{"id":35169,"date":"2016-04-25T09:45:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T14:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=35169"},"modified":"2016-04-24T19:22:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T00:22:30","slug":"zion-as-superorganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2016\/04\/zion-as-superorganism\/","title":{"rendered":"Zion as Superorganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, I visited Utah to give\u00a0back-to-back presentations at conferences by Mormon Scholars in the Humanities<\/a> and the Mormon Transhumanist Association<\/a>. Today, I’m going to recap my\u00a0presentation from the MTA conference, “Zion as Superorganism.” In subsequent blog posts, I’ll share some thoughts about Mormon transhumanism and the rest of the\u00a0MTA conference (including some of the other talks I thought were particularly interesting), and then also my talk from the MSH.<\/p>\n

The most well-known description of Zion in our scriptures is of course Moses 7:18<\/a>:<\/p>\n

And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another implicit description is found in D&C 38<\/a>, although you have to pull from disparate verses to make the connection to Zion. Here, I start in vs 4 and then skip to 27:<\/p>\n

I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom\u2026 I say unto you, be\u00a0one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Based on these two scriptures, I see the hallmark characteristics of Zion as altruism and unity. On the one hand, that gives us a very general conception of what a Zion society would look like. But on the other hand, that’s really nowhere near enough, from a practical standpoint, to go about building a Zion society. This leaves Mormons in a pickle. We’re under divine direction to build Zion, but we don’t in any real detail, what it’s supposed to look like. How are you supposed to build something, if you don’t even know what it looks like?<\/p>\n

That question immediately brought to my mind Nephi’s brief tenure as shipwright<\/a>:<\/p>\n

8. The Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
\n9. And I said: Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?
\n10. And it came to pass that the Lord told me whither I should go to find ore, that I might make tools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nephi’s dilemma was essentially the same as ours. The Lord told him to build a ship, and he didn’t know how to do that. I found his response illuminating. He didn’t ask for blueprints. He asked for help making tools. This is an entirely different approach from the one anticipated by our question, but as I thought about it, I realized that this is actually a general pattern:<\/p>\n