words passed from one mind to another.
“Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country’s fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults.”—William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act V, Scene 2
Caleb Jones is a speaker and thinker deeply engaged with the intersection of Mormon theology, transhumanism, and intergenerational connection. His work focuses on the spirit of Elijah, as referenced in Malachi, and its implications for creating faith-based connections across generations, both living and deceased. He advocates for a broader interpretation of this principle, extending it beyond traditional temple work to encompass a reconciliation of ancient wisdom with modernity. ¶ Jones draws upon G.K. Chesterton’s concept of the “democracy of the dead” to frame his exploration of tradition and remembrance. He posits that our ancestors, through their artifacts and influence, continue to participate in the present. He sees the redemption of the dead through these artifacts—books, music, laws, traditions—as a collective human endeavor involving various disciplines such as literary scholarship, archaeology, and religious studies. ¶ His perspective emphasizes the importance of engaging with the past to inform and enrich the future, particularly within the context of Mormonism and its emphasis on family history and genealogical work. Jones champions seeking a healthy balance and ongoing reconciliation of the hearts and minds of the dead and dying with the hearts and minds of the living, to redeem rising generations.
As a programmer, my greatest creative outlet is writing code. While searching deep inside an interconnected web of bits and logic to hunt down that perpetual last bug may seem to someone from the outside to be anything but creative, there is a unique type of creativity that is found in writing software. A new sense of awe and joy is found in the deeply felt human experience of curiosity, exploration, and creation when we see those things not as uniquely human and ephemeral but as things which can make us one with nature, the universe, each other, and God.
Creation begins where symbols learn to do useful work.
Lincoln Cannon is an American philosopher and technologist who co-founded the Mormon Transhumanist Association in 2006, serving as its president from 2006 to 2016. He is a leading advocate of technological evolution and postsecular religion, combining software engineering expertise with degrees in philosophy and business. ¶ Cannon is also a founder and board member of the Christian Transhumanist Association. He formulated the New God Argument, a logical argument for faith in God that has become popular among religious transhumanists. His academic work includes “Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism” published in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and “Transfigurism: A Future of Religion as Exemplified by Religious Transhumanists” published in The Transhumanism Handbook (Springer Verlag, 2019). ¶ Mormon transhumanism, as articulated by Cannon, holds that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is central to the Mormon theological tradition, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Cannon’s work bridges religious faith with scientific advancement, advocating for the ethical use of technology to extend human abilities in ways consistent with a religious worldview.
Mormonism is, above all other things, an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. It’s not so much a religion about Jesus as it is an aspiration to live the religion of Jesus. This Gospel is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse both our bodies and our minds in the role of Christ, to become gods and saviors, to console, to heal, and to raise each other up together. This is the heart of Mormonism. This Gospel of Jesus Christ underlies Mormon Transhumanism.
Carl Youngblood co-founded the MTA in 2006 and has served as its President and CEO since 2021. He is engaged with the Association’s efforts to explore the intersection of Mormon theology and transhumanist philosophy. Among the many initiatives that Carl has been involved with, he has designed and built the Association’s current website, which unifies all prior content in a single location using inspiring visuals and animations. ¶ Youngblood’s professional career spans more than two decades of full-stack software development at the intersection of Silicon Slopes and Silicon Valley. He was an early employee at Omniture (acquired by Adobe), a founding engineering leader at Divvy (a Utah-based unicorn startup), co-founder of Blockscale LLC (a blockchain services firm eventually contracted into Coinbase), and Senior Solutions Architect for Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS. His technical fluency ranges from scalable web architecture to blockchain infrastructure—the kind of deep engineering experience that grounds his theological speculation in working knowledge of the systems he writes about. ¶ Under his leadership, the Association has developed its mission of promoting abundant human flourishing through the compassionate use of science and technology, fostering dialogue across secular and religious audiences and arguing that each has something essential to learn from the other. His writing, collected on his blog From the Depths, spans over a decade of conference presentations and theological essays: meditations on participatory resurrection, the alignment of artificial intelligence read through the Grand Council narrative, intelligence as eternal and multifaceted, and religion as social technology. He writes, as a colleague has observed, with warmth and accessibility on questions of momentous practical consequence—how to navigate faith crisis without losing faith’s power, how to think about resurrection as something we actively participate in rather than passively receive. ¶ Youngblood’s distinctive contribution to transhumanism is the integration of serious technical expertise with serious theological reflection. He embodies the Mormon transhumanist conviction that scientific and spiritual development are not parallel tracks but a single path—that the learning required to build better systems is continuous with the exaltation Mormon theology envisions, and that human ingenuity, rightly oriented, is itself a divine imperative.
What if religion is not the relic of a pre-scientific age that many suppose it to be, but rather one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful technologies—a social technology, deeply rooted in our evolutionary past, that we continue to deploy, often without realizing it? This essay argues that religion, properly understood, is far more pervasive and enduring than conventional accounts suggest, and that recognizing it as a form of social technology can help us appreciate both its value and its persistence.
Carl Youngblood co-founded the MTA in 2006 and has served as its President and CEO since 2021. He is engaged with the Association’s efforts to explore the intersection of Mormon theology and transhumanist philosophy. Among the many initiatives that Carl has been involved with, he has designed and built the Association’s current website, which unifies all prior content in a single location using inspiring visuals and animations. ¶ Youngblood’s professional career spans more than two decades of full-stack software development at the intersection of Silicon Slopes and Silicon Valley. He was an early employee at Omniture (acquired by Adobe), a founding engineering leader at Divvy (a Utah-based unicorn startup), co-founder of Blockscale LLC (a blockchain services firm eventually contracted into Coinbase), and Senior Solutions Architect for Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS. His technical fluency ranges from scalable web architecture to blockchain infrastructure—the kind of deep engineering experience that grounds his theological speculation in working knowledge of the systems he writes about. ¶ Under his leadership, the Association has developed its mission of promoting abundant human flourishing through the compassionate use of science and technology, fostering dialogue across secular and religious audiences and arguing that each has something essential to learn from the other. His writing, collected on his blog From the Depths, spans over a decade of conference presentations and theological essays: meditations on participatory resurrection, the alignment of artificial intelligence read through the Grand Council narrative, intelligence as eternal and multifaceted, and religion as social technology. He writes, as a colleague has observed, with warmth and accessibility on questions of momentous practical consequence—how to navigate faith crisis without losing faith’s power, how to think about resurrection as something we actively participate in rather than passively receive. ¶ Youngblood’s distinctive contribution to transhumanism is the integration of serious technical expertise with serious theological reflection. He embodies the Mormon transhumanist conviction that scientific and spiritual development are not parallel tracks but a single path—that the learning required to build better systems is continuous with the exaltation Mormon theology envisions, and that human ingenuity, rightly oriented, is itself a divine imperative.
At the core of Mormonism is the Gospel of Christ, which is essentially a transhumanist undertaking―something designed to elevate humanity and help it to achieve the measure of its creation, which is ultimately to become like Christ, the prototypical human (or superhuman) ideal, or whatever is good definitionally—our understanding of which is itself progressing.
"In Progress," by Andre Furlan
Carl Youngblood co-founded the MTA in 2006 and has served as its President and CEO since 2021. He is engaged with the Association’s efforts to explore the intersection of Mormon theology and transhumanist philosophy. Among the many initiatives that Carl has been involved with, he has designed and built the Association’s current website, which unifies all prior content in a single location using inspiring visuals and animations. ¶ Youngblood’s professional career spans more than two decades of full-stack software development at the intersection of Silicon Slopes and Silicon Valley. He was an early employee at Omniture (acquired by Adobe), a founding engineering leader at Divvy (a Utah-based unicorn startup), co-founder of Blockscale LLC (a blockchain services firm eventually contracted into Coinbase), and Senior Solutions Architect for Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS. His technical fluency ranges from scalable web architecture to blockchain infrastructure—the kind of deep engineering experience that grounds his theological speculation in working knowledge of the systems he writes about. ¶ Under his leadership, the Association has developed its mission of promoting abundant human flourishing through the compassionate use of science and technology, fostering dialogue across secular and religious audiences and arguing that each has something essential to learn from the other. His writing, collected on his blog From the Depths, spans over a decade of conference presentations and theological essays: meditations on participatory resurrection, the alignment of artificial intelligence read through the Grand Council narrative, intelligence as eternal and multifaceted, and religion as social technology. He writes, as a colleague has observed, with warmth and accessibility on questions of momentous practical consequence—how to navigate faith crisis without losing faith’s power, how to think about resurrection as something we actively participate in rather than passively receive. ¶ Youngblood’s distinctive contribution to transhumanism is the integration of serious technical expertise with serious theological reflection. He embodies the Mormon transhumanist conviction that scientific and spiritual development are not parallel tracks but a single path—that the learning required to build better systems is continuous with the exaltation Mormon theology envisions, and that human ingenuity, rightly oriented, is itself a divine imperative.
Ulysses — Fernando Pessoa
O mytho é o nada que é tudo.
O mesmo sol que abre os céus
É um mytho brilhante e mudo—
O corpo morto de Deus,
Vivo e desnudo.
Este, que aqui aportou,
Foi por não ser existindo.
Sem existir nos bastou.
Por não ter vindo foi vindo
E nos creou.
Assim a lenda se escorre
A entrar na realidade.
E a fecundal-a decorre.
Em baixo, a vida, metade
De nada, morre.
Ulysses1
Myth is the nothing that is all.
The same sun that opens the skies
Is a bright myth that, silent, calls—
The dead body of God that lies,
Living, before all.
This man, who here disembarked,
Began, by not being, to be.
Absence was a good enough start.
Without life, he ultimately
Our life did impart.
Thus does the legend endeavor
To seep into reality,
Sowing seeds whithersoever.
Everyday life loses meaning
From its source severed.2
Thus begins the epic set of poems entitled Mensagem (“Message”) by Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet and author regarded by Harold Bloom as one of the founders of the “Western Canon” and one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century.3 Through one of his many “heteronyms,” or alternate identities through which he often wrote, Pessoa lamented that he “belong[ed] to a generation of Portuguese who, after the Indies were discovered, found themselves out of a job.”4 Pessoa felt nostalgia for the industrious zeal displayed by his people during the Age of Discovery and deplored their subsequent languor and lack of ambition. Mensagem was an effort to rekindle that zeal by resurrecting the ancient symbols of Portuguese dominance. The title of this poem is “Ulysses,” the Latin name for the protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey, who, according to legend, founded the city of Lisbon.5 Pessoa displays keen insight into the nature of myth. It doesn’t just explain the world; it creates it. Although he wasn’t a ‘real’ person, this legendary figure, “by not being,” nonetheless provided the identity through which the Portuguese nation rose to become a superpower.
Like the ancient symbols of Portugal, the symbols of Mormonism are also in a state of flux. The Mormon Church is facing increased levels of disaffection6 and public scrutiny,7 in addition to increasing tension between its doctrinal paradigms and those of the larger culture. This essay seeks to explain this process and explore ways that Mormonism can adapt to the sea change it is presently experiencing. I wish to express my gratitude to Richard Holloway for his lectures at Gresham College on “The Myths of Christianity,” from which I borrow heavily.8
