Join us for a discussion of Norman Wirzba's book This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World. The questions that will guide our discussion of Chapter 2 are

1. List the main features of “transhumanism,” putting what Wirzba believes are its positive features in one column and its negative features in another. In what ways is transhumanism in contradiction with a “creaturely” life? How has the transhumanist point of view led to a widespread misunderstanding, Wirzba believes, of the Christian idea of the Resurrection? (34-44 for the first question, and footnote #17 for the second)

2. What does Wirzba mean, citing the historian Yuval Harari, when he warns that we are becoming “functional transhumanists”? (46) Can you think of a new technology in the past 20-30 years that has affected YOUR OWN life? What have been its effects on you, both positive and negative? (46-53 offers numerous examples, but you may be able to think of others)

3. Wirzba asserts that “attending to and wrestling with the complexity of this world and the mystery of its life are preconditions for the discovery of the sanctity of either.” (59) In what ways does he believe that the “friction-free life” promised by the Internet of Things (IoT) makes this process of attending and wrestling more difficult? (58-60)

Join us for the conversation led by Steve Knight and Father Beddingfield. Join us in person or through Zoom at at https://zoom.us/j/8753617165 (for the password, type the numerals for eighteen ninety-nine, two thousand nineteen. No comma or space.)

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