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Stanford Jumps Into Cloning Fray
smackthud writes "According to this article in the Minneapolis StarTribune website Stanford University is planning to clone human embryos. Story summary says it all: 'Stanford University announced today its intention to clone human embryos, becoming the first U.S. university to publicly embrace the politically charged procedure. The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.'" Stanford has released a statement distinguishing what Stanford is doing from reproductive cloning.
One of my favorite maxims is that religion stops a thinking mind. I'm not entirely sure that it is true anymore, but it is good for pissing some people off and making other people laugh.
Nowadays I'm much more convinced that religious zeal fulfills a psychological need in those who don't want to think in the first place. They tune in, turn on, and drop out. This is all done without drugs because for them religion is a drug.
It is commonly known to psychologists that there is a strong correlation between drug abuse and religion. If you look at families that have a history of drug or alcohol abuse you'll find that the ones who don't end up on drugs tend to end up being religious freaks. Some even start out as one and later become the other. For them religion truly is an opiate.
Now I'm not saying the everyone who believes in God or has religious beliefs is a religion junkie. Religion is not inherently evil. I myself believe in God, but don't make any claims to understand what God is. Religion is a human invention and as such relfects human weaknesses and imperfections.
The problems I have with religion are with those who refuse to accept its shortcomings, who want to pretend that their religious beliefs somehow supercede reality itself. This is the classic battle between science and superstition. Religious factions that want to choose superstition are going to lose out in the long run because within a few generations they won't have any more followers, or will become extreme fringe groups. I don't want to see this happen because the only thing worse than religion is its abscence. Nature abhors a vacuum. Just imagine the BS and nonesense that would fill in the place that religion currently holds in areas such as ethics and morals. We've already got enough permeation of political correctness and the ideologies from which it is created without such nonsense becoming the univeral norm.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Yesterday news also hit of bioethicist Dan Brock advocating mandatory abortion for disabled people such as blind and mentally ill.
This is not a new concept, but is one that is growing in feasability and global support.
What does this have to do with cloning and stem cell research? Well they all have the same amoral drive: creating a "better" human race through science without any moral guidelines. As we see on this board, many people ridicule those of us with moral presuppositions as "non-scientific", "ignorant", etc. Above, though, we see an extreme example of this.
Fast-forward now 10 or 20 years. Science has guaranteed a "perfect" child to anybody who can afford one. A minority of rich people get smarter, stronger, better-looking, and richer, in contrast to those who still suffer with gross things like blindness and the worst- mental inferiority. It wasn't enough to genetically engineer perfect children. The question now is "Why hold on to that last moral presupposition that we shouldn't kill scientifically inferior people?" You may think me an extremist, but it's happened before.
That is the question that should be answered today. If you truely believe in removing morals from science, be logically consistent with it: advocate a super-human race and the death of all inferior people. If you believe in moral presuppositions, though, realize what unchecked research in cloning, embryionic stem cells, and science in general will lead to. Either way, the question is: what criteria do you use to value human life? You may have about a year to decide.
There are alternatives, such as adult stem cells, which have potential as well and sidestep ethical concerns.
I really hate that school.
I really don't want ethical education from a church that started the Crusades becuase their imaginary friend was "better" than another imaginary friend.
How about a church that is afraid to go into bankruptcy because "secret papers" may be exposed to a court appointed trustee? What the heck kind of "benevolent" church needs to keep SECRETS from its members and the public?
Theism and BAD ethics go hand in hand.
Murphy was an optimist.