Bush has promised to veto a bill to fund stem cell research…
Under what non-religious justification does he have to do this?
When America’s founders wrote the constitution, wasn’t it written in a way that was supposed to prevent religious beliefs from interfering with our political decisions? I can’t think of any justification for opposing this research that doesn’t stem from some sort of faith-based religious belief dealing with the soul…
Now, millions who are suffering that could potentially be cured by such research will continue to suffer because Bush doesn’t want to destroy “living cells.” Perhaps this decision would seem less suspicious if he wasn’t a conservative Christian…
I don’t think people, even politicians, need non-religious reasons to justify their moral positions. I’d rather not talk about this stem cell issue specifically, but I’ll chat awhile about the broad issue of religiously informed morals.
While there is a seperation of Church and State, it doesn’t mean that there is a seperation between government and the governed.
Do I think that Bush is making the wrong decision? Certainly! But do I think he is making the decision that is consistent with the platform he ran on? Of course he is!
All one can do is strive to elect better officials.
Erm, I’m not Christian but am persistent against it. An irrational apprehension of mine: keeping murdered children’s parts from wrinkly old men in labs.
Define Children, and your basis for them being such.
Ucci has a solid backing, but an atheist had better have a rock solid explanation.
Edit: And while my beer-belly is growing, aside from a new little fold near my belt, I’m not sure that ‘wrinkly’ really is the right description of m’self!
Despite appearances politicians are humans. Human morality is often derived from religious indoctrinations. In Islam there’s no difference between what’s moral and what’s legal, they’re one in the same. Bush has a similar fundamentalist view of right and wrong derived from his reading (some would say misreading) of the Bible. Those who elected him knew full well his fundamentalism; it was one reason he got elected after the percieved years of immorality and hedonism of Bill Clinton.
Soon Bush’s term will expire and we’ll have a new president, probably a Democrat. There’s a good chance the executive order halting most stem cell research will be cancelled but the next man or woman to hold the office.
And do you think this is what the founding fathers had in mind? If not, why isn’t anybody concerned about changing it? Perhaps not enough people care since we’re a Christian nation?
That’s just it…as Sam Harris points out, people don’t put their beliefs on hold when they’re going to the voting booths. If 50% of America believes Jesus is going to return to earth within their lifetime, or that homosexuality is wrong, or that stem cell research is immoral, based on their religious beliefs, our politics have been infiltrated by religion, which from what I remember wasn’t exactly what the founding fathers had in mind.
Its not illegal to research Stem Cells, its just not being funded by the government at present, they cant fund every thing that comes along you know. What’s the big deal; do you believe that the Government is your nanny or owes you this support?
-Given that the cell lines we have available are extremely limited in quality.
-Given that the Hwang lab in Korea mixed up a variety of lines, leading to massive problems, and a variety of labs in America having to choose between losing their funding (not a realistic option) or literally throwing away the data.
-Given that over 80% of the money in ‘research and development’ of theraputics is funded by the government, and the remaining 20% deals with the last portion of research (which is also the least significant portion).
I think that since the government already does fund the majority of theraputic development, YES, it does ‘owe’ us, in that the ‘owing’ would consist of a continuation, rather than a dramatic break from, normal policy. And, again, since the majority of funding does occur at the government level, it is naive in the extreme to say that there are other opportunities out there, when there really isn’t any money there for it at all.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that the scientists involved in the field(s) think that this is a fruitful line of investigation. I agree completely that they can’t fund everything that comes along, so it becomes important to fund that which shows the most promise and nothing presently available shows the promise that embryonic stem cells do. Will they be a panacea? No, absolutely not. But that is no reason to deny not only funding, but also fruitful research paths.
I still find it amazing that so many political-believers can get up in arms about saving ‘living cells’ but be completely fine with sending boatloads of entire humans off to war. Do you have any idea how tiny these little stemcell collections are? You kill off more living human cells every time you scratch your butt! Tiny collections of cells verses human health/life/greater good? What kind of sick deluded sociopath would pick the tiny collection of cells over the curing of the sick and dying? The American President apparently…