Videos

Jake Spurlock, a software engineer at Wired, examines how technology has historically disrupted religion—from the Gutenberg press enabling the Reformation to the internet challenging institutional control over information. He traces this pattern through Mormon history, from the printing of the Book of Mormon to the church’s contemporary efforts to manage its online presence through search engine optimization. Spurlock argues that in an age when “information wants to be free,” the church must embrace transparency and education rather than attempting to control the message, ultimately suggesting that truth emerges triumphant through open competition in the marketplace of ideas.

Pace Ellsworth argues that human agency—the power to act according to one’s own conscience—is foundational to both religious teaching and political freedom. Drawing on scripture, personal family history, and libertarian philosophy, he examines how technological progress enables decentralization and individual empowerment. Ellsworth advocates for liberating marriage from state control, ending the drug war, revolutionizing education through unschooling, and embracing digital innovations like Bitcoin and 3D printing as pathways to greater freedom.

Mike Perry, a longtime cryonicist and author of Forever for All, proposes “parallel recreation” as an alternative to quantum archaeology for resurrecting the dead. While quantum archaeology attempts to retrodict the exact positions of atoms throughout history—an approach Perry finds implausible given quantum uncertainty—his method accepts some loss of historical information while still achieving meaningful resurrection through “informed guesswork.” Drawing on multiverse theory and an informational view of reality where identical copies are distributed across infinite universes, Perry argues that recreating persons consistent with surviving historical records would yield authentic versions of those who once lived. He views cryonics as the preferable path, allowing one to be a benefactor in future resurrection efforts rather than merely a beneficiary.

James McLean Ledford presents his vision of Christian transhumanism, arguing that salvation requires both faith and works—a combination he illustrates through an information-time diagram depicting creation, cognitive evolution, and eventual theosis. Drawing on digital physics, the Nicene Creed, and the simulation argument, he proposes that reality may be fundamentally informational and that humanity could be living in a simulation created by an advanced civilization. Ledford sees this possibility not as undermining faith but as supporting it, suggesting that creators watching their simulations could perform what appear to be miracles—and that our own technological trajectory toward brain coprocessing and quantum computing may be part of a grand cosmic gathering back to a singular, Christ-like state of being.

Dorothy Deasy interprets the Lucan Transfiguration account as an “action parable” with profound implications for transhumanism. She argues that transfiguration should be understood not merely as physical enhancement but as spiritual and communal transformation—a call to reshape society toward justice, inclusiveness, and compassion. As biotechnologies advance, Deasy contends that religious and humanist transhumanists bear a responsibility to ensure these developments benefit all people, guarding against exploitation and advocating for ethical standards that protect the marginalized and the voiceless.

Lincoln Cannon opens the 2012 MTA conference by articulating its core purpose: bringing together two things many consider diametrically opposed—science and religion, technology and spirituality. He contends that these domains are not merely compatible but mutually reinforcing, made for each other in their best manifestations. Drawing on Doctrine and Covenants 88’s exhortation to seek learning “by study and also by faith,” Cannon frames the conference as a modern continuation of Joseph Smith’s School of the Prophets, combining wisdom and inspiration to explore what it means to be human.