The Future of Atheism

Religious Studies: KS3, topic 2.5.13

We have seen the progression from religious belief to atheism and humanism. But is there another step on this intellectual journey?

There are a number of questions for the future of atheism to consider:
If a human is just a body, and there is no everlasting soul, what makes up a human person?
What is human intelligence? Is the brain like a computer and do human beings behave as dictated by their programming?
These are big and important questions. They are the focus of some of the most recent thinking by modern philosophers.
Such as Daniel Dennett, an American philosopher and scientist, born in 1942.

We have seen the developing focus on the human mind.
And now, some philosophers are asking whether technology may be able to help humans increase their intellectual abilities and their moods.
If so, there are potential benefits.
Great advances in science and medicine could be made.
If mood can be controlled, then perhaps anger and warlike attitudes can be suppressed.
This could lead to a more peaceful world.

If the human mind is a computer, then it could be possible to use artificial intelligence to enhance the mind.
Perhaps a human being is just their mind. After all, bodies change and decay.
In this case, human minds could be uploaded into a computer programme allowing the person to live on when their bodies have died.

Artificial intelligence may not be immortality as promised by religion, but certainly human longevity!
Artificial intelligence (very sophisticated robots) may come to be recognised as people. The idea of a person in terms of biology could be abandoned.

The term ‘Brave New World’ was the title of a novel by Aldous Huxley. It is about a world that used technology to engineer intelligence.
It is an example of a dystopian novel, one where the outcomes of the story alarm the writer.
The idea of transhumanism suggests the possibility of a new kind of human existence.
Without the idea of God, human beings can focus on improving themselves and their society. By using technological advances.

But there are also big questions about these technological advancements:
Does it change what we understand as human beings in a fundamental way?
Is it possible to develop a set of rules that will say what developments are right and wrong?
Have we come to a point where questions of right and wrong no longer apply?
Should human beings want to live forever?

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