Why?
There has to be something less spiritually empty than "uploading to the cloud" and being part of a collectivist group mind like in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End or being replaced by silicon with a Borg body or some other Transhumanist singularity black hole nightmare.
I, your editor, am not against science or medicine. Far from it, I have scientific training and am involved with a biotech company. At Facebook, I perceived a need for an alternative to Transhumanism being the only choice for immortalists because as a Christian I want eternal life for my body, my emotions, my intellect, my will, my soul and my spirit. I had one too many conversations with atheists who regarded the soul and the spirit as superstition. Authorities who deny the existence of souls have no problem with gulags, death camps, torture, water boarding, mind control, genocide, slavery, and invasion of privacy by an omnipresent NSA.
The same people who dominate Transhumanism are way too comfortable with AI and robots at a time when even AI researchers and roboticists themselves are alarmed over the possibility of machines becoming more intelligent than humans and taking away control of our destinies. Something programmed to be smarter than us would be a dictator impossible to overthrow. Some Christians think a deus ex machina (machine that thinks it is god) would be the literal creation of the antichrist. Ephemerals (those who are not immortalists) never think about long-term matters like climate change, buildup of toxins in the environment, overpopulation, nuclear war, nuclear terrorism, biological terrorism, biological war, asteroids hitting the Earth, First Contact that might not be pleasant, and other survivalist/prepper disasters because they don't care about the world their grandchildren will live in because they will not be around. We immortalists will be around.
Nothing changed from the Old Testament when God told Adam to be a good steward and so we take Christ at His Word in the New Testament when He tells us to be good stewards. The human race is about to move out into space for a myriad of reasons (some of which were implied above) but that does not let Christian Immortalists off the hook for responsibility. God will hold us responsible if the Earth is poisoned by war & pollution and made uninhabitable. Like Jesus said on the cross, the ephemerals know not what they do. They throw litter on the ground, cigarettes out the window of cars and start forest fires, rape, don't vote, take drugs, text while driving, kill people, lump Christians in with terrorists, don't wash their hands & spread diseases, and a thousand small acts that screw up the world when we could have a paradise right now. Ephemerals are thoughtless children. But we Christian Immortalists can claim no excuse because we know better. We are leaders. We are the Elders of the Human Race. We are the literal Salt of the Earth spoken of in Matthew 5:13. When we are asleep at the wheel, accidents, crimes and man-made disasters result. And yes, climate change is caused by humans. We have no room for climate change deniers any more than we would want Holocaust deniers. Should we as a group ever leave the Earth (perhaps the literal Rapture), God help those left behind. Of course we might be leaving in spaceships off to terraform a New Earth if the old one gets dosed with plutonium by nuts. Barring that, we have to care for Mother Earth because God told us to and because it is practical to not poison our air, water and land where we grow food.
This is a small summary of what has produced a moderate Christian Immortalist movement out of a dying culture with culture wars of mean ignorant racist conservatives fighting perverted deviant degenerate liberals. We have salvaged pragmatism, environmentalism, tradition, health, science, democracy, property rights, work ethic, capitalism, and Christianity (with respect for Judaism) out of the chaos because these are the proven ways of success and perfection.
I, your editor, am not against science or medicine. Far from it, I have scientific training and am involved with a biotech company. At Facebook, I perceived a need for an alternative to Transhumanism being the only choice for immortalists because as a Christian I want eternal life for my body, my emotions, my intellect, my will, my soul and my spirit. I had one too many conversations with atheists who regarded the soul and the spirit as superstition. Authorities who deny the existence of souls have no problem with gulags, death camps, torture, water boarding, mind control, genocide, slavery, and invasion of privacy by an omnipresent NSA.
The same people who dominate Transhumanism are way too comfortable with AI and robots at a time when even AI researchers and roboticists themselves are alarmed over the possibility of machines becoming more intelligent than humans and taking away control of our destinies. Something programmed to be smarter than us would be a dictator impossible to overthrow. Some Christians think a deus ex machina (machine that thinks it is god) would be the literal creation of the antichrist. Ephemerals (those who are not immortalists) never think about long-term matters like climate change, buildup of toxins in the environment, overpopulation, nuclear war, nuclear terrorism, biological terrorism, biological war, asteroids hitting the Earth, First Contact that might not be pleasant, and other survivalist/prepper disasters because they don't care about the world their grandchildren will live in because they will not be around. We immortalists will be around.
Nothing changed from the Old Testament when God told Adam to be a good steward and so we take Christ at His Word in the New Testament when He tells us to be good stewards. The human race is about to move out into space for a myriad of reasons (some of which were implied above) but that does not let Christian Immortalists off the hook for responsibility. God will hold us responsible if the Earth is poisoned by war & pollution and made uninhabitable. Like Jesus said on the cross, the ephemerals know not what they do. They throw litter on the ground, cigarettes out the window of cars and start forest fires, rape, don't vote, take drugs, text while driving, kill people, lump Christians in with terrorists, don't wash their hands & spread diseases, and a thousand small acts that screw up the world when we could have a paradise right now. Ephemerals are thoughtless children. But we Christian Immortalists can claim no excuse because we know better. We are leaders. We are the Elders of the Human Race. We are the literal Salt of the Earth spoken of in Matthew 5:13. When we are asleep at the wheel, accidents, crimes and man-made disasters result. And yes, climate change is caused by humans. We have no room for climate change deniers any more than we would want Holocaust deniers. Should we as a group ever leave the Earth (perhaps the literal Rapture), God help those left behind. Of course we might be leaving in spaceships off to terraform a New Earth if the old one gets dosed with plutonium by nuts. Barring that, we have to care for Mother Earth because God told us to and because it is practical to not poison our air, water and land where we grow food.
This is a small summary of what has produced a moderate Christian Immortalist movement out of a dying culture with culture wars of mean ignorant racist conservatives fighting perverted deviant degenerate liberals. We have salvaged pragmatism, environmentalism, tradition, health, science, democracy, property rights, work ethic, capitalism, and Christianity (with respect for Judaism) out of the chaos because these are the proven ways of success and perfection.
El Olam (the everlasting God)
Isaiah 40:28-31 New International Version (NIV)
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.