{"product_id":"machines-for-making-gods-mormonism-transhumanism-and-worlds-without-end-paperback","title":"Machines for Making Gods: Mormonism, Transhumanism, and Worlds Without End - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJon Bialecki\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Mormon faith may seem so different from aspirations to transcend the human through technological means that it is hard to imagine how these two concerns could even exist alongside one another, let alone serve together as the joint impetus for a social movement. \u003ci\u003eMachines for Making Gods\u003c\/i\u003e investigates the tensions between science and religion through which an imaginative group of young Mormons and ex-Mormons have found new ways of understanding the world. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA) believes that God intended humanity to achieve Mormonism's promise of theosis through imminent technological advances. Drawing on a nineteenth-century Mormon tradition of religious speculation to reimagine Mormon eschatological hopes as near-future technological possibilities, they envision such current and possible advances as cryonic preservation, computer simulation, and quantum archeology as paving the way for the resurrection of the dead, the creation of worlds without end, and promise of undergoing theosis--of becoming a god. Addressing the role of speculation in the anthropology of religion, \u003ci\u003eMachines for Making Gods\u003c\/i\u003e undoes debates about secular transhumanism's relation to religion by highlighting the differences an explicitly religious transhumanism makes. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCharting the conflicts and resonances between secular transhumanism and Mormonism, Bialecki shows how religious speculation has opened up imaginative horizons to give birth to new forms of Mormonism, including a particular progressive branch of the faith and even such formations as queer polygamy. The book also reveals how the MTA's speculative account of God and technology together has helped to forestall some of the social pressure that comes with apostasy in much of the Mormon Intermountain West. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA fascinating ethnography of a group with much to say about crucial junctures of modern culture, \u003ci\u003eMachines for Making Gods\u003c\/i\u003e illustrates how the scientific imagination can be better understood when viewed through anthropological accounts of myth.\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Jon Bialecki's \u003ci\u003eMachines for Making New Gods\u003c\/i\u003e is a major work of scholarship--truly impressive in its scope, range, and depth. There's simply no other book like it, so creative is its composition and canvas. It will force us to reconsider a lot of literature in anthropology and well beyond--on Christianity, on secularity, on media, on matter, and, perhaps above all, on the very boundaries of life.\"--Matthew Engelke, author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Think Like an Anthropologist\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Bialecki takes readers through a fascinating world in a thrilling ethnographic investigation of how and why the Mormon Transhumanist Association flourishes. A brilliant tracing of the complicated kinship between religion and transhumanism, this book is more than a dive into one subgroup but rather a sophisticated theoretical analysis of conditions that make such a group possible.\"--Taylor Petrey, author of \u003ci\u003eTabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn engrossing account of the way religion and the technological imagination come have together in a new social movement. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the intermountain West, an imaginative group of young Mormons and ex-Mormons have found new ways of navigating the relation between science and religion. The Mormon Transhumanist Association believes that God intended humanity to achieve Mormonism's promise of theosis through imminent technological advances. Drawing on a nineteenth-century Mormon tradition of religious speculation to reimagine Mormon eschatological hopes as near-future technological possibilities, they envision such current and possible advances as cryonic preservation, computer simulation, and quantum archeology as paving the way for the resurrection of the dead, the creation of worlds without end, and promise of undergoing theosis--of becoming a god. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCharting the conflicts and resonances between secular transhumanism and Mormonism, Bialecki shows how religious speculation has opened up imaginative horizons to give birth to new forms of Mormonism, including a particular progressive branch of the faith and even such formations as queer polygamy. The book also reveals how the MTA's speculative account of God and technology together has helped to forestall some of the social pressure that comes with apostasy in much of the Mormon Intermountain West. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJon Bialecki\u003c\/b\u003e is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego and author of the prizewinning \u003ci\u003eA Diagram for Fire: Miracles and Variation in an American Charismatic Movement\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJon Bialecki \u003c\/b\u003eis Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eA Diagram for Fire: Miracles and Variation in an American Charismatic Movemen\u003c\/i\u003et, which won the Sharon Stephens Prize and was a finalist for the Clifford Geertz Prize.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 368\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.86 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 01, 2022\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52751053750579,"sku":"9780823299362","price":51.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/TURRREJHaHpWU3lrNmJNNHhCSlRqZz09.webp?v=1764306169","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/machines-for-making-gods-mormonism-transhumanism-and-worlds-without-end-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}