Cloning

Other Chit-Chat
1

Well, Bush has done it again.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020410/sc_nm/science_cloning_dc_7&printer=1

Why does he feel the need to bring religion into his presidency? Now, before you respond, think about it. In all scientific studies, cloning works, and thereputic cloning can help people who have lost limbs, eyes, incurable diseases, etc. Now, what’s the argument against cloning? Religion. Now, i’m sorry to any catholics or people of other religions against cloning, but there is no proof on that side of the argument. Take away religion, and Bush’s argument falls apart. Sure, you have the whole “upholding human dignity”, but what does that mean to you if you have an incurable disease? A person with AIDS would probably rather try thereputic cloning. Then, they at least have a chance. Also, look at who most strongly opposes cloning. The Catholic Church. Now what does that tell you about Bush’s argument. I believe he’s turned into a fanatic, and has some serious problems.

Now, while the traditional cloning, making a copy of yourself, may not be the best idea, thereputic cloning could save millions of people. Now, Bush is pretty much condemming those people to death. I thought he had enough of that in Texas, but apparently he wants to go for the million number mark.

Sorry if this seems a bit negative, just had to voice my opinion somehwere, and this is the best place, cause i know i should get intellegent feedback. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I rather agree with you.
This is also why I didn’t want Bush as president. Though Gore would be no better, at least we wouldn’t deal with this.
Religion IS politics, there is no seperation. People are ran by their beliefs and morals, or supposedly are. In order to look like he’s letting morals and not politics guide him, he is following religion as closely as possible.
Don’t limit stem cell research.
Don’t ban the research of human cloning.
Certainly, I believe personally that no human should be completely cloned. However, I believe that we should be able to grow another arm or limb for someone that has been maimed, or possibly knock out the gene for a disease…
I would hate to be brought down to childish rambling, but Bush has done nothing but stupid acts since he’s been president. He handled 9-11 well… For about 2 days. His speedy entrance into war was a mistake, as well as this!
I listen to him speak sometimes and wonder, how the heck does a man like this afford his own suit. He makes words up on the fly… Actually I now have an idea. Thanks for posting this, I’m going to watch this argument closely, and probably contribute when I have more time.

3

That alone is highly arguable. There are bad apples in every religion, but this is another argument, another time. Perhaps you could set up a thread for that one?

4

Heh, now, i’m not going back on what i said about religion, but yes, i am slightly religious. i go to temple (i’m jewish) occasionally, i follow some traditions, but being a conservatist, i’m not crazy about being kosher or stuff like that. now, while i do belive religon can help some people, like those that stem cell research (or cloning) would help. religion gives them a reason to keep going on, and in that circumstance, religion is a great thing to have. in politics though, the answer is a big N-O!

i guess the “seperation of church and state” never really happened. it’s time’s like this where i believe democracy comes close to failing. one idiot who manages to make it to the top can screw everyone over. hopefully smart senators (like those behind Daschle and his counter bill) will prevail, because in all seriousness, if the USA wants to keep it’s technology up to date, we must research into cloning and stem cell research. if this was a more open board, i’d say something else, but it’s not in FIRST spirit in any ways, plus, i have a feeling i would greatly offend some people, so i won’t say it.

i think all president’s should have to be athiest. :smiley:

5

YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT HOW RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT GO TOGETHER. THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WERE FOUNDED UPON THE WORD OF GOD. YOU SAY RELIGION HASN’T BEEN PROVEN TO BE A FACT, WELL NEITHER HAS EVOLUTION AND YET MANY PEOPLE STILL INSIST UPON PUTTING IT IN THEIR DEBATES OF SCIENCE AND OTHER THINGS. I BELIEVE MYSELF THAT CLONING IS WRONG. I DO BELEIVE HOWEVER THAT TO CLONE ORGANS AND OTHER THINGS IS ALRIGHT BUT TO CLONE A HUMAN JUST SO A SCIENTIST CAN GET A NOBEL PRIZE? I DON’T THINK THAT IS RIGHT. AND AS FOR GORE DOING BETTER? IF GORE WAS IN OFFICE WE WOULD HAVE GUN CONTROL WHICH MEANS IF SOMEONE ROBBED YOUR HOUSE OR RAPPED YOUR BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND OR MOTHER YOU COULDN’T USE ANY WEAPON TO FIGHT BACK. RELIGION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. ALL IT IS, IS THAT THE MORALS AND ETHICS OF GEORGE BUSH WERE FOUNDED ON HIS RELIGIOUS BACKROUND. AND ALL YOUR TALK ABOUT RELIGION IS JUST BECAUSE RELIGION IS OFFENSIVE TO YOU AND IT CHALLENGES YOUR BELIEFS. AND JUST TO LET YOU KNOW MANY THINGS IN THE BIBLE HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO BE TRUE!

6

One- please do not type in all caps, it is hard to focus on.
2- you obviously do not know what you are talking about by your incoherent strings of “setences” if we can even call it that.
3- Bringing up the mention of rape in a topic such as this is simply ludicrous. Pay atttention in school, and learn how to approiately present your points.
4- You have just lost all credit with me through that post. Present yourself in a dignified matter and I will actually pay attention to you.
5- Gore would have never completed the gun control laws. There would have been more, but guns would still be out there as always.

7

ok, first of all, thank you republic for showing why little lee132’s post was a bit out of hand. Second, Little Lee 132, read everything republic said twice, saves me the time of writing it out again.

Now, on to refute your “contentions” if i may call them that. Your first “contention” is based upon the constituion being founded upon the word of god. true, we even say “…One nation, UNDER GOD…” in the pledge every morning. but, that has nothing to do with modern politics. america is a much more diverse place, with many religions. in my view, religion has no place in the government, unless you have a completely uniform (everyone of the same religion) state, which i don’t believe there is even one today.

now, why can’t government and religion mix? well, a very simple reason. each religion has different ideas. catholicism is very strict, belives in traditions, and so on, while sometihng like say, Hinduism, is a very different religion, with very differnet views. take that, and the amount of diversity within a nation, and you have a potential deadly mix. look at India. durig their independence movements, religion and government mixed. the result, chaos. same thing with Israel, and i feel bush is mishandling that issue to, but that’s another story.

your second “contention” was in complete agreement with me. i feel i have nothing to say on this one, cause i obviously won on this point.

your third “contention” delt with something about you, or a family or friend being raped or robbed, and gun control laws from gore not letting you kill the person committing the crime, or some incohernt drivel like that. i’m sorry, but i never intended this to be a Gore vs. Bush. we had one already, obviously Bush won, although i can’t say certain things i’d like to about that. anyways, even if Gore was elected, if there was gun control laws, no one would listen, and they would fall through. as you say yourself, the constitution is founded on the word of god, and guess what the second ammendment is? yep, the right to arm bears, oh wait, no, it’s the right to bare arms (yes, you can wear that short-sleeve shirt in florida) :p. The fact that the right to own a gun is in the bill of rights means only some really dedicated politician will ever get it off the books, so i don’t think you have to worry about that.

your fourth (and i believe last) “contention” deals with my inability to accept Bush’s morals and ethics, and that religion is offensive to me. well, let me ask you something. DID YOU READ MY SECODN POST IN THIS THREAD!?! IT EXPLAINS THAT I AM JEWISH, AND I GO TO TEMPLE, AND I HAD A BAR MITZVAH, AND I DO EVERYTHING A NORMAL, CONSERVATIST, JEW WOULD DO. that done with, i feel you just lost part of your “contention”. now, about the part where Bush’s morals and ethics go against mine. well, that’s an obvious one, anyone can realize that. why do you think i started this thread? to listen to your rambling? also, i know many things in the bible are true, and i have a rather good explination. the bible was written AFTER some of them occured, as a story, to teach morals and ethics to the children. the entire old testament was written after the events occured.

i think that covers all of the garbage that has defiled our previously-plesant and intelligent discussion. now, i hope we can all act like big boys and girls here, and not have stupid responses because we are a bit angry. also, Little Lee132, the PM you sent me was rather inappropriate. You basically invited me to come and prove you wrong. i’m normal easy-going, but when people of your caliber annoy me, well, it’s not my fault when you get what’s coming to you. now Little Lee132, please either go away from this thread, or respond in a coherent, civilized way, without any half-baked thoughts.

8

Well, for starters, my name is Replic. It has a different meaning from Republic as well as pronunciation. No problem though, most make that mistake.
2nd of all- Religion and politics are married, as much as you would like to keep it seperate. Politics are controlled by people who believe in a religion, thus bringing them together. It is impossible to seperate. And for the record, Aethism is a belief and therefore might consitute as a religion, so no, aetheist presidents will do no better than WASP ones. For those of you that don’t know what WASP is, according to statisitcs (though I may be wrong with Bush…) every president up to Clinton had been White Anglo Saxon Protestant, EXCEPT for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I do not know Bush’s religion so I’m not sure if this is true anymore. This is getting into a completely different topic with a different level of complexity, so save any further thoughts and opinions on this for another thread. If you want, create it, and PM me. I’d love to participate.
As for cloning- the payback from it could be amazing. Diseases convential medicine can’t cure could be cured. Limbs lost will no long be life-changing but a temporary experience as a new limb is quickly grown. To hold back this research is ludicrous! If I would go to hell for reasearching with stem cells (even though I would have no clue what to do as I am not a doctor) I would risk it if it meant better improving the conditions that humans lived in.
As for the pope (should iI capitalize pope? I don’t know… does it fit under proper noun?) warning that Stem Cell research is evil… well, that was a dark moment for our dear Bush. It shows he is too serious about his religion in order to bend when needed. Why does the pope, a person with power only in the Catholic’s religion, get to exercise power over Bush?
This is a deep topic, but I must say, the problems that come with the ability to fully clone a human being, such as being able to “raise an army” of super soldiers, is purely fictional and nearly impossible to do so. I’m sure the government could regulate cloning in such a way that it does not hinder its status yet prevent full human beings from being cloned.
Why oh why do I go against cloning full human beings? I disagree in playing God. This sounds like a religous moral or comment, but it is simply the wording that makes it sound so. Humans are arrogant creatures, and who knows what would happen to that arrogance if they can create life in a matter of minutes.

9

I’m in the process of setting up a message board specifically for topics such as cloning, politics, and world events. I just thought I’d let you guys know I’m working on it…

10

Sorry bout getting your name wrong, stupid me :p. Anyways, you are right about the marriage of politics and religion, and i guess while a comprimise in the middle is ok, i believe Bush has gone slightly too far. While having god mentioned in law, and on money, and stuff like that, it’s fine with me. when religion begins to interfere with things that give so much back to humanity, well, that’s where i begin to get mad. and if the pope can influence bush that easily, well, i think that’s a problem. the idea of the pope started in a different world than today’s, and i don’t like how he can so easily influence world leaders to make potentially horrible choices. as to cloning full humans, that’s somethnig i don’t agree in. thereputic cloning and stem cell research is something that could definitly benefit humanity though.

<edit>
also, when this message board gets set up, let me know, cause i’d love to join, get some intellegent discussions going. i’ve always been interested in these things.

11

*Originally posted by Little Lee132 *
**YOU SAY RELIGION HASN’T BEEN PROVEN TO BE A FACT, WELL NEITHER HAS EVOLUTION AND YET MANY PEOPLE STILL INSIST UPON PUTTING **

Please, if you want to insist upon that debate, let’s look at this fact: Gravity is a theory, it has not been ‘proven’, since there’s no way to test every theoretical spot where gravity can apply to see if something might magically float away; but, you don’t see many people questioning gravity.

If you want to use religion as a deciding matter, do your research like the scientists that have toiled over laboratories to find out methods of cloning, and how to benefit mankind. See how scientists have worked day in and day out only to have their dreams basically dashed upon the rocks of religion’s ego.

My point of view is: If you want to include religion in science, then science should have a say in religion. If you don’t like it, then simply keep your matters to yourself. Believe what you want, pray to who you want, but give people a chance before you nullify it on an agnostic ‘truth’ like religion.

Personally, I don’t think Bush should have the right to even speak of religion in any of his bills, it puts an automatic bias on all his decisions. Either way, he excluded every other culture/ethnicity/belief besides his own selfish desire to ban it, because his parents assumed it was wrong, and taught him no other way.

I wrote a term paper not too long ago on the matters or religion’s impact on science, I’ll post it after this, if you wish to see some more of my opinion (with actual textbook gibberish :slight_smile: instead of my non-sensical ramblings, please, read on [it touches on some other subjects as well.])

http://www.unidan.com/scienceresearch.htm

By the way, some of the information there might be updated, and if anyone wants my sources (calling all uber-nerds :wink: ), just ask.

Thanks for reading :eek:

12

Wow, thanks for the paper and stuff. I’ll start reading it immeaditly. Interested in the boards I’m trying to start?

13

Definately sounds like a good idea, heh, if I wasn’t so dedicated to the board I post on currently, I’d probably become a regular :slight_smile: good luck with it though, it sounds great.

/end redundency.

14

Wow, just read the paper, and while a bit on the long side (at least, i never liked reading long things like that :p) it was extrememly informative and very well written. I hope some more people read it, would make for even more interesting convesation.

15

All that I am trying to say is that you have offeneded me and many other people by saying that cults and religion are exactly the same. Instead of talking about cloning, you have brought religion into it by offending other people as well as myself. And about the part of not letting Bush make decisons w/ his religious preferances…all that means that he wouldn’t use any but he would base his decisoins on the morals and ethics that he has been raised to believe. Ian W., you say you are Jewish, so does that mean that things you read about and things that have affected Jews in the past do not reflect on the way your morals are based? I’m not trying to start a debate, I 'm just trying to see your points and show you mine as well as other peoples.

16

To begin my reply Kelly, I must thank you for being more civilized this time.
If you have been offended, apologies all around, as that is not our intent.
However, you have obviously misread some of our posts and I urge to reread.
As for cults being religion, I will now state one of my views which in no way reflects team 25.
Cults and religions are the same, to a point. Both are based upon belief systems. Cults have been given a bad name because many cults are simply ludicrous and take advantage of people. Remember that Christianity was originally a small sect of followers for a radical new religion. In other words- an old cult. The same goes for many world religions that started off. The difference is that they grew to full fledged religions. In a hundred years, who knows what cults may be powerful world religions (though I must say recently this has proven to be… not likely recently.)

17

Well, for starters, i never compared religion to cults, cause they are two seperate things (in my view). Secondly, the reason why bush cannot make choices based on his religious preference is because there are people, like me, like the muslim down the corner, or the buddhist monks, or anyone else who is not a christian, it could possibly offend. when you are the leader of a multi-religious nation, you must let go of your religion when you lead, because there are people who go completely against that religion for various reasons.

now, going back on topic. bush made a choice that goes against my beliefs, and i believe infringes upon my rights, if the bill is infact passed into being a law. there is nothing that i can think of in judiasm that says you can’t do htereputic cloning. you yourself i believe said that thereutic cloning is fine with you. bush wants to outlaw anythnig that has anything to do with cloning or stem cell research. this could possible have detremental effects upon my life. if i develop a disease that’s incurable. cloning WOULD have found a cure, if bush hadn’t stopped it. now, i’m going to die because bush made a choice based on what his parents taught him. this is where i argue with his choice. i hope that hte bill is not passed, because if it is, america will fall behind in many aspects of biology. this is something easily preventable, but as long as bush uses his religious preferance, the problem will be there. now, can we switch back to the original topic, which is based on cloning, not religion?

and yes, thank you for being much more civil this time. i don’t midn when people criticise what i say, as long as they do it in a polite/civilized manner. ohterwise, everything turns into a flame-fest, and everyone looses.

18

To blatantly rip off someone elses idea:

History up to a point can be learned, it has patterns, and the decisions that have been made in the past have led you up to that point, but do the decisions of the past have to affect the decisions of the present?

Without taking time to base your own decisions leads you to pre-meditated ignorance.

Anyways, the point is, if he wants to just ‘automatically veto’ any bill that comes in without giving any consideration, why have we elected him as our leader? Religion or not, biasing the fate of millions on beliefs that might only apply to a small percentage of people isn’t going about things the right way, scientifically nor religiously.

The matter isn’t about religion, it’s about eliminating ignorance, just unfortunately, we have pseudo-fundamentalists bringing it forth, giving the populous no choice in the matter.

19

dangit, why do you always say what i’m trying to say so clearly and easily? i don’t like you, you have a nice vocabulary. :stuck_out_tongue:

apart from the joking though, unidan is right. i mentioned the fact that when bush said no to any cloning law, i got rather mad, because by doing that, he is effectively signing the death sentence for millions of people. now, how can anything, science, religion, or otherwise, say that this is good? even if you go and say cloning is bad, the only way around to a good result is to go through with the cloning experiements, and discover cures to incurable diseases.

ever heard of “the ends jusitfy the means”? forget who said it, but it basically states, any way you use to get to a point justifies the end result. sure, it doesn’t work for the houlacost, but it does work for something like this. in the end, the people still win, because in stead of dieing, they live. sure, some embryos might be used in te proccess, but according to many soruces, life does not start until you ahve a beating heart. more proof for this. an 8 celled mass cannot have thought. there are no specialized neuron cells, therefore negating any idea that everything from a zygote on is truely living. sure, it might be alive, but is it a thinking, breathing, being? no, it’s just a ball of cells, that one day may develop into a human child. don’t forget, there are many stillbirths, so all embryos aren’t destined to become children, which may put a dent in some ideas.

20

A religion is just a cult with more members…

I have nothing else to contribute (however this is a great read) I agree that politics and religion should be seperate things. Simply on the fact that religion clouds judgement which results in a poorly run state.