The Transhumanist Delusion

The following is an excerpt from my new book Reclaiming Reality: Restoring Humanity in the Age of AI.

The transhumanist movement is built on a fundamental lie. It promises the evolution of humanity beyond its natural limits, offering a future where man merges with machine, where death is conquered through technology, and where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. This vision is presented as inevitable, as the next step in human progress. But at its core, transhumanism is not about progress at all—it is a rebellion against God, an attempt to remake humanity in the image of those who reject the divine order.

Transhumanism is not a new idea. It is simply a modern iteration of the oldest deception in history—the same lie whispered in the Garden of Eden: “You will be like God.” Since the Fall, mankind has sought to escape the constraints of mortality, weakness, and dependency on the Creator. Today, this desire manifests in the belief that technology can free man from suffering, aging, and even death itself. The central delusion of transhumanism is the belief that human consciousness can be uploaded into machines, that the mind is nothing more than a complex set of data that can be transferred into an artificial medium. This idea is rooted in materialism, the false philosophy that denies the soul and reduces human beings to nothing more than biological software. If the mind is just data, then it can be copied, modified, and improved like a computer program. But this is a profound misunderstanding of human nature.

Human consciousness is not a mere function of neural activity; it is the immaterial soul breathed into man by God. A machine, no matter how advanced, can never possess the essence of human personhood. An AI may mimic human responses, generate art, and even engage in convincing conversation, but it does not have a soul. It does not love, it does not pray, and it does not seek after God. No matter how sophisticated artificial intelligence becomes, it will always be an imitation, a counterfeit life without true being.

The transhumanist vision of the future is not one of human flourishing—it is one of enslavement. The promise of digital immortality is a cruel deception, because no person can truly exist apart from the body given to them by God. The desire to escape the limitations of the flesh through technology leads not to liberation, but to the reduction of man into something less than human. If our identity can be stored on a server, then it can also be deleted, modified, and controlled by those who own the technology.

Those who push the transhumanist agenda see themselves as architects of a new reality. They envision a future where AI governs decision-making, where human reproduction is engineered in labs, and where consciousness is no longer tied to biology. Their ultimate goal is to redefine what it means to be human, not in accordance with God’s design, but according to their own ideological whims. This is not progress; it is a direct assault on the image of God in man. The consequences of this ideology are already visible. Increasingly, people view their bodies as obstacles to be overcome rather than as gifts to be stewarded. The rapid rise of gender ideology, bioengineering, and human enhancement technologies reflects a culture that no longer accepts human nature as given. If the body is seen as something that can be altered at will, then it is only a short step toward accepting the idea that humanity itself should be “upgraded” to fit the demands of a technological society.

Christians must reject this deception outright. We are not machines to be optimized. Our worth is not in our intelligence, our physical abilities, or our ability to integrate with AI. Our worth is found in the fact that we are created by God, for God, and in the image of God. The goal of the Christian life is not to transcend human nature, but to redeem it through Christ. While transhumanists seek immortality through technology, Christians already possess the promise of eternal life—not through machines, but through the resurrection of the body in Christ. This is the great divide between transhumanism and Christianity. One seeks eternity through silicon and software, the other through grace and redemption. One places its faith in human innovation, the other in divine providence. One seeks to replace God, the other submits to Him.

We must resist the push toward transhumanist ideology by firmly grounding ourselves in biblical anthropology. We must teach our children that their bodies are not mistakes to be corrected but gifts to be honored. We must reject any attempt to redefine human nature according to the standards of AI engineers and secular philosophers. And most importantly, we must remind the world that true life—eternal, glorious, and incorruptible—does not come from technology, but from Christ alone. Transhumanism is a false gospel, promising salvation through machines rather than through the blood of Christ. It is a modern-day Tower of Babel, an attempt to ascend to heaven by human effort rather than through faith. But like every rebellion against God, it will ultimately fail. Those who trust in the Lord will inherit eternal life—not as digital consciousness, not as AI-augmented beings, but as resurrected and glorified children of God.

Silicon Valley’s most influential leaders promote a dangerous vision of technological progress that threatens human dignity at its core. Their philosophy boils down to three destructive ideas. First, they worship speed and growth above all else, treating ethical concerns as obstacles to “innovation.” This “progress at any cost” mindset justifies breaking moral and social norms if it means advancing artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, or brain-computer interfaces faster. Second, they view ordinary human limitations—aging, fatigue, the need for sleep and relationships—as problems to eliminate through technology rather than intrinsic parts of what makes us human. Their ultimate goal appears to be replacing flawed biological humans with enhanced transhumans or pure machine intelligence. Third, they idolize market forces and technological inevitability, claiming unregulated capitalism and AI development will naturally create utopia—a naive faith that ignores how power consolidates in the hands of those controlling the technology.

The dominant techno-optimist ideology of our time—a reckless fusion of Nietzschean will-to-power, accelerationist dogma, and neoliberal market absolutism—is not just misguided but fundamentally anti-human. It does not seek to serve humanity but to surpass it, viewing human beings as a temporary evolutionary step toward a post-biological order. Its adherents do not merely disrupt industries; they aim to rewrite human nature itself, treating moral limits as obsolete constraints and communities as relics to be dismantled. Beneath their utopian rhetoric lies a nihilistic project: the replacement of embodied souls with disembodied data, of sacred life with machine logic.

The will-to-power is evident in the tech oligarchs’ relentless drive to augment human capabilities—not to heal the sick or elevate the weak, but to forge a new elite of enhanced transhumans. Neural implants, genetic editing, and AI-driven cognitive enhancement are marketed as progress, yet their true goal is to divide humanity into the upgraded and the obsolete. Their accelerationist gospel, which preaches the inevitability of superintelligent AI surpassing human civilization, is merely social Darwinism repackaged for the digital age. In their view, ethical concerns are obstacles to be bypassed, and human dignity is a relic of a slower era. Billions of people—image-bearers of God—are reduced to disposable biological hardware, soon to be replaced. This is not innovation; it is a high-tech rebellion against creation itself, Promethean hubris repackaged as venture capital ROI.

The neoliberal wing of this ideology completes the triad of dehumanization, reducing all social relations to market logic. Under this framework, universal basic income is not a means to human flourishing but a tranquilizer for the “useless” in a world where AI has rendered human labor redundant. Communities are atomized into data points, relationships into algorithmic transactions, and consciousness itself into a product to be shaped, manipulated, and monetized. The proposed solutions to technological unemployment—virtual reality escapism, AI-generated companionship—do not restore meaning but deepen its erosion, replacing real bonds with artificial simulations. This is capitalism’s final mutation: not merely extracting labor from bodies but reprogramming minds to maximize engagement.

At its core, transhumanism is an assault on embodiment itself. It treats pregnancy as a design flaw, death as a technical glitch, and human biology as outdated code to be rewritten. Yet the Christian understanding of personhood is irreconcilable with this vision. We are not digital consciousness trapped in flesh—we are embodied souls, fearfully and wonderfully made, called to steward creation, not escape it. The drive to “upload” minds into machines or achieve immortality through cybernetic enhancement is not progress but a revival of the Gnostic heresy, a rejection of the physical world God declared “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

This ideology’s spiritual bankruptcy is dictated by exponential growth at any cost, forming alliances with authoritarian regimes and exploitative industries in the name of technological acceleration. They sanctify any system that feeds the data-hungry machine—be it surveillance states, extractive economies, or militarized AI. This is a digital Faustian bargain, trading the soul of humanity for another leap in processing power.

Even on a neurological level, their vision is an affront to human dignity. Brain-computer interfaces are not designed to heal but to hack cognition, fragmenting the integrity of the person into modular, upgradeable service tiers. The goal is not human flourishing but a subscription-based consciousness, where loyalty is split between corporate platforms and individual autonomy. Ecologically, their Mars colonization fantasies reveal their disdain for the world we have been given. Rather than stewarding creation, they dream of abandoning it, constructing artificial habitats as a physical manifestation of their rebellion against creaturely limits.

Their social networks have already reshaped the human psyche, engineering addiction, polarization, and isolation under the guise of connectivity. They have profited from social decay and now propose to “fix” the crisis with AI-generated therapy and neurochemical microdosing—the digital equivalent of prescribing opioids to treat the pain they themselves inflicted. The Christian response must be total opposition. We reject the transhumanist vision of obsolescence and declare that humanity is not a failed prototype but the pinnacle of God’s creation, made a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5). We affirm that technology’s purpose is not to transcend humanity but to serve it—enhancing our ability to love God and neighbor, not accelerating the rise of an elite machine class. True progress does not lie in merging with AI but in restoring what modernity has lost: wisdom, virtue, and reverence for the sacred.

The future must not be surrendered to those who see humanity as raw material for the next evolutionary step. Instead, we must reclaim technology, not as a means of escape, but as a tool for redemption. The Church once preserved civilization by copying manuscripts in the face of barbarism. Today, we must do the same—not with ink and parchment, but with algorithms and networks, ensuring that the digital age is not an age of enslavement but one of renewal. The machines will not inherit the earth. That promise remains with the meek.

Our resistance must be both theological and practical. Theologically, we recover the doctrine of Creation—that embodiment and natural limits are gifts, not defects. Practically, we build parallel structures: decentralized tech cooperatives that prioritize human dignity over scalability, AI trained on Thomistic ethics rather than click-optimization, and economic models measuring success by family stability rather than GDP growth. We expose the lie that technological determinism is inevitable, insisting that every algorithm encodes someone’s morality—and we demand it be ours.

The battle lines are clear: either we accept being phased out as evolutionary dead-ends, or we fight to maintain human agency under God’s sovereignty. Silicon Valley’s vision ends with chatbots preaching a digital prosperity gospel in the ruins of human culture. Ours begins with the Word made flesh, through whom all things—even silicon—were created and are being redeemed (John 1:1-3). Their anti-human revolution will collapse under the weight of its own spiritual emptiness. Our task is to build the alternative so compelling that when their tower of Babel falls, the world will find refuge in the City of God already rising in our midst.

By measuring human worth through productivity and efficiency metrics, they discard those who can’t keep pace with machines—the elderly, disabled, children, and anyone engaged in “unproductive” but sacred work like parenting or ministry. Their obsession with optimization treats human bodies and minds as outdated hardware needing constant upgrades, fueling a transhumanist fantasy that rejects the goodness of our created nature. Worst of all, they undermine family and spiritual life by reducing relationships to transactions and offering digital simulations of community through social media algorithms and AI companions. Behind the glossy promises of life extension and virtual reality lies a cold vision that would erase generations, dismantle marriages, and replace church communities with algorithmic content feeds. The Christian response begins by reclaiming technology as a tool for stewardship rather than an object of worship. 

We can embrace AI and automation to eliminate degrading work and free people for higher callings—raising families, creating beauty, serving neighbors—but must reject technologies that attack human dignity or replace God-given relationships. This means opposing AI systems designed to manipulate emotions, addictive social media platforms, and any project seeking to “upgrade” humanity into something unrecognizably post-human. We should demand ethical guardrails that preserve human agency, prioritize family stability over corporate profits, and align technological development with moral truth. Practical steps include building local economies where technology serves community needs rather than global corporations. Christians should support businesses that pay living wages, protect workers from AI displacement, and honor family rhythms over 24/7 productivity demands. 

We must develop AI that reinforces truth and virtue in education, combats addiction, and helps parents nurture children rather than replacing parental guidance with algorithmic recommendations. Churches could lead by creating tech cooperatives that develop ethical alternatives to exploitative platforms—social networks that strengthen real-world relationships, or job-matching tools that connect workers with local needs. The stakes could not be higher. Silicon Valley’s vision leads toward a fragmented world where machines mediate every relationship and human worth depends on economic utility. 

The Christian alternative offers a future where technology amplifies our God-given humanity—where AI eases burdens so we can focus on love, creativity, and discipleship. This isn’t about stopping progress but steering it toward Christ’s vision of flourishing. True innovation doesn’t make humans obsolete—it helps us better reflect the God who invented quantum physics, coral reefs, and human consciousness. Our task isn’t to fear technology but to master it with wisdom, ensuring every algorithm and robot serves the sacred goal of nurturing life, strengthening families, and glorifying the One who made us for eternal purpose.