“Many biotech enthusiasts have no interest in traditional religions,” comments Leigh Turner, a biomedical ethicist at McGill University. “Religion, for them, offers no framework for salvation. Instead, biotech provides a surrogate religious narrative. Biotech offers the prospect of a this-worldly form of life extension. In some respects, what could be more different than belief in theological dogmas and enthsiasm for developments in life sciences research, biotech, robots and artificial intelligence? ‘Science’ and ‘religion’ are often juxtaposed as polar opposites. However, science and technology can very easily provide surrogate religious systems promising many of the insights and rewards offered by traditional religious cosmologies…
“Biotech is not just an assemblage of research programs and techniques. In a scientific and technological era, biotech also offers a surrogate religious framework for many individuals. We might want to explore the dangers associated with turning biotech into a belief system. With little reason to think that the biotechnological rapture of posthuman bodies is imminent [1], we might want to start paying more attention to how biotech enthusiasts prey upon deep-rooted fears and anxieties and offer familiar messages about how death shall be no more.” (2)
Although Turner calls for skeptical evaluation of biotech akin to skepticism of religion in general, what is actually needed is a ethical framework built on fundamental truth from which to assess the prophetic and evangelistic claims of biotechnology. That truth is revealed in Scripture.
References
1. Alexander, B. Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion (Basic Books, New York, 2003).
2. Turner, L. “Biotechnology as Religion.” Nature Biotechnology 22(6), p.659, 6 June 2004.
