Technology, Religion, and Humanity in a Post-Human Age
My debut on "The Moral Imagination Podcast"
Many thanks to Michael Matheson Miller for having me on, and for his great questions about my two-part essay at Public Discourse (Part I and Part II). You can listen to to our wide-ranging conversation here. You’ll want to stick around for the end!
From the show description:
In this episode of The Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Deion Kathawa about his essays at Public Discourse Technology and Dignity. We discuss a number of topics including
digital technology
social media
biotech
genetic engineering
CRISPR
post and trans-humanism
transgenderism
technology and power
how tech effects the rich and the poor and middle class
Kathawa argues that the new digital and biotechnology threaten our human in explicit and implicit ways from distraction to liquidation to degradation and that we need not only better law, but authentic religious practice, liturgy, and human friendship to resist these threats.
We discuss the religious and philosophical sources of transhumanism from materialism to gnosticism, and human perfectibility and various thinkers including C.S. Lewis and Robert P. George. We also discuss the difference between transhumanist / transgender philosophy which sees the body as either malleable that needs perfection or the body and sexuality as something to escape from in contrast to the Christian view of the being and the body as good and part of who we are as embodied, embedded persons.
There are links to some good resources at the end, too.
Congrats again on your apperance, Deion, and thank you for sharing! It was a very interesting listen. There is plenty worthy of discussion therein, but what stood out to me in particular was your analysis of suffering and the cross towards the end of the discussion. Your description of suffering as not simply some external thing that G-d decides to place in your life, but as a deeply person thing designed to bless and better you, and that which becomes the key to Heaven when borne faithfully to the end, was fascinating. It is definitely something I will spend some time meditating on in my prayer life.