Can you hear me alright? Yeah, there we go. Thank you, Hank. And it's been a real pleasure to be here listening to the presenter so far, and I'm looking forward to what we'll hear shared together this afternoon. I've been particularly impressed already from the perspectives we've heard, both from a Wiccan view and from a Euranchian view of commonalities that we share, that I actually value quite a bit. And I'll be talking a little bit more about that further on in my presentation. So, four things I'd like to discuss. They're up here on the agenda. Of necessity, I'm going to have to be brief about, superficial even about them, because these are complex and nuanced things, just like when you're presenting about Euranchia or Wicca or Christianity or whatever. It's difficult to put these really complex lived experiences and ideas that have developed over a lifetime into a short period, so I'm going to try. And hopefully, I'll do a decent job of it. So, first of all, I'm going to introduce Mormonism to you. Some of you probably already know about Mormonism. Some of you probably have some Mormon neighbors that have knocked on your door or something like that at one point in time. I'll say a little bit about Mormonism. And then I'm going to switch into talking about Mormon transhumanism. So, a Mormon perspective on transhumanism, how they go together. Then I'm going to talk about an argument, a logical argument that's very popular among Mormon transhumanists. And finally, I'll talk a little bit about the Mormon transhumanist association as an institution, as an organization, what we do, what we consist of, stuff like that. So, those are the four things for our agenda. So, first of all, Mormonism. Mormonism is, above all other things, an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. And when I say immersive, what I mean by that is that it's not so much a religion that is about Jesus as it is an aspiration to live the religion of Jesus. So, when we think of the Gospel of Christ, we think of faith, baptism, faith, repentance, baptism, that's at the heart of Mormonism. And what I would suggest to you that from a Mormon perspective, this Gospel is to trust in, change toward, and fully immerse both our bodies and our minds in the role of Christ. That's what I mean by immersive, to immerse ourselves in the role of Christ, to become one in Christ as Jesus exemplified and invited us to become. To become gods and saviors, to console and to heal and to raise each other up together. To reconcile with each other, to reconcile our relations, to reconcile with our world. And to do that even through suffering and death, if need be, trusting in an eventual transfiguration or resurrection beyond traditional notions of suffering and death. So, while we're not necessarily Christians by creed, we do reject the creeds as Mormons, the traditional creeds. I'd say that we're still clearly Christian by Gospel. This is the heart of Mormonism, and that's important that you keep that in mind as I talk about other things today, that this Gospel of Jesus Christ, this immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ underlies Mormon transhumanism. Mormonism was founded in the early 19th century by Joseph Smith. Joseph experienced visions and revelations starting when he was a teenager and continuing throughout his life. In 1830 he published the Book of Mormon, which the religion ended up being named after, and he also founded the Church of Christ, not to be confused with maybe the Church of Christ that Micah and my friend at the back is a part of, as it turns out the Church of Christ is a popular name for churches. Subsequent to various controversy and persecution over the years, Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844. A sort of schism occurred at that time. Some Mormons went in different directions with different leaders, but the majority of Mormons followed Brigham Young, pictured in the upper right corner here, as pioneers into the American West, and founded Salt Lake City, where today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest Mormon denomination by far the largest. There's some very small Mormon denominations elsewhere in the world, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reports 15 million members today, which is about the same number of people as there are Jews in the world today. So Mormonism has grown quickly to become a major world religion. Metaphysically, Mormonism is strange, unusual for a religion, particularly a Christian religion, in that it rejects substance dualism. It's a very materialist religion from a philosophical perspective, and it's also quite naturalistic. While miracles are permitted in Mormonism, we believe in miracles, we don't believe that they're somehow like supernatural or contraventions of law. Miracles are understood by most Mormons to be something we just don't know how to do yet, but we'll figure it out through natural law over time. Mormon scripture talks about matter as being pervasive. Everything is material, even spirit or mind, and even God in Mormonism is material and embodied. Everything in Mormonism is material and embodied. It's a very this-worldly religion. I'll talk about in a minute how this earth is to become heaven for Mormons. Heaven is not somewhere far away, it's here, and heaven is not just something that we should wait for, it's also a very practical, action-oriented religion. It's something that we should work toward, something that we should build together. Of course, concepts of grace also fit in there. Mormons do recognize the importance of grace. There's some differences perhaps from some other Christian interpretations of it. You might think of a Mormon perspective on grace as something like, grace is the opportunity that we have to work. Every opportunity to work is something that we didn't create on our own. We received it, and so grace does play a role in Mormonism as well, although works are highly emphasized in Mormonism. Our very unusual metaphysics gives rise to also something of an unusual theodicy. Theodicy meaning, how do you account for evil in the world? Most monotheists have to account for evil in the world by explaining why God would create a world with evil in it. Mormons don't need to, and the reason Mormons don't need to is that in Mormonism, God emerged inside of the world. God did not create the world from nothing, but God organizes element, which is eternal, co-eternal with God from a Mormon perspective, into the world according to laws that maybe were co-eternal with God and instituting new laws within that context. So in Mormonism, we tell this story, which is an echo of a story that we heard about with your ancha stuff. There was this grand council in heaven as the story goes, and the children of God proposed two plans. One of the plans was to optimize for the potential to thrive, to create more gods. The other plan that was proposed was to optimize to kind of mitigate the risk of suffering. There were proponents of both of these plans, and eventually as the story goes, God chose the first plan, that we would organize this world such that we would have the opportunity to thrive, but there would be great suffering as a consequence of that opportunity. And so the Mormon theodicy situates us in a world that we chose to participate in from a Mormon perspective, and that we knew that suffering would be part of it, but that this suffering is accompanied with an opportunity to become more like our Creator, to become creators ourselves, which would not have been possible had we chosen the other option. Mormon eschatology, it's a Christian religion, so this should be familiar with those of you who are familiar with Christianity more broadly. Mormons situate ourselves today in what we call the dispensation of the fullness of times, perhaps a little bit uniquely from other Christian religious views. We consider our scriptures talk about the dispensation of the fullness of times as a time of great advancement in knowledge and power, when we should expect the sciences that we see flourishing around us today to do just that, to flourish. It's also accompanied with these apocalyptic risks and these millennial opportunities, and I'd like to stress the words risk and opportunity there. While some Mormons may be fatalistic in their views on prophecy, I'd argue that the most authentic perspective on prophecy in Mormonism is an interactive perspective, one where we recognize prophecy as having its utility primarily in the way that it provokes us. In other words, if it's a terrible prophecy about a horrible future, it should provoke us to try to work away from that, and if it's a wonderful opportunity in that prophecy, it should provoke us to try to pursue and create the fulfillment of that. A great example of that, for example, would be the story of Jonah and Nineveh in the Hebrew Bible, which Mormons consider to be scripture as well. There, a very authentic Mormon interpretation of that story would be that Jonah went and told Nineveh that they would be destroyed, no qualifications. Well, Nineveh repented. They weren't destroyed.  I'm paraphrasing you didn't say it quite this way. Anyway, the prophecy wasn't fulfilled. Well, that's okay in Mormonism. It's okay that prophecies aren't always fulfilled because it's an interactive thing. So, as I talk about this, keep that in mind. Mormon eschatology, then, this idea of our prophetic vision of the future, it situates us at this time of apocalyptic risk and millennial opportunity that will come to a culmination in the return of Christ, which could be understood in various ways, and I'll talk more about that from a transhumanist perspective in a moment. Subsequent to the return of Christ, we will live in a millennial world here on Earth that millennial world as described in the Bible and in unique Mormon scripture would be a time beyond present notions of suffering and death. It would be a time with a progressive resurrection of the dead into physical, remember, everything in Mormonism is material and embodied. It's not a resurrection to something supernatural. It's a resurrection to physical embodied people like you and me. And at the end of that millennial period, there would be some more apocalyptic risks that we would face prior to a transition to another higher state of being. We call that a celestial world, still Earth, and the celestial world would be the inheritance of the people who become like God, which ultimately is all of us in Mormonism. Mormonism is very universalist in the sense that everybody in Mormonism gets the heaven that it corresponds with their desires. So if you desire to be there, you will end up being there. It might take a long time, but you'll get there. Some people might not desire it. Well, then, they'll be in some other heaven. And in fact, this idea of heaven and Mormonism is that there's diverse heavens. We call them celestial, terrestrial, telestial, that correspond with different desires. And of course, Mormons have their perspective on which one's the best. Let's talk about Mormon transhumanism. Mormon transhumanism has some very interesting parallels, calls out some very interesting parallels between Mormonism and transhumanism. One of them is this perspective that science and technology, as it's advancing today, is something that we should expect. Our early Mormon leaders, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, talked about this idea that God would be increasing the pace of his work, or I'll add her. I think the Wiccan already left Mormons believe in the heavenly mother as well, although that's a subject that I could talk about longer at a different time. But God is accelerating the pace of the work, so we should expect something like what we experience with accelerating change. That's one thing that Mormon transhumanists call out. Another thing that Mormon transhumanists, like many religious transhumanists, find a parallel in their own faith is the idea of a technological singularity. When you think about the different views that are expressed in relation to a technological singularity, you get the whole gamut, right? You get these people who have this very negative expectation about what's going to happen. You get this very positive utopian expectation. You get people who think, oh, we need to work to make this happen in a positive way. You get these people that are very passive about it. There's nothing we can do to make this any better or any worse. You get all of those same attitudes among secular transhumanists. And you go and you talk to people that are working, for example, for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute or other secular groups of transhumanists. You get all this diverse perspective about what the technological singularity might be like, what it might entail for us, what we need to work towards or for in relation to it. Same sort of emotional things. Now, do they associate it with supernatural forces? No, most of them are very naturalistic and most of them probably are not even religious at all. But the same sorts of social behaviors result that you see among religious people that have had millenarian and apocalyptic and messianic expectations for thousands of years. We see those same kinds of expectations among singularitarians. So Mormon transhumanists, of course, bring this whole array of things. Different Mormon transhumanists have totally different views on the singularity, some are pro-singularity, some are against the singularity, some are saying that singularity is an exaggeration and that something gets dangerous. We get all of that. How does that relate to the return of Christ? Well, some Mormon transhumanists associate the singularity with the return of Christ. If Christ came the first time as a child, born of a biological woman, why can't Christ return as an artificial intelligence? Or there's also the interpretation that, well, maybe like the Bible teaches, Christ is something that will return in the sense that Christ consciousness goes through all this. Christing you, as Paul says in the New Testament. And in the singularity, we may become more compassionate and more creative. I'll talk about that in a minute. And we may become one in Christ with Jesus, and that might be part of the technological singularity. So there's lots of ways that Mormon transhumanists integrate these ideas. The important thing to call out is that they do integrate these ideas. Transhumanity, lots of parallels there. Rejuvenation biotechnology. Remember, for Mormons, immortality is physical. It's embodied. Rejuvenation biotechnology, it's not hard for a Mormon to go, hey, you know, the possibility of making people live longer, that sounds just like the prophecies from our scriptures. And further on down the road, of course, maybe full body prosthetics, there is in Mormonism this notion of progressively improving bodies as well. Our scriptures have this idea of a transfigured being receives a certain quality of body, but then a resurrected being receives an even better body, a more robust body. It's still physical, but it's more glorified and robust, whatever that might mean. It talks about it in various ways. Then post-humanity. This is an area where Mormonism and transhumanism have an incredible amount in common. A very transhumanist idea from transhumanist philosopher Nick Boestrom is this idea of ancestor simulations and the ramifications of ancestor simulations. Mormonians, as you might know, love genealogy, love doing family history work. They collect lots of data. We probably know who all of your ancestors are. And there are some interesting ramifications of that. I'm going to be talking about that in just a moment as part of the New God argument. But one thing I'll mention here, just briefly, is think of it this way. It may be, if there's no hard limits, that the recurrent effort to make a more and more detailed family history account of a person, the natural consequence of that would be the resurrection of that person. Now most Mormons won't tell you that, but many Mormon transhumanists will think of those things in that way. That Mormons are already engaged, if you will, in keying the database for the resurrection. So the last thing I want to say about Mormonism and transhumanism, and I was talking with Wesley about this in the break. I can't talk about it for very long for sake of time. I am a transhumanist, not despite my Mormonism, but rather I'm a transhumanist because of my Mormonism. My Mormonism mandates transhumanism. And I think that the case can be made and that most mainstream Mormons would even give pause and think about it when I make the case with them, that our scriptures require implicit, not explicit, the word transhumanism doesn't appear in our scriptures, but it requires an implicit transhumanism of Mormons. I listed some of the reasons up there. I'm not going to go through them all right now for a Mormon audience, I might. But the thing I want to call out to this audience is that I and many Mormons are transhumanists, not despite our religion, not because we were trying to find a solution to fix our religion. Our religion led us to transhumanism. We feel a spiritual mandate to engage in transhumanism. In fact, when I discovered the word transhumanism, I was telling somebody this a little bit earlier about a decade ago, I discovered the word, I go, oh, wow, that's what I am. There's a secular word for what I am. That's what I was raised to believe by my Mormon parents, by very mainstream Mormon parents. Now, they don't identify as transhumanists, one of them is dead and one of them doesn't identify as a transhumanist, but I do as a consequence of that upbringing that they gave me. All right, the New God argument. This is a popular logical argument among Mormon transhumanists, and the New God argument is not an argument that proves God exists. That's very important that we get from the beginning. It's an argument for faith in God. It's a practical or a moral argument. It's not an existential or not an ontological type argument. It's an argument that purports to say, you should trust that God exists because of this. And here's the reason why, from a Mormon transhumanist perspective, you should trust that God exists. And it's this one assumption, we call it the faith assumption, humanity will not go extinct before evolving into post-humanity. Okay, so that's not an unusual idea among transhumanists, is it? That's pretty much the heart of transhumanism, is this trust that, hey, we can use science and technology to form a post-humanity, and not just any kind of post-humanity, probably a really good one, right? A friendly AI and a universal well-being ethic. Let's combine those and let's be a really good post-humanity. So this is not an unusual assumption among transhumanists. So you take that assumption and the New God argument proceeds in two directions, one towards creation and one towards compassion. So the creation argument is a generalization of the simulation argument from Nick Bostrom. One thing that I point out is that it's a generalization because it's not just about computation. The form of the simulation argument is logically valid no matter what kind of creation mechanism you want to apply it to. It so happens that simulation is a rather persuasive one making the argument quite strong, but some people might have preferences for something like terraforming or cosmoforming, we can instrument a black hole to create baby universes of certain kinds. Maybe Smolen has ideas that maybe universes are optimized for black holes, well maybe it could fit in line with some idea like that. Anyway, it's important to recognize that this is a general, first of all a generalization of the simulation argument into creation rather than just computation, whatever your preferred mechanism of creation might be. And then it basically goes through the three different options that Bostrom identifies as one of these three has to be true. Number one, humanity will probably go extinct before evolving into post-humanity. Well, transhumanists reject that option by our faith assumption. Now transhumanists of course won't call it faith. A Mormon transhumanist will say, our faith assumption is that we're not going to go extinct. So what are the likely results if we don't, is the question. Now we might be wrong, maybe we will go extinct, but we're going to assume we won't. Well, one of two other things has to be true. Either post-humanity probably will not create many worlds that emulate its evolutionary history, or as the simulation argument generalized goes, or we're probably already living in a world created by post-humanity. Well, for reasons that I won't elaborate on right now, that second one gets rejected. It seems to be a weak position to take that post-humanity with all this computational power is unlikely to run ancestor simulations. And so Mormon transhumanists will go on to that file and say, hey, we're probably already living in a created world based on, again, this is based on the assumption that we ourselves will not go extinct before having that capacity. The compassion argument, sometimes we call it the benevolence argument. This one's based on the idea of observing the trajectory in violence and cooperation in human history and kind of extrapolating it forward and observing that because we're getting more and more technological power to destroy ourselves, it seems unlikely that we'll avoid destroying ourselves unless we kind of bridge the gap between our defensive and destructive capacities through something that we'll call compassion. Minimally, it would need to be cooperative at its best. It's something like compassion or friendship, something that's stronger than just instrumental. Anyway, the basic idea of this argument is that, again, based on the faith assumption, this is an assumption. The assumption is not a proof in itself, but based on the assumption, we're going to reject the idea that we're going to destroy ourselves, although that's a possibility. When we reject that, we're only left with two possibilities. One, we'll stop increasing in destructive capacity, faster than defensive capacity, and that seems really unlikely, given our trajectory, which leaves us with one result and that is that post-humanity probably is more compassionate than us as the argument goes. And then finally, when you combine the creation and the compassion arguments together, based on those assumptions, you get the conclusion that post-humanity probably created our world and post-humanity probably is more compassionate than us, which, again, it doesn't prove that post-humanity is either of those things. What it purports to be is that based on our own faith, our own trust in our potential, we should go to these as probabilistic conclusions. That's what our argument purports to be demonstrating. Endorsements. There are some very unlikely endorsements for this idea. You've got Richard Dawkins on the left and Sam Harris on the right. Richard Dawkins in the book, The God Delusion, that they're very probably, he uses the word probable, God-like extraterrestrials exist. And now for him, he goes into this criticism saying, well, God-like extraterrestrials are not God because they didn't start that way. They evolved into that state. Well, I've got news for Richard in Mormonism. God didn't start out as God. And so that's okay. He's actually an endorsement for the Mormon view of God. Sam Harris, when he found out about the simulation argument, he says it gave him pause. And he wrote an article, a blog post called, Should We Be Mormons in the Matrix? My response to him is, yes, we should be. But I don't expect everybody to be. It works for me and my family, and maybe it would work for you. You should give it a go. But anyway, there's some unlikely endorsements for you for the New God argument. So finally, I want to talk about the Mormon Transhumanist Association as an organization. The Mormon Transhumanist Association has been around since 2006, and we've grown faster and larger than any historic religious transhumanist organization that I'm aware of. Today, we have 432 members. The last few years, we've had quite a bit of growth. Most of the members of our organization are theists. They believe in God, of one kind or another, some understanding of God or another. And most of them are members of the LDS Church, which is that largest Mormon denomination that I mentioned to you earlier. And all are, as you can see from these statistics. We actually have atheist members. How does that make sense? How can you be a Mormon atheist transhumanist? Well, it actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a second. There are Mormon atheists who think that God just doesn't exist yet. They don't buy into the New God argument for whatever their reasons are, but they think that God will exist, and so they share in the same kinds of values that Mormon transhumanists generally share, and even the theist ones, and they work with them towards those same kinds of goals. We have a Christian who aren't Mormon at all, but who support the work that we do, and the dialogue that we engage in, and the ends that we're trying to pursue. We also have non-Mormon Christians who are members, and we have non-Christian religious persons of various varieties that are members. We have a Wiccan woman who is a member of our association anyway. It's a diverse set of people, all the S and having faith in God. Every one of the members of the association declares support for some statements.  That doesn't necessarily mean they agree dogmatically with these statements. It's an expression of support that's required of all members. You can read more about those on our website at transfigurism.org if you'd like. We do a lot of online promotion. We get over 10,000 visits to our website each month. Lots of people like our Facebook page. We have an awesome YouTube channel, really awesome YouTube channel, and recordings of all the presentations here today are going to go on to that YouTube channel. We've got Clovis here from Mustache Power recording. The Mormon Transhumanist Association is paying for that. Go there, look at the recordings we've got there. I think that you'll find that there's a lot of valuable, interesting things that are being said about religious transhumanism that we put onto that YouTube channel, and then a number of other vectors of promotion that we use online. We also do offline promotions. We have meet-up groups, and we also sponsor some conferences on a regular basis. Our most recent conference was just last month in Salt Lake City. Our keynote speakers were Natasha Vitamor, and Adam Miller. Adam Miller is a Mormon philosopher. Natasha Vitamor is a transhumanist designer, both well-known in their fields. In former years, we've had an Aubrey de Grey. We've had Max Moore, James Hughes. We've had a variety of Mormon scholars whose names may not be very familiar in this audience. We invite them to come and present on themes of the intersection of science, religion, technology, and spirituality. We also invite critics of Mormon transhumanism or religious transhumanism or transhumanism come in to present at our conferences, present their disagreements, interact with us constructively. That's the kind of forum that we value. We value open-mindedness. We value constructive disagreement. We value expression of differing views, and so we try to promote that in our offline conferences as well. So with that, I don't know how much time I have, but I'm all open for some questions. Why is there a perception that Mormon transhumanism is about fixing the religion rather than... Oh, okay. Well, I don't know, first of all, whether there is a perception that Mormon transhumanism is about fixing the religion as in Mormonism itself. I would suggest that most Mormon transhumanists don't have that view. But most Mormon transhumanists would have a view of, I think... We survey our members regularly, and I haven't surveyed on this particular question, but I would think that what they do is they feel like it strengthens their religion, that there are aspects of Mormonism that become more real and more robust as a consequence. So it might be a kind of fix, but it's their Mormonism that leads them to it. They're not leaving behind their Mormonism by going to this, I guess, is what I mean by it's not fixing it. That's a good question. Yeah, so my point, and this was in response to something Wesley had said earlier, is that it's some observe that transhumanism seems to be what people go to instead of their religion. And I would suggest that in Mormon transhumanism, that's not the driver. What drives a Mormon to transhumanism is their religion. That's generally my experience with Mormon transhumanists. Testing one, testing two? That's a good question I had. This presentation, how has it or would it go if presented to just generally your church body? Yeah, so Mormons in general. How do Mormons in general react to Mormon transhumanism? Most do one of two things. They just shrug their shoulders and not a big deal. Or they're cautiously intrigued. Those are the most common responses among Mormons. Very fewer hostile to the ideas. A significant number are very enthusiastic and end up becoming members of the association. But not a lot of Mormons know about Mormon transhumanism. Most Mormons have never even heard the word transhumanism, frankly. So once they encounter it, usually it's like, I'm not interested. Or, huh, that's interesting. I should know maybe a little bit more about it. Those are the most common reactions. Every once in a while we'll get a guy doing jumping jacks. He's so excited though. Perhaps with your Rancho teaching here. Absolutely. In particular on the conception where you say that it's this worldly that even, so it wasn't clear about the afterlife in Mormonism. Is there a translation to a different dimension, another place? Or can you just clarify how that fits into the system? So let me talk a little bit more about the afterlife in Mormonism. I'm sorry I had to go through that so quickly, but now that you're asking I'll give it a little bit more attention. Everything in Mormonism is material and embodied, so I'm not talking about something immaterial or supernatural. The afterlife in Mormonism, Mormons do believe that the spirit of a person continues to exist after they die, but it's still material somehow. Explain how I have my own perspective on this, but I'm just going to give you kind of the general Mormon view. The spirit continues to exist, and that eventually it will be resurrected into a material embodied body, like what we have now, some differences might be that it will be a glorified body, and what do we mean by glorified? Well, some Mormon leaders over the years had speculated that there would be no more blood in the body. The blood will be replaced by spirit. Well, what does that mean? Some Mormon transhumanists like to think of that as like, maybe we'll become information-based bodies instead of, you know, just the typical biological bodies, but embodiment is very important in Mormonism. So this earth is where heaven is, but eventually we become creators, we become gods, we become one in Christ, and we create more worlds, and those worlds are also physical worlds with our spirit children, as we call them, growing up and also becoming creators themselves. Mormonism is very heavily emphasized as family and creation, and if you will, maybe at this idea of like a holy nursery. We have a heavenly mother and our pantheon and everything. But there are heavenly worlds where you reside in the afterlife, is that not true? It becomes the celestial glory of the gods that were mortal on this earth from a Mormon perspective, and then they go on to create more worlds. Okay, thank you. There's more, but we'll talk afterwards. Absolutely. Can you foresee a collision between the Mormon authorities and the Mormon transhumanist association as, for example, one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles going to Brigham Young and giving an address on the deadly heresies of it? I think it's highly unlikely that the LDS church in particular, that's the denomination I'm a part of, the largest one, I think it's very unlikely that they would take a hostile position toward it. I imagine there may have been a time in LDS church history when it would have been likely, but that time is behind us now. There's a lot more tolerance for diverse interpretations among mainstream Mormons than there has been historically. In fact, there's been quite a shift, even in my own lifetime, from the 1990s to the present. So I think it's very unlikely, in part for that reason, because we are kind of losing, and in part because we're not saying anything that is contrary to mainstream Mormonism. What we're doing is we are elaborating on it and how this might be describable from a scientific and technological perspective. Now, individual Mormon transhumanists may have their individual views that may run afoul of various authorities, but as an association, I foresee no problems at all. In fact, I know some high-ranking leaders in the LDS church who are familiar with the Mormon transhumanist association, and it's just not a whole lot of interest, frankly. That particular person I'm thinking of right now just has never mentioned it as an interest. I have a bishop, a local congregation. Mormonism bishops are for local congregations. I have my current bishop. He's talked to me about the Mormon transhumanist association. My former bishop has talked to me about the Mormon transhumanist association, and both of them were of the cautiously intrigued response that I was talking about. There's no science, too. And so, you know, it just hasn't been a big deal, and I don't think there's any reason why it should be, except to the extent that maybe individual Mormon transhumanists might extend their particular views in ways that are maybe particularly provocative. Mormon institutions tend to give you space insofar as you don't directly attack the authority structure. And there's nothing about the Mormon transhumanist association that does that. Oh, she's got one question. One last question from Darshan. Great question. So, let me answer that in maybe two or three ways. First of all, as you probably most know, most mainstream Mormons are fairly conservative. But for a conservative religion, we have pretty moderate bioethics. For example, Oren Hatch, who is a Mormon senator, came out in favor of stem cell research. The LDS church itself has no position on stem cell research. The LDS church does not entirely prohibit abortion. In cases of rape, incest, and there's a list of other things, abortion is okay after careful consideration in prayer. So there's some remarkably moderate bioethics positions from an otherwise pretty conservative group. That's one part of my answer. Another part of my answer is that Mormon transhumanists, in particular, tend to be more, quite a bit more socially progressive than their more mainstream peers. So you would find, for example, among Mormon transhumanists that we're more likely to be okay with gay marriage, for example, than our mainstream... A lot of our mainstream Mormon peers are quite anti-gay marriage, as you probably would know from the news. So you'll find that among Mormon transhumanists, generally, there is a position towards the more progressive social end. But not all of them are. Some of them are quite conservative among our membership. And, you know, we don't forbid somebody for being a member of the association based on whether they're too liberal or too conservative on issues like that personally. I think you also asked where I situated myself personally on such issues. I am not in favor of a post-gender future. I think that that is a... That would be taking away from the enrichment that gender provides, but I am not in favor of somehow enforcing a strict gender binary on the future. I think that the most enriching future would be a future where the genders correspond with the persons and their authenticity. Now, I expect that that will generally kind of fold out into a rough binary, because that's how humans are, a rough binary. But by no means are we a strict binary. And personally, I'm okay with that. But I think it would be an impoverishment of our nature and of our categorization of the world to try to get rid of gender. That doesn't interest me. I think that gender is an important part of our identity. And then on issues of sexuality, Mormonism has an interesting history with sexuality. We were polygamists in our early days, and the fundamentalist groups still are, but there's very few of them.  My own double great grandfather, who I loved to death for all kinds of reasons, did those kinds of things. George Buchanan, he was a leader of the LDS church in the early years, and he blamed all those things I just said on monogamy. I think he was wrong, but there's still a lot of things about him and what he taught and said that I value deeply. And I kind of have that same perspective on some of the contemporary positions that the LDS church takes. I support the LDS church, its leaders, but sometimes I disagree with some things. And I think that's okay. I think it's constructive to have that kind of dialogue. It can be constructive about that. We can engage in it in destructive ways, of course, too, but I try to avoid that.


YouTube team keep it clean. What's going on is engraving here with another video and another episode of NFL questions from subs But seriously, you can ask me any NFL question you want and we answered in a video just like this If you ever want to be part of it, you can send me an email to team. Keep it clean at gmail.com Or for the patrons special shout out to all of our team keep it clean patrons You can send it directly on Patreon if you want to become a team keep it clean patron you can go to patreon.com slash engraving vids And if not, that's fine, too. There's absolutely zero pressure. I love y'all team keep it clean I appreciate y'all I appreciate y'all coming through literally every single day to talk Ravens every single day Sometimes two or three times a day There are a lot of conversations that we have about the Ravens on here But I appreciate y'all being part of every last one of them team keep it clean as we always do We got some fire questions. Let's do it engraving vato local I had to look that up to make sure it was team keep it clean cuz I ain't about to be out here cursing in Spanish Anyway, first question came from my boy Jamie G. He said howdy from San Antonio I don't know if this has been asked or not, but here I go. All right, let's see As I was reviewing Raven stat stacked up against the rest of the league I noticed that we are among the worst at allowing deep passes 30th in league thinking of the personnel We have I couldn't help but comparing the team pre to Sean and poster Sean only three games sample from playing without In the three games we clearly can see an important difference in the yards and points allowed This is actually really affected by how bad our defense was against the Dolphins granted This was against weaker opponents But we did not expect to receive as many points as we received from the weaker opponents We played like lions raiders Vikings in seven games Andries may play a big factor and it could cloud this argument But thus far but stats say that things have been much better without the Sean Elliott There's no question that the Sean is an amazing tackler, but that is not the only thing that matters in this game He is a safety after all strong that is and his main goal is to reduce yards and aim to diminish long plays I am not someone that analyzes film But I do notice trends in these say a lot about the big picture I am hating criticizing the Sean as he is a player that I enjoy ching for but once we see otherwise Then I will stick to my analysis. I apologize for the long question PS throw the ball to pookie for me. Appreciate it um So with or without the Sean Elliott, um, I think due to the injuries Due to how much the Ravens you could tell they love Brandon Stevens, they love this guy you could tell they loved him even but before the Sean Elliott got hurt they love him and But the question still remains Oh, I mean not even a question But it still stands that the Ravens do not have a true safety on the roster right now True free safety that is. Excuse me. So the Roman type of safety because not Greg Roman, but roaming the field But shout out to G-Roy anyway. Shout out to Gregory. Oh, but are there is Washington out for the season broken foot Chuck Clark Strong safety the Sean Elliott out for the year, but he is also a box safety Brandon Stevens former running back Then he was a former quarterback and this is his first year playing Safety and boy, what what a first year to dive into being a safety when you get to the professional level So we don't really have that that truce. Well, there's Geno stone. Geno stone will be one but The Ravens aren't really invested in Geno stone like that. So I mean I Guess I should have rephrased that they don't really have a true free safety. That's really gonna get playing time like that So it's it's it's a process. It's definitely a process but back to what you were saying about how you feel like the The the Ravens have done better and in all being against worse competition and whatnot But better without the Sean Elliott. I do think moving forward that the Ravens have to prepare for that life I think they could if they want to I think they could bring him back on a one-year deal They could bring him back on a cheap one-year deal Reason being because I don't think they would invest anything long-term into the Sean Elliott because three out of the four years I've ended on Andrew reserve But I do think if like for wherever he ends up going even if it's not with the Ravens I don't think it's gonna be a long-term deal up front. I think it's gonna be a one-year Can you stay healthy type of deal and then they'll see whatever team that may be whether it's the Ravens or somebody else then they'll see from there, but Let's let's see how the team does moving forward Because I know you said it was a small sample size which it is without the Sean Elliott But let's see how they do moving forward Against these better opponents like again the Browns and they're gonna play the Browns again But then you got Steelers coming up this week Steelers twice. He got Bengals again. He got Packers and ran So you really gonna get to see if they are better with or without and even say for instance They are better with it may not even necessarily just be a the Sean Elliott thing It could just be a wink thing It could be a wink putting guys in better position down a stretch to make better place So we'll see soon next question came from my boy Mike and shout out to you for being a patron He said ain't great and I hope you in the family good Man our Ravens are fighters for sure and have kept finding ways to win. I've noticed this defense has been playing better Especially Queen and Bowser shout out to away as well. He has been balling for a rookie I know this Ravens team has been extremely resilient, which could bold well for future success. Still, it would be nice Though to have a chill stress free game It'd be nice, but I wouldn't expect enough from these Ravens. That's just not how they operate this year At least not too much. He said which two players non QB Do you think could be a spark for greater success to finish the rest of the season? Wow, that is a great question One of those and and there's a lot of pressure being put on him But it's who we were just talking about previously. I'll say Brandon Stevens Now again something that we keep saying we gots to remember one He is a rookie to his plan a brand new position that he has never played before Going from running back to corner of the safety. This is brand new and Again him having to make that transition at the highest level of football. That's a lot But I would say Brandon Stevens because Brandon Stevens as the safety.  Well, if you are back there, if it's not one of them plays where Winkett Blitz and everybody But if you're back there, then yeah, you are the last line of defense So I would certainly say him he would be a guy for sure Somebody else I would say Alejandro Villanueva He would be a guy because he's been up and down season for him But when when it's bad for him, it's like it's really bad and we see it like it's like So it was those would be the two that I would choose. That's a really good question Next question came from Heather and appreciate you being a patron as well She said ain't great. Can you touch on what happened with that trick play in the Browns game with cold cab busted through the game? The first down they did not give it to us. Why I guess I didn't understand what happened there There was some penalty that there was a penalty that was just that whole It was just a mess and I think what what was happened. No, no, it wasn't even a penalty It was that they said that the Browns They hadn't had enough time to substitute their players in When the Ravens were getting ready to run or when they the Ravens actually ran that fake punt So the refs they stopped the play there. Oh, no, no, that play didn't count because the Browns didn't have enough time to sub Sub their guys in so that negated that play and then Something happened right right after that too But then the Ravens ended up getting it because the Browns had like a 12 man on a field penalty afterwards But that whole sequence was just a mess next question came from my guy cam He said hopefully doing well in Graven. I got one question. I'm gonna get straight to it Why don't we use Bateman enough on passing plays? I see Bateman in for design run plays which he's been doing a good job blocking all the time But rarely ever for passing plays and it makes me question the coaching a bit I feel like Bateman has been our best receiver went in but he just doesn't get enough looks Time and time again You see Bateman on the sideline for deep passing plays even though he was a good deep receiver for the Minnesota game I love oh for Minnesota. Excuse me for the what are they the badgers? I believe anyway He said I love Bateman and I want him to thrive, but there has to be changing the offense to do so All right, so with Bateman man, this guy is crazy because he can get open Shout out to all Ravens for dummies Spencer. I got to have them on again The boys from Baltimore beat down Spencer and Jake Luke but anyway He had a could you know that the all 22 guys and they get that film It's like ooh it can be like oh look like ooh and did this was a ooh play In the Browns game it was on a pass with Lamar He threw it to Devin Duvenay in the end zone, but it ended up being incomplete But it ended up being a holding call anyway, so even if it was completed wouldn't count it but on that same play Rashad Bateman. Oh, he was wide open for a touchdown and Initially when um when Spence showed the the play because he put it on 20 when he showed the play I saw somebody in the end zone because the film it wasn't crystal clear. It was clear enough But I saw somebody in the end zone. I was like oh man, it's a safety right there, but then I looked again I was like oh no that was only a ref So Rashad Bateman was wide open So that is on Lamar Jackson to get him the ball when he is in not force it But just look for him Lamar got to do a better job of just seeing the field and that that's crazy because that's something that he really does Well, but for these past couple of weeks It's just been it's been a problem so he got to step it up on that and Again, yeah, we're coaching. I don't know what it is that that confuses me Because when Rashad Bateman first came on a scene, he's out there a lot But then like you see him out there less and less like especially in the in the Browns game and in the set whole second Half and then in the Dolphins game, too It's like the way that they were using him or really the way that they weren't using him was just super weird Next question came from Bryce and he sent it to the wrong email But I'm gonna give you one pass and one pass only Anyway, he said a engraving quick question. Why is Brandon Stevens playing so much? He has been in 100% of snaps or close to it for a while now I understand our secondary is thin But he has one of the worst pass ratings allowed when targeted in the whole league And I say not dislike him as a player But it seems that the coaching staff loves him when the stats aren't showing any success Thanks, and you know what I'll attribute him sending this to the wrong email because he's obviously been frustrated with Brandon Stevens But the reason why Brandon Stevens is playing so much is because Raven's original starting free safety is out And somebody that they threw a third round pick for He he's up and they said from jump. They want him to be a safety They said that and they are following through with that So it's gonna be some growing pains again since he's a rookie and new to the position But the Ravens like you said and like I've said a lot too They love him and he is going to be out there just going through it and with that experience. He'll get better So it's it look like it's been rough been a little rough here and there. He made some good plays now, too but with Everything being thrown at him because before they would have him on a field here and then what not see the 21 come in the game Oh, okay, they go Brandon Stevens a rookie, but that's when the Sean Elliott was still healthy But now yeah, he's he went from being a part-time player to a full-time. It's like, okay Well, that's a lot to take on so we just got to be patient with him and let the process let the process have Next question also sent to the wrong email first and last chance fellas It came from Brendan. I guess it's when you when your name starts with a B You send it to the wrong email. Anyway, you say what's going on in Graven? Hope you and your family are doing well Do you think Lamar plays too much hero ball and subconsciously puts us in bad situations just for him to save us Oh, that's a very interesting question subconsciously puts us in bad situations just for him to save us No, um, we're not not intentionally on the the bad situations part But you did say it's subconsciously so that wouldn't be intentionally Um, yeah, having sometimes it does well again with Lamar is it's always big play big play big play big play big play big play big play big play and He he just got to do a better job taking the little stuff and and a little more grinding it out through the air like running wise He'll do them great to grind it out running wise. Oh, yeah But through the air he likes the big chunk plays those fat plays those huge plays where it's like Oh, yeah, whoa, that was great But they got to do some a little bit dinking don't just just mix it up next question came from my guy Isaac He said what's up in Graven? My question has to do with the Steelers and how Lamar plays against them Usually Lamar doesn't fold under big-time pressure games and we've seen him make spectacular plays against him Well, you'd awful also seen Lamar make absolutely ugly picks and host dealers games too. Yes I remember the last year in the one at M&T Bank Stadium Where it was intended for James Pro Shae, but it looked like it was intended for spleen I don't even think he's playing in this game But still and then there was another pick in that same game where it was intended for Patrick Ricard and oh that that lineback I think it's high Smith. He he just jumped it and it was just a beautiful pick I wish it wouldn't happen to Lamar, but it did so yeah, he definitely and then uh in the red zone in that same game Lamar fumbled And I think did we lose that fun? Well, I think we did but yeah, he definitely got a uh, he got to step it up against I mean, he's only played them twice. So That's really a small sample size, but still This is Raven Steelers. So he got to bring it this coming Sunday But anyway back to his question. He said if my phone will stop acting up All right, there we go He said some days it feels like the Steelers defense has Lamar's number the same way that the Chiefs did Should we be worried that the Steelers could sweep us the same way the bingos? I mean, it's it's it can always be a worry until it's not a worry anymore And it's always possible until that possibility is eliminated so We just again the sample size is very small We've seen him make some plays against the Steelers and we've seen the Steelers make some plays against him But it's only been two games. It's been and that's it. It's been two games well Yeah, it's been two games So because he played them once in 2019 And then he played them and then the second game he set out because that was week 17 And then he played them once in 2020 then the second game he set out Because of coven. So yeah, man. So yeah, I I know he has When he played the Steelers, there's been some yikes in there But those games don't really like worry me like that because again, he's he hasn't played them so many times Like he played the chiefs more than he's played the Steelers. Think about that See a lot of people really questioning Brandon Stevens this episode next question also came from my guy Isaac He said sorry for the double question, but I had to get another one in real quick How are we feeling about Brandon Stevens so far? I've been impressed so far with his ability to read run games Which showed itself in the Browns game that we saw this past weekend with that said coverage has been decent overall He's picked up our scheme relatively quickly I ask this also because this could have major implications in the off season Will we keep a young talent on a cheap deal or do we bite on resigning Deshawn Elliott? Who sadly cannot stay healthy will love to know your thoughts on this much love And look at that This is pretty much everything that we have been talking about before earlier with um, Deshawn Elliott So we spoke about that already with the contract. So we don't need to touch on that again But with Brandon Stevens, you made a good point that he uh, he's picked up The scheme relatively quickly now that is um, that's very interesting Given how difficult this scheme is known to be And him being a rookie. So that definitely shows that he's a student of the game And if he's dissecting and diagnosing plays that shows that he's even more of a student of the game So that's the beautiful thing. So that can only help with his ascension As an nfl safety For the Raven. So that's a good thing. Um, for me personally, I felt he's been all right I felt he definitely missed some plays, but again, I just I always got to remember this this is rookie in a brand Literally a brand new position Um, and I know a lot of times Ravens they they will play guys out of position Um, and then when those guys struggle the Ravens will be scratching their heads like oh, hey, why why is this guy struggling? What do we do wrong? Well, you didn't play him where he had been playing that for his collegiate career You try to do an experiment but It's all good. Uh, he uh, he definitely shows some potential So we hope that that potential can just continue to grow and he can continue to just blossom into this Great safety next question came for questions came from great I say greetings two questions with our defense finally coming together Who's the keystone on our defense coming into the year? I thought chuck clock and he's played very well overall Chuck clock has been all right. He's been all right And he said however Claire's Campbell and Bowser have both played outstanding this year By and salvage are inside linebacker corp and away has been a welcome surprise Now who's the Ravens defensive MVP so far? Oh That's a really good question Who's the Ravens defensive MVP so far? um I'll probably say juice man because he is certainly Uh, the most valuable Peters. Uh, anyway now I um Hmm That is a tough one That is that is wow That's really tough Because do we do even have one? Because yeah, Bowser been playing real good recently Patrick Patrick Queen. He done been coming along a lot better Um Kaleas Campbell has just been so consistent. So I guess Kaleas Campbell Kaleas Campbell could be one. Um Yeah, if I yeah if I gotta go one, I gotta go Kaleas Campbell I just feel like they just really hasn't been just one Like dominant from jumped. I mean always been really good. Um And he's made he made some big time plays as well. Uh, but So I don't I don't know. I don't I don't know. That's a really really good question But the second question he said should hardball call for more trick plays from special teams and or the offense I've only seen one the penalty written fake punt in the second quarter against the Browns Personally, I'm all for it. It brings an element of unpredictability back. He said have a great day. Yes I I think so. Um, not that you have to do it again.  It gives your team life, especially if your offense is walking around and they aren't they aren't doing anything Yeah, you sprinkle it in here and there like again like they did in the Browns game. You see like it worked, but It because of the refs and the Browns or it didn't work, but it worked So keep running that next question came from soft strike. He said ain't great. I hope you had a good weekend And what do you think about the defense lately? Personally? I think they're playing great Do you think Patrick Queen and Tyus Bowser are playing on an elite level? Uh, well Patrick Queen, he's just been playing a lot more confident and that that confidence has been showing On the field for sure. We all see it. We all see it And we love it too. So shout out to Patrick Queen. I know wink did say he's actually been playing some Will and Mike linebacker So he hasn't just been the Batman or he hasn't just been the Robin But he's been the Batman as well. So he said he's been playing both positions. So Confidence confidence is everything man So he it took it took him being demoted Or moved whatever you want to call it But it took him being demoted to where it's like, hold up. Okay. Let me uh, okay. Let me readjust myself Let me uh, and and and have him focus on Some things a lot more than he was before instead of having all these things to do He gets to focus on less so he can really master that Um, but he's yeah, he's been playing a lot better whole lot better about Bowser He's been showing out too. So yeah, both of those guys are playing on another level and the defense just overall as a whole Um, they they've been playing better too. Just the tackling has gotten so much better In just the aggression and them just attacking the ball next question came from a king He said why we need a qualified offensive coordinator to take over. What's going on in graven? I'm been a diehard Ravens fan from day one when we have Vinny testive ready Michael Jackson their guy Alexander earn his binder and others with the teams calling card being on defense I know what a real pro style offense has looked like Outside of Lamar Jackson's era here in Baltimore And it's mostly been outside of John Harbaugh's friends at offensive coordinator Case in point the 13 and three year with Steve McNair's play action Offense under Brian Billick and the Jamal Lewis rushing attack the other outstanding offensive year been being under Gary Kubiak Where he brought his own entire coaching staff and refused to accept any of coach Harbaugh's unqualified staff Gary Kubiak brought a fantastic zone block and skiing to Baltimore and made the game so easy for Fleco Helping him have one of the few statistically good years He's ever had in his career here under Harbaugh Forgive me for my lengthy response, but I must shine the spotlight on some very atrocious realities That is the greg roman experience And then I would like to know is there not a cause based on these facts to get this man out of up out of here And get Lamar a real offensive coordinator One who will do their job and be an asset to Lamar success and not a liability You must be a lawyer if you're not a lawyer now.  Why? So seven step drops with a quarterback snaps the ball one two three four five six seven Then you look for your receiver. Whoever that may be Now um, and what he's saying is it will Lamar having to do that with a bad offensive line Him dropping back the further he drops back The longer the offensive line got a block the longer these these long developing Deep plays they got it. They got it developed, but you got a bad offensive line So that's why Lamar ends up running for his life and nobody's open because they still running around. They're like, all right All right, let me try to break off this corner back Meanwhile Lamar's already running for his life back there. So that's the first one Then he said murray is very ineffective, but keeps getting carries. Why? Why? self-explanatory for that I don't need to break down for that Why receive is frequently running their routes in the same area? Why? that's uh also self-explanatory Uh for our wide receiver runs on the route, but there's another wide receiver on the same team in the same area You're not really opening up the field so And he said lie to the fan base and said Lamar would be under cinema this year and the offense would be more Evolved this year only for it to look like the exact same and Lamar only be under center once again for a red zone handoff literally why Gotta tell the truth great I said 30 plus zero blitzes to zero answers. Why? Oh that one. Oh That one was a big yikes right there. It was just a mess um using the full back like I love this one Using the full back like a wide receiver and a talented speedster in duvenay as a jet sweep specialist why The full back wide receiver part that like yeah that Every time I see it it makes me cringe when they line patrick Recall it up at wide receiver and they they they like come out of these little empty sets and whatnot and patrick card I was just like, oh, what are you doing? Man? He's wasting the spot But anyway knows how to kill drives calling the most goofiest pitch option plays on second and long why Oh, yes, the the the pitch those option plays They I I haven't really been feeling them this year and they just This it just no This doesn't seem like the team for those. They just don't they've tried it with Lamar the levy on bail They've tried it with Lamar the divante freeman Um, I think they might have done one to Tyson Williams early on but definitely the other two Yes, that's not it man Got rush out babing who was extremely talented with much better hands than hollywood doing a second half disappearing acting games. Why? That was that was frustrating and and I just I still don't understand why that happened how that happened The reason that it happened it just it didn't make any sense whatsoever.