April 11 - The Church of Perpetual Life Wants to End Deathism

Easter celebrations. The swearing in of President Obama with a bible. The Pledge of Allegiance’s “One nation under God.” Ted Cruz’s freakish evangelism. Even when we sneeze, many Americans still reflexively say: God bless you. American society exists in an engulfing religious framework—and that inescapable Abrahamic point of view leads to one ultimate goal: an eternal afterlife with the maker.
 
Lately, though, the burgeoning transhumanism movement is challenging all that. Gerontologists, crynocists, singularitarians, biohackers, roboticists, geneticists, futurists, and anti-aging activists—all considered part of the transhumanist platform—are standing up and demanding humans conquer biological death. Once seen as fringe, but now increasingly seen as potentially visionary, transhumanists are challenging the very nature of what it means to be a human being.
 
Motherboard recently featured a part of the transhumanism movement in an exciting and informative short documentary called Forever Young. The show focuses on the eclectic Church of Perpetual Life—a nonprofit transhumanist organization in south Florida aiming to combine spirituality, community, and hard science research. I recently spoke at the Church of Perpetual Life while on tour with my Immortality Bus. The church is a unique place, to say the least. Forever Young explores the transhumanist and spiritual beliefs of some of the church parishioners, including businessman Bill Faloon, who co-founded the church in 2013. Faloon and the parishioners—nearly all who doubt the existence of an afterlife—are people bent on using the latest anti-aging science to live indefinitely.