The Religion of Technology: Transhumanism and the Myth of Progress

This lecture was given on December 14, 2022 as part of our Science & Religion Online series " Evolution of the Human Species: The Challange of Transhumanism and Posthumanism. For more videos like this one or to learn more about the Science & Religion project please visit: https://angelicum.it/TI-science-and-r...

About the Speaker:
Dr Michael Burdett is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Nottingham and an associate of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, University of Oxford. Before becoming an academic and completing his DPhil at the University of Oxford, Michael worked in the aerospace and robotics industries for several years working with a firm that had contracts with NASA and JPL. He holds degrees in engineering, physics, and theology and has been given academic and professional awards in each field. His academic interests lie at the intersection of science and technology, theology and philosophy. He has published and presented internationally on continental philosophy, evolution, the technological society and Christian theology. He is a series editor for the Routledge Science and Religion series (with Mark Harris) and his major works include Technology and the Rise of Transhumanism: Beyond Genetic Engineering (Grove, 2014), Eschatology and the Technological Future (Routledge, 2015) and Finding Ourselves After Darwin: Conversations about the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil (Baker Academic, 2018).

He has lead several funded science and religion projects including “Co-creating Ourselves?: Deification and Creaturehood in an Age of Biotechnological Enhancement” (JTF), “Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and Humanities” (TRT and Blankemeyer) and “Christian Flourishing in a Technological World” (Issachar). He is currently leading a grant entitled “Biocultural Evolution and Theological Anthropology” (JTF) and working on his next book tentatively titled Death and Glory: Humanism, Transhumanism and Christianity.