Yesterday was a black day for New Jersey. The headline in The NY Times this morning was "New Jersey Voters Defeat Stem Cell Measure". I am sure that most of the "no" votes were cast because NJ voters had the state's fiscal problems in mind, but no doubt a large factor was the objection to this research on religious grounds, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church (yes, that's the one which gave us the Inquisition) and New Jersey Right to Life. This is troubling.
If there is a God, why would He be offended by stem cell research? Would He not want his creation, human beings, to acquire new knowledge?
I think that that the folks who voted against stem cell research on religious grounds believe that God would be offended by the deaths of some embryos, and/or God would be offended by the possibility of humans cloning humans.
Apart from the issue of whether or not there is a God, there is an easier issue to grapple with: assuming that there is a God, and only one God, and also a personal God, how can man have the audacity to know what God thinks? After all, this would be the God who created at least one universe containing about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the power 21) stars, and He may have created intelligent life to exist on at least one planet revolving around every "sun".
I find it mind boggling that man has the hubris to imagine that he knows how "God" thinks. I find it even more incredible that some men can claim "God" speaks to them, and that millions or even billions of people accept claims like that which are so preposterous. But then again, I should not be so surprised, since man's brain is so tiny and so prone to superstition.
If there is a "God", I would guess (I do not know) that He is laughing at our stupidity. Maybe He created us for laughs.
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4 comments:
Why would he be against Stem Cell research?
Research that harms the most innocent, and destroys life (even to preserve life), can't be the answer. Anymore than war can.
NJ residents voted to preserve open space, and reject their money being used for stem cell research. If the vote had been for non embryonic research (which actually works), it would have passed.
There are solutions that are ethical- let's go for life enhancing solutions to our problems, not life destroying ones.
If there were no research allowed that harmed life (such as flies) our state of scientific knowledge would be much more primitive than it is today. Also, we would all have to be vegetarians. Would a "God fearing" system outlaw carnivorous animals?
So, only in a fictional place called Utopia would "anonymous" be satisfied.
Embryos are a renewable source of life. We humans make them quite easily, most of the time. In fact, the planet is overpopulated with humans, so there is no harm in using a few tiny embryos for scientific research.
Life as we know it would be enhanced quite a bit if we supported embryonic stem cell research. This is not a black and white issue, except for ideologues.
Why would God be against embryo-destructive research? Four good reasons: 1) It doesn't, and probably won't work--God doesn't like us to waste the resources He provides us, 2) It destroys human life--we were all embryos once--even you Timmy--research shouldn't be done on the back of human lives ala the Tuskegee Experiments, 3) This research will require cloning since the regrettable stockpile of frozen embryos are virtually useless (that's why they were rejected by parents in the first place), and 4) Adult stem cells work right now and when people like Timmy stop their Utopian quest to "find cures" in a money-grabbing Crusade these advances will become more devloped and helpful for all of mankind.
Any questions?
Hi Chuckie,
1) How do you know what God thinks? There is a word for that: hubris. If there is a God, we are not even the dust on the ant's back. It amazes me how mere humans can "know" what God "thinks"!
2) The the Tuskegee Experiments were done on adults, not embryos. Therefore, not the same thing.
Embryos are not people; embryos are embryos.
3) It's OK to destroy embryos during research, and to clone them. Embryos are unborn. It is never OK to destroy "born" humans for the sake of research, or to let cloned embryos develop into what we call "babies". This is part of my value system. You may think your values are superior to mine, but that does not make them so. No "God" ever said otherwise.
4) Embryonic stem cells work even better than adult stems cells. That is why scientists want to do research on them. When religious ideologues like Chuckie stop trying to force their stupid religious beliefs on the rest of us, scientists will be able to focus on research and then science will progress, and that would be helpful for all mankind.
5) Religious ideologues like Chuckie are dangerous. Men with a similar religious ideology attacked us on 9/11. Christopher Hitchens was right: religion poisons everything.
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