John N. Gray, an essentially hopeless, anti-progressive, left liberal. Like M.M. or yours truly, he identifies "Universalism" (or just secular humanism in his words) as the direct and "true" philosophical heir of Christianity, but claims that it is useless, leads only to suffering and cannot break the cycle of history:

Central to the doctrine of humanism, in Gray’s view, is the inherently utopian belief in meliorism, namely that humans are not limited by their biological natures and that advances in ethics and politics are cumulative or that they can alter or improve the human condition, in the same way that advances in science and technology have altered or improved living standards.[5]

Gray contends, in opposition to this view, that history is not progressive, but cyclical. Human nature, he argues, is an inherent obstacle to cumulative ethical or political progress.[5] Seeming improvements, if there are any, can very easily be reversed: one example he has cited has been the use of torture by the United States against terrorist suspects.[6][7]

Furthermore, he argues that this belief in progress, commonly imagined to be secular and liberal, is in fact derived from an erroneous Christian notion of humans as morally autonomous beings categorically different from other animals. This belief, and the corresponding idea that history makes sense, or is progressing towards something, is in Gray’s view merely a Christian prejudice.[5]

In Straw Dogs, he argues that the idea that humans are self-determining agents does not pass the acid test of experience. Those Darwinist thinkers who believe humans can take charge of their own destiny to prevent environmental degradation are, in this view, not naturalists, but apostles of humanism.[5]

He identifies the Enlightenment as the point at which the Christian doctrine of salvation was taken over by secular idealism and became a political religion with universal emancipation as its aim.[5] Communism, fascism and ‘global democratic capitalism’ are characterised by Gray as Enlightenment 'projects' which have led to needless suffering, in Gray’s view, as a result of their ideological allegiance to this religion.

This is certainly an interesting and curious view, but no thanks. As a Christian as well as a transhumanist, I say that despair is a sin.