CHAPTER 03
Religion and Everbecomingism
Promised Eternity vs. No Guarantee
Faith, Hope and the Unknown
Everbecomingism shares something profound with religion: humanity’s search for purpose, destiny, and hope beyond the limitations of present existence. Yet it is not a religion. It is a philosophical vision for humanity’s open-ended future—its populations, civilizations, and possible transformation.
Religious traditions may draw upon faith, revelation, practice, and spiritual experience; some promise salvation or eternal life. Everbecomingism requires no faith or religious adherence. It explores possibilities through reason, scientific knowledge, and imagination, without promising eternity or a predetermined outcome.
Hope without promise. Possibility without guarantee.
These differences need not create a conflict. A believer may welcome human transformation while maintaining faith in God and eternal life. A nonbeliever may consider the same possibilities without accepting any religious doctrine.
Open-endedness does not deny eternity. It simply does not require eternity.
Perhaps the deepest connection is not agreement about an answer, but the human desire to search beyond the boundaries of present understanding.
The Promise of Eternity
Religions do not speak with one voice about what follows death. Christianity teaches resurrection and eternal life through Christ. Islam teaches resurrection, judgment, and an afterlife. Jewish traditions include varied understandings of the world to come. Hindu traditions describe rebirth and liberation; Buddhism commonly emphasizes liberation from suffering and the cycle of rebirth. These teachings cannot be reduced to one interchangeable promise.
Yet religious hope can profoundly shape earthly life. Faith may inspire compassion, sacrifice, moral responsibility, and courage in the face of uncertainty. Its significance is not confined to what believers expect after death.
Everbecomingism makes a different kind of claim. It offers no revealed account of humanity’s final destiny. It asks what humanity might become through continuing discovery and transformation, while recognizing that no future achievement is guaranteed.
Physical Death and Spiritual Death
The preceding chapter introduced “Bypassing Death Before It Occurs” (BDBIO). It is not merely a vision but an ambitious goal: to investigate whether advancing medicine and technology might preserve physical life before otherwise fatal biological failure. Its ultimate feasibility remains unknown. The scientific work belongs to medicine, including research on aging, organ repair, and regenerative treatments—not to an assertion that immortality is possible.
Religious meanings of death are broader. In Christianity, for example, physical death and spiritual death are distinguishable: the latter can refer to estrangement from God. Christian hope also includes bodily resurrection, not merely the survival of an immaterial spirit. Other traditions understand death, rebirth, liberation, and spiritual existence differently.
Bypassing death before it occurs is not bypassing salvation.
A religious believer might welcome medical progress while maintaining faith in eternal life. People who disagree about what happens after death may still cooperate in preventing avoidable deaths before they occur. BDBIO requires no religious conversion, and pursuing it cannot replace salvation.
Thus the two perspectives may address different dimensions of the human condition. A future medical intervention could change the duration of bodily life without settling the religious question of what lies beyond it.
Transformation: An Ancient Theme, a Different Direction
Transformation is not unfamiliar to religious thought. The New Testament speaks of renewal of the mind (Romans 12:2), of transformation “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18), and of a future condition that is not yet fully apparent (1 John 3:2). These passages concern spiritual transformation in relation to God, not biotechnology. The last passage also expresses confidence that believers will be like Christ; its uncertainty is not the same as Everbecomingism’s open outcome.
Buddhist teachings emphasize impermanence: conditioned things change. But Buddhism generally does not treat endless becoming as its ultimate objective; liberation is central. Hindu traditions envision rebirth and liberation from that cycle. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam, in several historical interpretations, concerns repairing or improving the world. Each offers a point of comparison, not an early version of Everbecomingism.
Everbecomingism asks how humanity may increasingly participate in shaping its biological and civilizational future through knowledge and technology. Its transformation is not a doctrine of rebirth, spiritual liberation, or divine fulfillment. Its open-endedness is a possibility, not a promise.
| Perspective | Resonance | Important difference |
| Christianity | Renewal; future transformation | Transformation in relation to God and divine promise |
| Buddhism | Impermanence and change | Liberation, not endless transformation, is central |
| Hindu traditions | Continuity across changing lives | Rebirth and liberation differ from biological intervention |
| Jewish thought | Repairing and improving the world | Ethical and religious meanings vary by tradition |
| Everbecomingism | Humanity’s possible continuing transformation | No predetermined final form or guaranteed outcome |
These are selective comparisons, not descriptions of everything each tradition teaches.
Promised Eternity vs. No Guarantee
The difference between eternity and open-endedness is fundamental. Eternity may refer to unending life or existence beyond ordinary time, depending on the religious tradition. Open-endedness does not require either. It concerns a future in which humanity’s possibilities and forms are not fixed in advance.
Open-endedness is not endlessness.
A journey may have no predetermined destination and still come to an end. Humanity may discover new capabilities and transform its civilizations, or encounter limitations it cannot overcome. Hope does not remove that uncertainty.
Religious traditions also differ in their relationship to doubt and assurance. Faith does not always eliminate uncertainty, and a divine promise is not the same kind of claim as a scientific hypothesis. Our comparison should illuminate the distinction without pretending that every believer holds identical expectations.
Everbecomingism does not require religion to be wrong. It does not offer a rival salvation. It offers a philosophical possibility for humanity to examine.
Humanity and Civilization
If human lifespans changed radically, the effects would reach beyond individual survival. Population structures, relationships between generations, marriage, employment, institutions, and the distribution of opportunities might all change. More years of life would not automatically bring wisdom, fairness, or social stability.
Religious and secular ethical traditions would still have something to say about how humanity uses its growing capabilities. Technology may change what we can do without deciding what we ought to do.
The future of civilizations, rather than the eternity of any particular individual, remains Everbecomingism’s principal concern. Yet individuals need not believe in Everbecomingism to participate in that future. They can support the goal of preserving life through responsible care, education, research, and innovation; the most ambitious advances will depend especially on scientific work and advanced technology.
A Goal Without a Creed
Everbecomingism offers a vision; BDBIO proposes a goal within it. People may examine that goal, question its scientific prospects, or choose to help pursue it. No one must become a believer to contribute. A future medical breakthrough would be the work of research, evidence, and collective effort—not proof of a philosophy or a substitute for spiritual salvation.
A symbol such as TINDOD can invite people to share the journey, but wearing a logo is a gesture of solidarity, not a medical intervention. The practical work remains open to people of different faiths and none.
Where Is God?
Even if humanity someday learns to prevent forms of physical death that are unavoidable today, the questions of God, salvation, and ultimate meaning would not disappear. Science may help preserve life; that achievement alone cannot determine what life ultimately means.
Everbecomingism leaves room for faith and for doubt. Its vision does not require an answer to the question of God. The following English poem, written on January 19, 2014, offers my personal reflection.
Where is God?
He is in your heart
If you follow Him
You’ll find yourself
The journey to find yourself
Is long and rough
Mountains are high
Deserts are wide
Oceans seem connect to the sky
You’re like a bird
Born to fly
Living for a dream
Until you die
Where is God?
He is beyond your life
Before you meet Him
You need to find yourself