Religion, Science and Immortality

José Cordeiro

Santiago Ochoa

www.TransHumanismO.org

Venezuelan Transhumanist Association

The “ABC” of Religions

Judaism Hinduism Zoroastrianism

Christianity Buddhism Taoism

Islam Jainism Confucianism

Bahá’í Sikhism Shinto

Western (Abrahamic) Religions Eastern (Vedic) ReligionsJudaism, Christianity, Islam Hinduism, Buddhism, JainismOne God Many Gods or noneJudgment Day No Judgment DayUniverse has Beginning and End Universe Exists in Endless CycleEternal Heaven/Hell No Eternal Heaven/HellFree Will Law of KharmaCongregational Practice Individual PracticeMore Carnivorous Diet More Vegetarian DietProphets (from God) Meditation (to God)God’s Law and Human Sin Human Suffering and Soul LiberationScriptures are Authority Scriptures are GuidesFor the Peoples of the “Book” For All Peoples and All BooksWorship at Setup Times Worship is ContinuousLinear Time Cyclical TimeOne Life Many LivesResurrection ReincarnationBurial Cremation

Einstein and Religion There is no conflict between science and

religion, science asks what the world is, and religion asks what humankind and society should become.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.

Space:The final frontier?

The Brain:The final frontier?

The purpose of life Life is any behavior of a system which keeps

it alive. There is no specific biological process

required for life. Metabolism, reproduction/replication, and evolutionary development are only examples of successful methods.

A system is alive when it exchanges energy and resources with its surroundings to preserve an optimal state of functioning with respect to its environment.

The creation of life RNA and DNA molecules stored and

processed genetic information. There had to be a period of time when cells

did not reproduce. The initial aim of the first cells was to live

forever but the environment killed them so they had to learn to reproduce to survive.

Evolution had won over development as the means for adaptation.

Multi-cellular organisms Instead of dividing into separate daughter cells

to form colonies, eukaryotic cells found a method to replicate (develop) into functional groups to try to create an immortal organism.

Genetic “identity” preserved even when individual cells died.

Again no reproduction was required since daughter cells are really extensions of each other.

Again the environment forced organisms to reproduce for their genetic information to survive.

Intelligence

Central nervous system as a new way to store and process information (memes).

No longer the quantity (reproduction) but also the quality (nurturing) of life the survival factor of the species.

r/K scale. Evolution seems to have been favoring the K-

selection.

Evolution of immortality

The next step in evolutionary development would be a species which responds 100% K-selection and 0% r-selection.

Thanks to intelligence and science, development is now faster and more efficient than evolution as a method to improve functioning with respect to the environment.

Becoming immortal

Understanding evolutionary development. Reprogramming our genetic information. Repairing cellular decay. Defending ourselves from accident and

disease. Developing into a new species by merging

with technology.

Meta-organisms 4,000 million years of evolution needed to

create human beings Three million years of technological

development have created the means to achieve immortality.

Once we merge with our technology, it will be this technology which will replicate and develop into even better technology.

We will be acting like eukaryotic cells did 1,000 million years ago by creating extensions of ourselves instead of reproducing into separate beings. The cycle repeats itself but will we succeed this time?

¡Muchas gracias!

www.TransHumanismO.org