Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Vintage, 2017 edition; first published in English by Harvill Secker, 2016; Hebrew 2015)

Their wordsThroughout history, religions and ideologies did not sanctify life itself.

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Their wordsWell, if we need endless projects, why not settle for bliss and immortality, and at least put aside the frightening quest for superhuman powers? Because it is inextricable from the other two.

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Their wordsMy prediction is focused on what humankind will try to achieve in the twenty-first century – not what it will succeed in achieving.

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Their wordsGiven our past record and our current values, we are likely to reach out for bliss, divinity and immortality – even if it kills us.

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Their wordsBut once we come nearer to achieving these goals the resulting upheavals are likely to deflect us towards entirely different destinations.

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Their wordsYet the rise of humanism also contains the seeds of its downfall.

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Their wordsNew kinds of economic relations emerged together with new kinds of religious beliefs that justified the brutal exploitation of animals.

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Their wordsDuring the Agricultural Revolution humankind silenced animals and plants, and turned the animist grand opera into a dialogue between man and gods.

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Their wordsIndustrial farming sanctifies human needs, whims and wishes, while disregarding everything else.

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Their wordsUnlike the everlasting soul, the mind has many parts, it constantly changes, and there is no reason to think it is eternal.

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Their wordsThe soul is a story that some people accept while others reject.

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Their wordsIf Sapiens rule the world because we alone can cooperate flexibly in large numbers, then this undermines our belief in the sacredness of human beings.

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Their wordsIntersubjective entities depend on communication among many humans rather than on the beliefs and feelings of individual humans. Many of the most important agents in history are inter-subjective.

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Their wordsThis web allows humans alone to organise crusades, socialist revolutions and human rights movements.

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Their wordsDuring the last 70,000 years the intersubjective realities that Sapiens invented became ever more powerful, so that today they dominate the world.

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Their wordsTo think historically means to ascribe real power to the contents of our imaginary stories.

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Their wordsThough science indeed deals only with facts, religion never confines itself to ethical judgements.

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Their wordsReligion provides the ethical justification for scientific research, and in exchange gets to influence the scientific agenda and the uses of scientific discoveries.

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Their wordsIn exchange for power, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning.

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Their wordsHumankind was salvaged not by the law of supply and demand, but rather by the rise of a revolutionary new religion – humanism.

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Their wordsThe humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism.

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Their wordsJust as Stalin's gulags do not automatically nullify every socialist idea and argument, so too the horrors of Nazism should not blind us to whatever insights evolutionary humanism might offer.

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Their wordsReligion and technology always dance a delicate tango. They push one another, depend on one another and cannot stray too far away from one another.

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Their wordsThis forecast isn't very original or far-sighted. It simply reflects the traditional ideals of liberal humanism.

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Their wordsThe single authentic self is as real as the eternal soul, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

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Their wordsHumans aren't individuals. They are 'dividuals'.

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Their wordsUntil today high intelligence always went hand in hand with a developed consciousness.

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Their wordsLiberalism sanctifies the narrating self, and allows it to vote in the polling stations, in the supermarket and in the marriage market.

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Their wordsIf you are horrified by this direction, don't blame the computer geeks. The responsibility actually lies with the biologists.

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Their wordsBut you should know that this is current scientific dogma, and it is changing our world beyond recognition.

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