Bjorn Moller wrote:
..... Welcome to the Brave new world....
<< Totally ignorant
of how a human cloning is performed, is it really
possible to make a human being in a lab? And if it is,
then isn't Christian doctrine with respect to man
simply false, and materialism is true? >>
Perhaps you are reacting to the word "test tube baby".
That only means that the fertilization process is done
in a kind of a test tube. It does not mean that the baby
is born in the "womb" of a pyrex beaker. I think it will
be some time before that will be the case, but of course,
in principle, it seems *possible* that this is achieveable.
The bigger question is the ethics of the matter. As George
pointed out, it must be agreed from the start that the person
that comes out of the process is considered a full human being.
Perhaps I have missed some legitimate reason for cloning a
human, but I seem to have encountered probably two major
excuses for cloning humans.
One of the *excuses* would be
that we should clone our Einsteins...... As if we really
understand what really makes an Einstein. Just add water....
It's tragic what a little bit of folly can do.
God's Grace is what makes us (all of us) special, and for
each time and each season, that Grace is always needed to
grant the gifts that each of us has.
The other excuse would center around the points made in
Huxley's Brave New World. In that scenario, the epsilons
where the retarded folk who could do the menial tasks.
As I recall, they were treated like "human beings" in
principle, but they were expected (culturally) and relegated
to the education and circumstances that would only allow
them to live up to the culture's expectations. ... Not as
if we don't do that to people in our societies today... but at
least we cannot hide behind the guise of so-called "science"
(although some have tried) to rationalize these forms of
economic and cultural discrimination.
The issue is deeply philosophical, and does require careful
consideration. Technology is one point, but the long term
ethical dimension needs a lot more consideration. Considering
that Bjorn walked away from the program with the feelings he
had compels me to ask how we scientists are communicating
to lay people, and why we have sometimes given lay people
the feeling that we would try any expedient to produce some
bizarre concept of "progress". I think we are still getting
Ds and Fs in these categories.
by Grace alone do we proceed
Wayne
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