"Whereas... critics see problems with transhumanism being insufficiently attuned to divine grace and God’s plan, secular critics find fault with it for being too influenced by Christian eschatology. David Noble... advanced the thesis that Western science and technology were inspired by Christian millennialism and... remain... religious endeavors... by men motivated by a quest for transcendence. Noble asserts that Newton, Boyle, Priestly, Faraday, Maxwell, Babbage and many other notable scientists and technologists were believers and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the fields of nuclear physics, space exploration, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and genetics were launched by men inspired by Christian eschatology. Allegedly, religious and non-religious scientists and engineers in these fields today continue to be obsessed with the quest for perfection: "Often displaying a pathological dissatisfaction with, and deprecation of, the human condition, they are taking flight from the world, pointing us away from the earth, the flesh, the familiar"."
Transhumanism is a philosophical movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies to enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being. Influenced by seminal works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives, including
"Where people worry is when you get to the brain, the germ cells and the sentinel features that help people recognize what is a person, as opposed to a rat or a rabbit. Things like skin texture, facial shape, speech, replacing brain cells with human cells, allowing the development of human germ cells in animals. And particularly where there is any possibility of fertilisation within an animal."
Transhumanism"Transhumanism is defined as: The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities; and the study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies."
Transhumanism"I believe in transhumanism: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny."
Transhumanism"The human species can... transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way... there in another... but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature."
Transhumanism"In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come to pay attention."
Transhumanism"Francis Bacon and those who followed in the intellectual current of modernity were wrong to believe that man would be redeemed by science. Such an expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it... It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love... If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man "redeemed"..."
Transhumanism