Pope Denounces Some Biotech as Affront to 'Human Dignity'

eldavojohn writes "Today in a speech the pope denounced human cloning, embryonic stem cell research and artificial insemination, citing them as a violation of 'human dignity.' That said, the pope did 'appreciate and encourage' research on stem cells from non-embryonic cells in the human body. The pope encouraged the Vatican to be a leading voice in the philosophy and discussion of bioethics. 'Church teaching certainly cannot and must not weigh in on every novelty of science, but it has the task to reiterate the great values which are on the line and to propose to faithful and all men of good will ethical-moral principles and direction for new, important questions,' Benedict said."

Comments

As a pope myself

[Nimey]

I hereby excommunicate this very silly pope.

PS: Every man, woman, and child is a pope. Non serviam.

Re:Affront to Human Dignity?

[krog]

In his defense, basically everyone was in Hitler Youth. It was the Boy Scouts for Good Germans. Most children didn't have a whole lot of choice regarding their participation.

Re:How about silence?

[Confessed Geek]

I'm no fan of any of these monotheisms but one correction regarding Women's Rights issues in Islam - They had them LONG before Christians did.

AT THE TIME when Islam started its teachings were the most progressive towards women of any of the monotheistic religions. Women were considered people, could own land and property _as_individuals_ , could not be forced to marry, were guaranteed support by their husbands, were guaranteed the equivalent or alimony if divorced, were allowed to work and own their own business, were allowed to decide if they wanted children, were guaranteed support for their children by the child's father even after divorce, and could divorce her husband if he did not sexually satisfy her. (I'm not making any of this up.)

Now mind you her testimony in "court" carried only the fraction of the weight of a man's and there are a whole bunch of other chauvinistic rubbish as well, but up until the 18th Century in western Civil Law an Islamic women had more rights than most women in the western world (in Theory).

Now in practice a lot of these rights were voided and ignored by those who called themselves Muslim but still practiced their own tribal cultures, but according to the Koran and the teachings of Mohammed she had them. MOST of the practices we find so abhorrent and attribute to "Islam" are also considered abhorrent by the actual teachings of the religion and condemned. They are cultural artifacts, not religious ones. Sadly, like the teachings of Christ, mean spirited, bigoted, hate mongering, power grabbing, control freaks have thouroughly confused most people about what those teachings are and twisted them into an evil that would horrify the original prophet/divinity.

The ridiculous Scenario you described is more shaming for you than the religion you are so ignorantly trying to insult. The actions you described would have _by_religious_law_ sentenced the Man to death.

SO now... Who looks like a fool?

I would never raise a daughter in Islam but I at least did the study to find out before making a jackass out of myself by spraying my bigotry around.

Is Christian Faith dangerous too? Hell yeah, and more so because while going to a fundamentalist Madrassa is considered a bad thing, going to a fundamentalist homeschool/bibleschool is a plus when running for US government office.

Many of the teachings are identical. Many of the ideas are equally terrifying for the future of humanity. Its like looking in a mirror. If your not looking its because your afraid of what you will see.

Giordano Bruno

[Weaselmancer]

That may be the "official" reason, but the real reason is that he found an error in the Flawless Undisputed Work of God.

A quote:

In 1614 a Dominican priest filed charges at the Office of the Inquisition. Galileo was to respond by writing extraordinarily long letters which were circulated and became subject of debate. The most influential churchman of his age, Cardinal Bellamarine was to say of Galileo's theories: "a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also likely to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false".

His actual crime was noticing that The Book has A Problem.

If you'd like to see an even better example of this, check out Giordano Bruno. His crimes were:

• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
• Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.
• Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
• Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
• Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
• Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
• Dealing in magics and divination.
• Denying the Virginity of Mary.

What did he say? Basically the same thing as Galileo - that the "heavens" are simply other stars like our sun, the comets weren't messengers from God, etc. Read it here.

Oh yeah, they burned his ass at the stake for that.

Re:How about silence?

[n-baxley]

The babies that are born through artificial insemination are great. The problem with it lies in all of the fertilized eggs that are discarded once a pregnancy occurs or that are lost during "handling". Catholics, myself included, believe that life begins at conception and so when you get rid of an embryo, anytime after fertilization, you are destroying a life.

Re:As a former Catholic and current geek,

[Herby Sagues]

This pope is a pussy. Until he reinstates wife beating, Sunday worker stoning and human sacrifices (all of them promoted by the bible), I'm not going back to church. This pope does not respect the Holy Scriptures. At least they are reinstating pedophilia.

No no, you've got that backwards

[A nonymous Coward]

The zygote divides because God injected a second soul.

Sheesh.