Slashdot Mirror
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."
Please listen to what the Pope is saying!!! I'm Catholic and I strongly believe the Pope is right! He's always right! Humans shouldn't play God. Please listen to the Pope and just stop what you're doing!! :(
I gotta say: if this is the first, or second, or tenth issue that "is gonna cause some serious headaches for you at church", you aren't paying very close attention.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Ethics? We don't need no steenkin' ethics!
Well, it's not as if he had much of a choice of what to say, to maintain consistency with church doctrine. If he encouraged it, there would come some rather unpleasant questions as to what, exactly, would require baptism; if a cloned person has a cloned soul; whether you receive some of the soul of the fetus that gave the stem cells when, for whatever reason, you use said stem cells--all a bunch of nasty theological problems.
Frankly, is there anything else he -could- have said?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Catholics who can't conceive are gonna be pissed too. Though I thought nowadays it was acceptable to simply ignore the pope when he makes an ass out of himself.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I hereby excommunicate this very silly pope.
PS: Every man, woman, and child is a pope. Non serviam.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
What do the candidates say about these subjects?
... do you know?
US citizens
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Though people in religious traditions might disagree with the pope, they nonetheless would express some opinion about his pronouncements, as opposed to Slashdot atheists, who think he says nothing of import for or against their own metaphysical views (or lack thereof).
If you don't like the research, refuse the treatments when you are sick in the hospital. Why do some religious types feel they need to impart their beliefs on everyone else?
Don't agree with or like abortion - fine - don't have one. Don't like what you hear on the radio or see on TV - fine also, change the channel.
Just don't tell me what to do - I have a brain in my skull and I know how to use it independently.
-ted
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.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Lets try a thought experiment: pretent that the Dalai Lama had spoken the Pope's words. Are those words more or less palatible based on who says them?
You don't even need to be religious to see that the commodization of human life, to say nothing of unfettered transhumanism, are not, on their face, good things. Call me a pesimist, but I'm more with Bill Joy than Ray Kurzweil.
A final thought: if there was the slightest chance that, by a snap of the fingers, I could remove all the harm to others attributed to the Roman Catholic Church, I'd do it - and I'm Catholic. Unfortunately, none of the evils attributed to Catholicism in particular or religion in general would disappear. So the cause must be elsewhere.
I think his point is that human beings shouldn't be made in labs, as if they were bacteria cultures or something like that.
I think that catholics who can't conceive were already quite pissed off by the fact that they couldn't conceive.
I'm not too sure how an organization that spent decades hiding pedophiles has any business lecturing anyone on human dignity.
The only thing, apparently, more infinite than God is the human capacity for intense hypocrisy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
we have had artificial insemination for a long time now. I don't recall any other popes calling it an affront to human dignity. Are test tube babies not allowed to be baptized because fertilization occurred outside the body? what about the natural children of test tube babies? Are they tainted as well?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
The "dignity of man" referenced by the Catholic Pope, regardless of modern religion, is the basis of the enlightenment and of all modern secular humanist societies and of the concept of human rights. Once the concept of innate human dignity is gone, you end up with societies where human beings are nothing more than raw material for the State machine. As the concept fades you see inhumane state practices appear such as denying health care to the obese in the UK or mandatory abortions in China. The needs of people can be ignored when they become inconvenient or expensive to the state if there is no innate dignity of man.
he has to remain consistent with earlier doctrine
When given a choice between remaining consistent with earlier doctrine and remaining consistent with reality, why should we choose the former?
>> let's just stipulate that there is no god and be done with the pope already?
Firstly let me make it clear that I personally do not follow any religion, so have no iterest in defending the christian church, however:
* There is no evidence that proves God doesn't exist. Until that is found your stipulation has no merit.
* His point seems to be that this stuff is an affront to human dignity, which has nothing to do with religion. E.g. I for example have dignity yet am not a follower of any religion.
Actually without reading more than the headline, I think the pope's point is very well made. Personally I feel scientists in some cases are definately going too far. I also have seen more than enough evidence to prove that most companies will do anything to make money for now, regardless of the ethics or wider implication of their actions.
As a scientist and agnostic, the most sensible delineation I've heard was outlined by Carl Sagan (though I don't know if it was originally his idea or not). At about sixth months, the fetus actually begins to think. There is a point where neural activity undergoes a significant change.
It seems reasonable to me that what most makes us human is our minds, and thus once a fetus has a human mind, it should be considered human.
It is odd, backwards thinking, and outright excessive for the vast majority of the posters who are stating the denouncement of artificial insemination is the only option for couples who can't have children.
In many countries across the globe, there are large legitimate orphanages with many orphans seeking new parents. I find it closed-minded the posters here choose not to recognize many of these orphanages are backed by religious organizations including the Catholic Church. It's not like the Church denounces abortion and artificial insemination... they actually "walk the talk" when funding the alternative.
In contrast to adoption, artificial insemination costs a lot of money and time. The procedure is not perfect, fails many times, and each time can cost in the tens of thousands of US dollars.
In other news: Science denounces some pope as 'irrelevant theorist'
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Sounds exactly like religion to me!
Look, I don't even recognize the papacy; but the silly attacks on this Pope on Slashdot have got to stop. You aren't even using logic and reasoning in your arguments. You just made two disjointed statements. The fact that the Pope belives in God (obviously) does not imply that he thinks we should abandon Science and Technology. In fact he never attacked anything regarding science. He just made his and the Catholic Churches opinion about the moral-ethical debate surrounding certain research and procedures known. There is nothing wrong with that. Religious people are not the only people who see an ethical dilemna within certain research and procedures. Do you mean to imply that all research is acceptable including research on unwilling medical subjects?
I can't believe I am posting about this. I'm a Catholic, I'm a scientist, and my kids are the result of artificial insemination.
In my local Catholic community, these things are not discussed. Instead I hear mostly about practicing non-violent conflict resolution and a life time of charitable endeavors. That all works for me on the local level. Beyond that, the Catholic hierarchy can go pound sand. The pope and most of the clergy that rank high enough to wear silly hats tragically waste their energy on needlessly divisive issues. I'd rather they worked on poverty and resolving conflict without war.
He's the fucking Pope. He defines reality.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
He might mean humanity as a whole rather than an individual human. It's a somewhat abstract and foreign concept to most Americans(Mostly Christian protestant or post-Christian protestant). I think a crime against humanity doesn't imply that the victims are only those directly harmed by the crime, but humanity as a whole. So, it calls all of humanity to respond to the crime. Catholicism is, by definition, not individualistic. So the pope is in essence trying to act as a voice of caution in the human conscience.
I think his concern is that certain humans are being selected to die while others are being selected to live depending on their genetics. This is nearly identical to being opposed to genetic-screening during job interviews if you believe that a human embryo is a human life, except on even more ruthless terms(life and death). In other words genetic pre-screening during the interview for a 'job' as someones child.
I am not Catholic, but I can see why he is concerned.
I don't recall any other popes calling it an affront to human dignity.
Perhaps not a pope, but the Congregation of the Doctrine of the faith did. Donum Vitae, Feb 22, 1987.
Are test tube babies not allowed to be baptized because fertilization occurred outside the body?
It's not the babies that are wrong, it's how they were conceived.
was in a emotional or financial situation where bringing a baby to term would cause her undue stress, resulting in a child she did not love, and all the psychological f***ups that accompany that, i would prefer that my mother not continue her pregnancy past the 3 month old part, and she would have done nothing wrong by my judgment
because before 3 months, what i was inside my mother was not me, and was not alive in any human sense
there is hamburger on my plate. i will eat it, and it will become the stuff of my organs and bones, it will become human life. so i should look at the hamburger on my plate with the spiritual and legal reverence of a human life?
pfffffffft
same observation applies to the blob inside a woman before 3 months
it's POTENTIAL human life. NOT human life. in any spiritual, intellectual, logical, moral, or legal consideration you can devise
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not too sure how an organization that spent decades hiding pedophiles has any business lecturing anyone on human dignity. The only thing, apparently, more infinite than God is the human capacity for intense hypocrisy.
Your statement sounds nice and everything, but it's awfully flawed.
a) The Catholic Church has not hidden pedophiles. SOME PRIESTS AND BISHOPS have. By your standards, the United States should disappear from the face of the earth since they has decades abusing human rights. Right? RIGHT?
b) Usually the priests who lecture people on human dignity are NOT the ones hiding pedophiles. If you disagree, I challenge you to mention anything evil John Paul II has done, because he lectured A LOT about human dignity.
c) All catholics *ARE* the Catholic Church. If you want to say something bad about priests and bishops, don't say "Catholic Church". Say "the Clergy".
d) By generalizing, you make all the good priests look worse than the bad ones. Because it's the bad ones who are pedophiles, and the good priests are the ones fighting for human rights. Oh but since they're all catholic anyway, they're all part of the same corrupt organization and all should be labelled as hypocrites. Perhaps we should label Martin Luther King Jr. as a hypocrite too, since he endorsed christianity (he was a Lutheran pastor, after all) and Christianity is full of hypocrites?
I'm amazed how bashing and name calling granted you insightful. You'd be a wonderful Fox News reporter.
And I'm a scientist - so let's test that. I'll hold a piano over his head suspended by a pulley and a rope. The Pope can say that he declares gravity to be heresy. I'll let go of the rope.
If he really does define reality, he should be in no danger. I have a theory on how the test would end, though.
The short of it is these people should not be dictating to scientists. Why?
Read up on what they did to Galileo, for daring to suggest the Earth is not the center of the universe - which they just got around to forgiving him for, which took them until 1992 to fucking get around to.
There is no way these people should have any input whatsoever in a scientific context.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Oil tycoons, and the auto industry were not very happy when scientists started saying that their products were hurting the earth. Of course, they kept on doing it and encouraging every one else to. And they can continue to now. However, there are long term consequences for doing the wrong thing, even if you disagree that its wrong. Rush Limbaugh can get together a bunch of people and have an anti global warming party, and they can feel all nice a fuzzy that its culturally acceptable to disbelieve in global warming and laugh at Al Gore and the Nobel committee. It still doesn't mean they are correct, or that there won't be severe consequences for everyone if we don't do something about it.
The Pope is speaking on similar moral truths. If allow ourselves to start restricting further and further the definition of life, it will become easier for us to eliminate everyone else that falls outside those boundaries. Humans can't be trusted to decide who lives and who dies.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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.
Mr100Percent says: Have you ever been in a mosque? It's a peaceful and relaxing place. Muhammed says: The best mosques for women are the inner parts of their houses. I'd thinking the guy with the 9-year-old bride has the more informative quote when it comes to how women are treated.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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:
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
The Pope is a position granted by adherents of the Catholic Church. You can try to minimize its importance all you want but your declaration is irrelevant and immature.
I certainly would not want his position, I am not as firm in my beliefs as he is. As such I am also not as trapped either. The Pope of modern days must first respect his fellow Catholics and that means staying the course with little deviation. He walks a fine line in that while he does have a great amount of knowledge; don't fool yourself in believing him ignorant, while that may offer you solace in your belief he is far from it. In fact I figure he is well educated in this issue and its that education which puts a great difficulty before him. The Church can no longer afford to ignorant of science but it does not have to sit idly by and allow science to run over man.
The mission of the Church for some time has been directed to preserving the dignity of man. Yes we can dig up history and throw that in his face and the followers of any religion. The important issue is how it goes forward. What used to amaze me no longer does, people will flock to a politician offering a chicken in their pot, knowing full well its a lie, yet begrudge a man for holding to his principles. We will celebrate a whoring celebrity, a deceitful politician, and the almighty dollar, yet laugh at someone who is offers his beliefs to us.
What does it say about us? What does it say about him? The Church will be here long after many of us. It is through declarations like this that give us insight into how its going forward. While all religions have their radicals the leader of any stable religion can no longer afford such. Still they cannot stand still. He has opened a large door and taken a big step but here many are chastising him for not taking more steps. Give them time. They are monolithic and essentially eternal. They cannot he held to the same clock we hold ourselves. We make a decision and it usually affects us solely, the Church makes a decision and it affects tens of millions. As such their steps must be much more carefully thought out and delivered. I think he has made a great opening. He has relieve many Catholics who are in this line of research of many choices of faith that burdens them. He has given them freedom that many felt they may not have had. While he still have put barriers up he has shown some flexibility which allows the Church and its followers to go forward.
Rome was not built in a day, don't expect the Church to change in one either.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The Catholic position is that human dignity and the value of human life are unconditional. Even if someone was conceived "wrongly", that still doesn't change. That's what unconditional means. This is the reason that the Church objects to the destruction of "surplus" IVF embryos, even while she opposes IVF.
DNA just wants to be free...
Since nobody has answered your questions...
Catholic teaching holds that life is good, and Human life is in the image of our creator in a unique way. This includes everything from how we come into being, through how we live, to how we die. The problem lies in the separation of the conjugal act from procreation, which is something that John Paul II harped on to no end... people just didn't get it.
As far as those who are the result of artificial insemination (or other fertility aids), they're not tainted. They're just as baptizable as anyone else, and their offspring as well.
The deeper understanding behind this is that sex isn't supposed an action of gratification for self, but it is a gift of self for the good of the other, and sex is such a profound gift of self (in the body) that through a direct act of God, it has the potential to create another. The ability to be a co-worker with God in His work of creation is a great gift; one that we need to use as is intended. For example, I don't think you would be too happy if you gave one of your kids a hammer as a gift and they decided to pound on the dog and not nails.
I guess thats all I have to say.
Such a comment just confirms what I've said before about Atheists.
Nice generalization. I'm an atheist, but just because I don't believe in that superstitious junk doesn't mean I give a damn whether you have an open mind (by my definition, or yours). I don't.
I'd suggest that the vast majority of believers haven't honestly considered the possibility there is no god, or that they might've been raised to believe in the wrong one. Indeed, to deny the existence of the Abrahamic god is an unforgivable sin.
Indoctrination does not really lend itself to free choice; people are tremendously easy to manipulate. It's one of the oldest skills, and now one of the most perfected.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
You wouldn't say you could rightly kill someone sleeping, in a coma, suspended animation, etc., simply because they had temporarily ceased their conscious thought. You would bring into consideration their potential to resume conscious thinking. So I think it's far from clear that the line of humanity is drawn once consciousness initiates. The fact that it *will* initiate, provided you make no intentionally destructive interventions, seems suspiciously like other cases where we intuitively feel that it is wrong to end life. I'm not saying it is necessarily the same. I feel that it is, quite possibly, impossible to know. But, the thing is, you don't demolish a building until you're sure it's been evacuated, and you don't kill someone or something on a 50/50 hope that it isn't actually murder.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Awesomely Catholic post - brings me back to my Sunday school days, but without Mr. Rheingold telling me I was going to hell for arguing with my sister. You gave us the what (natural law) without the why ('what is natural law, even briefly and how is it relevant').
...They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person.
For interested readers, here is the relevant passage from the link provided:
QUOTE
Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children."
Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person
END QUOTE
Did you get that? The conjugal act has intrinsic meaning, and if you get knocked up by any other method, the 'meaning' is not there, because the act itself has meaning that cannot be moved elsewhere, nor can any other act have that meaning. The church has bound a specific physical act (copulation between husband and wife) with a specific meaning and decreed that everyone must interpret this conglomeration their way.
So, even if you artificially conceive out of love, in a loving marriage, to raise beautiful children, sorry - 'natural law' says you can't, because the meanings the church has given cannot be changed, nor should they be. Nothing natural about it, actually...
Clearly, the Catholic Church does not have a 'humble' opinion. Must be nice to be right 100% of the time, whilst avoiding the sin of pride too.
Life begins at conception, which presumably means the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception. What happens when the zygote later divides, to form identical twins? Does God intervene and inject a new soul into the womb? What happens, in those rare cases, when two zygotes merge, to form a chimera? Does God intervene and pluck a soul from the womb? Where does it go?
To quote Sam Harris, "this arithmetic of souls simply does not make sense."
What happens when the zygote later divides, to form identical twins? Does God intervene and inject a new soul into the womb?
Nope. One out of every set of twins doesn't have a soul. Everybody knows that.
The zygote divides because God injected a second soul.
Sheesh.
Infuriate left and right
One interesting bit the Church is all about, and another poster alluded to it, is 'natural law'. The church has spent literally centuries documenting elaborate rationales for their beliefs. The Pope doesn't just bark out something that sounds good to him - he has a team of researchers and theologians write thse HUGE papers on it. The current Pope was, as I understand it, quite the prolific author of these when he was the chief guardian of the faith prior to being Pope (this is the modern equivalent of the Grand Inquisitor, but without the hot pokers and spikes).
My point - there is a convoluted 'logic' to their reasoning, which you can read for yourself, but having read through the relevant sections for this thread, I found them positively Escherian in their convoluted self-referentialality (is that a real word? You get the idea...) and all lead back to 'because we said so', which is the cornerstone of the Catholic churches' authority. They don't worry about their shrinking domain from an ideological standpoint, as you suggest - they have literally an entire theory of 'law' that says they don't have to worry. The pronouncements they put out are for the faithful - normal, rational people won't understand them because they are written in circular logic tarted up in faux-academic jargon - i.e., nonsense.