See? Something I like. Call the parade, you can stop fasting now Venen

Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

This was pretty close to torture and the eroding of our civil liberties on my list. I'm hopeful that there will be some meat on this and not just political grandstanding, and unlike just about everything else, I actually believe something will change here.

I hope it stands up when something controversial happens and there is pressure to politicize some process or research. Time will tell, but this is an awesome step in the right direction.

In addition, I'm pleased with the restrictions on stem cell research being lifted. I believe the US should lead in just about all levels of research and this was always one of the worst manifestations of social conservatism.

holy crap.

I don't know what to say.

About Joxur being positive, that is-- Obama's been promising to do this for much of his campaign, so it isn't a surprise .

So.. after nearly a year, you got called on it, and finally made a positive post about Obama coincidentally 2 days later. I am to believe Joxur has had a change of heart and is no longer trolling?

To be fair, I don't think Joxur has ever been trolling.

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This is good to see, this was another example of were religion got in the way.

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Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

More accurately, this was another example of where Christianity got in the way. Not every religion out there was opposed to stem cell research.

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Depends heavily on one's interpretation of the Bible. Other religions also have scripture that could potentially be interpreted as it being a bad thing to mess with embryos.

The Qu'ran in Chapter 23 Verses 12 through 14 speaks of the process and loosely references the fetus as that of a human life(or could easily be interpreted as saying such). Specifically 14:

"023.014
YUSUFALI: Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create! "

There have indeed been Muslims who have spoken out about it on this basis.

Under Jewish Law, my understanding is that it is often interpreted you cannot kill a fetus unless the mother's life is specifically in danger. Oholos 7:6(under Mishnah)speaks of chopping up the child limb and limb because the mother's life takes precedence.

In Israel an abortion must be approved by a "termination committee".

Both abortion and the general interpretations of the fetus within the Torah are under quite some debate still, so it's hardly a settled issue. That being the case, it would hardly be surprising to find Jewish people interpreting the same thing for embryonic stem cell research.

Hinduism is surprisingly fairly specific:

Artharva-Veda 6.113: "2. Enter into the rays, into smoke, O sin; go into the vapours, and into the fog! Lose thyself on the foam of the river! 'Wipet off, O Pûshan, the misdeeds upon him that practiseth abortion!"

Rig Veda, Book 7 Hymn 36: "9 May this our song of praise reach you, O Maruts, and Viṣṇu guardian of the future infant.
May they vouchsafe the singer strength for offspring. Preserve us evermore, ye Gods, with blessings."

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Also very open to interpretation. In each religion's case, really. You could quite easily be against abortion, but also for stem cell research depending on whether or not you believe those references also refer to embryos. But we can't really eliminate the fact that there will be those against it in each religion depending upon their perspectives. There are plenty of Christians for stem cell research, as well.

So... I guess I'd say it's more like a group of people who happened to practice Christianity here who happened to subscribe to a specific interpretation of the Bible and just happened to belong to a rather large majority of people in this particular country got in the way.

Just for the sake of accuracy =)

I'm SOOOO glad you pointed that out! Without you, we all would have thought that he meant every single religion in the world got in the way.

That's pretty amusing, given that I'm a pretty publicly devout Christian and I'm the one that started the thread.

I think it is important to differentiate between Christianity as a whole versus social conservatives / Religious Right. I'm sure the vast majority of Christians were sickened by the SoCon-fueled government interference in the Schiavo case, for instance.

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Hope is the new black.

He's saying in general, dork. It's true. Christianity goes hand in hand with pro-life / anti-stem cell research, which is retarded and has no business in science.

Another +1 for Obama.

I see this as more shielding science from morality, not religion.

How so?

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Hope is the new black.

From the sound bite I heard from Obama, how I remember hearing it...

Make certain that cloning technology will not be permitted to be used as an alternative to reproduction.

Because Kula is a fucking psycho, that's how so.

Because respecting the possibility of life is a basic morality issue to me not one that relies on some religious viewpoint.
Until someone can honestly, and with certainty, say that this research absolutely cannot lead to a situation where saving the life of an adult at the cost of hundreds, thousands, or millions of embryos I don't believe it should be pursued. Nobody has the right to say that one life is that important. A part of it is that I would hate to see a world where females are seen as production facilities.

Are you opposed to in vitro fertilization?

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Hope is the new black.

My dad is :/ He thinks it fucks with the natural order of things.

Embarrassing but true.

It's funny how the usage of these stem cells is ceaselessly bashed and gets people all riled up...but the alternative (That they're usually just thrown out anyway.) never seems to get anyones attention.

I'm not under certain circumstances: Eggs are the genetic material of the 'carrier/mother'; every embryo created is implanted; every implanted embryo that implants is carried through to birth. I would impose strict guidelines to limit the embryos created & implanted to insure that life created is given the opportunity to flourish. Eggs should never be treated as a commodity, they aren't sperm which are created indefinitely during a man's life.

There's no such thing as "basic morality." We don't have an instinctive means of identifying wrong and right. All morality is defined by experience; it's defined by family, society, religion, etc. In the case of stem cell research, it's almost exclusively a religious issue.

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Tyral, don't ignore the words "to me" in that sentence. It IS a basic moral issue TO ME. As I don't belong to any religion simply writing off my views as extremist religious doesn't work.

It's a conscience issue to you, then, not a "basic morality" issue. Again, there's no such thing as a "basic morality."

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Tyral, I would love to know how you seperate basic morality from your conscience...

It's like separating unicorns from horses.

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Goddamn Tyral...well said.

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I have idiots in my family, I feel your pain.

Might want to point out that pretty much all medicine, hell even all tool use 'fucks with the natural order' of things.

If we followed that line of thinking to it's root, we'd be sitting outside freezing our ass off in the rain, dying...because caves aren't in the natural order of where we should live.

Fire...well there's a fucking blasphemy!

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I am and I don't agree with stem cells or abortion, but I also believe, it's not governments place to get involved with it. You as a person need to make up your own mind on what you believe is corrected based on your religion & morals. No government or person should make up your mind or influence your views on it, by saying its wrong or illegal.



True

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Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

I disagree-- if you are pro-life and you believe that abortions are the killing of a human being, then you will have to explain why your statement here isn't what you would say about murdering someone after birth. I can't imagine you would say, "Let's make rape legal because I don't agree with it, but I also agree it's not government's place to get involved with it. You as a person need to make up your own mind on what you believe is correct based on your religion and morals. No government or person should make up your mind or influence your views on rape, by saying it's wrong or illegal."

See the inconsistency? The truth is, EVERY law is a "moral" law, since laws define what we see as acceptable behavior in our society. To say in essence, "we should not legislate morality" is to logically remove law altogether. Even laws that protect our rights to do what we want in a given area of our life reflect our society's moral stance that we should give those rights to the public.

Morality is merely a description of what a society believes is "right" or "wrong." It doesn't have to be a dirty word, or even have religious context.

I love abortion and I love stem cell research. I've never participated in either, however. I appreciate them for their uses. I don't believe women should have to have children if they don't want them, under any circumstance. Their body, their rights. You can't tell anyone what to do with their body. I take a lot of satisfaction in the fact that abortions are legal in the United States and how much it riles people up, especially women. Men tend to not care very much about abortion.

Pro-life and religioso nuts go hand in hand. I bet if you polled random people you'd find those who were pro-life were overwhelmingly religious. It's just one of those issues that are tied to religious whackos for a good reason. They're so vehement about how it's "GODS CREATION" and "YOU CANT TAKE LIFE!!!!!!" Fucking retards.

I don't see the incosistency. Rape is straightforward. A fetus being a human(early stages, at least) relies on viewpoints that cannot be proven in any way. You could still believe with all your heart that having an abortion is murder, but also realize that our government must(or should) rely on factual evidence to make law. Believing that it is murder, but also believing strongly in the founding ideals of our country and the separation of church and state - is perfectly consistent.

Procedural law isn't. :p

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So, you are trying to say in a vague way that individual morality is fictional but based on the reality of the conscience? odd...



How so? Procedural law is what society believes both sides in a case are entitled to in order for there to be a fair trial. How is that not part of the social contract?

Anyway to get back to the issue at hand...

You proponents of embryonic stem cell research: You are all ok with it if the result is that a cure for a single individual requires the destruction of hundreds or thousands of embryos?

I'm having a hard time coming up with a situation in which a cure for a single person requires hundreds or thousands of embryos. Pretty much any research that proves fruitful is going to be applicable to multiple people, and I can't imagine that a single treatment for diabetes or dementia is going to require thousands of embryos worth of stem cells.

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Hope is the new black.

OMG JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION BEARNE!!!!!!!!111!!!!ONE!!!

1st- I am not pro-life.

2nd - staying with your "rape" conversation and assuming your just using that because it 180 from the abortion issue to make a point. Then I would say that you missed what I was saying. The government should pass laws that are publicly correct, i.e. the majority of the society does this or views that is is politically wrong. While I am sure that there are people out there who think that rape is not wrong fortunately the majority of our society does not have this view point there for the law making rape illegal does not have to do with morality or religion but the society. If the majority of our society thought that abortion was killing a baby then by all means the government should make a law, but right now our society does not think that way and until then government should keep out of it.

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Devil

Build a man a fire, and he's warm for the night.
Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Procedural law isn't based on morality.

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Numbers of cells necessary for treatment using embryonic stem cells seem impossible to find but:



Not embryonic stem cells but...


We also know that 1 embryo destroyed yields 50-150 cells.

I do believe you already said that...

Okay, fine, Syuni. :p (and, yes, I know you're being parodic. :p anway!)

I'm pretty consistent in my belief that existing lives trump potential lives.

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Hope is the new black.

I'll add that it's not to say that there's isn't some procedural law which has a morality base, it's just simply not true of procedural law in general.

Which courthouse has jurisdiction, what hours the paperwork is available, what hours to file...this isn't morality based.

This is also widely understood, you might want to google around and read up on it. It might give you a greater understanding.

I'll also add that while other laws are morality based, it doesn't follow therefore that we should attempt to legislate ALL morality. One doesn't follow the other.

So it's acceptable to say, as Devil is saying, that the govt. doesn't need to legislate [all] moral issues. Not everyone believes that of course, which is why various theocracies exist.

I doubt anyone here would point them out as examples of good govt. though.

One basic example would be...most of us believe that cheating on someone with whom you have agreed to have an exclusive relationship with (whether married or not) is wrong. Most will agree it is morally wrong.

Most people here do not believe there should be laws governing it though.

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I do believe you've offered no argument other than 'NUH UH'.

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Again Tarot, Procedural laws exist because of the societal quest for a fair judicial system. How is that NOT based on morals?

In the end I tend to agree it boils down to morality. The line of argument can go like this:

"Why do you want fairness?"
We do it because we want order in society.
"Why do you want order?"
So people can live out their lives without interference.
"Why do you want that?"
Because it's better that people are able to live out their lives in peace.
"Why is it better for people to live out their lives in peace?"

etc etc.

If you want to say it's for the sake of efficiency, or for the sake of order I think it needs to be explained why that's a good thing if one is going to say that there is no moral back-dropping behind it.

Why NOT have a completely chaotic world?

With that being said,



Agree with that 100 percent, of course.

You can only take it so far before we cross into making laws on nothing but complete belief.

Arguably what I mentioned in my last post is based on belief in what is moral, but it doesn't take quite as much of a leap of faith to believe that things are generally better when everyone is in an ordered society as it does to believe, without evidence, that an embryo qualifies as a human being and that there is some consequence to killing it.

I gave some specific examples, how about you try to explain how that's a moral law.

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At this point, I think what I should say is "do some reading before you respond, so that you don't make incorrect assumptions based on other incorrect assumptions."

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Jurisdiction: Simple caseload fairness (and fairness is at heart a moral issue) and also jurisdiction determines jury pool. Example: a case I was on a jury for the corner at which the incident happened was important, the jury all knew or knew of the difficulties at that corner which contributed to the incident. Both sides benefitted from the jury's knowledge and familiarity with that particular corner.

Hours paperwork are available is again because to have the paperwork available only at 2-2:30am isn't exactly fair so legislation made it fair.

What hours to file again are about fairness because there are some damned inconvenient if not impossible times that could be chosen barring legislation.

So, I answered your challenge, how about you answer mine:
You proponents of embryonic stem cell research: You are all ok with it if the result is that a cure for a single individual requires the destruction of hundreds or thousands of embryos?

I think it's fair to say that, if you stretch it far enough, you could claim everything on the planet is based on fairness/morality. Gravity? Totally based on fairness. After all, how would birds survive if they couldn't fly away? Magnetic North? Again, fairness. If people couldn't tell which way was which, they might get lost, and that's not fair. Conservation of energy? Hell, can you think of anything that isn't more fair?

See? If we follow Kulamiena's logic, it's all about fairness. Which is, in turn, all based on morality. Go fairness!

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Gee! Tyral's finally getting it! Fairness is integral to morality and every choice we make individually (that affects others) or societally is based on either our own individual morality or the social contract which is all about fairness.

No. You're wrong, and completely wrong. You're pointing out HOW those rules SITUATIONALLY can be fair, but that's not the specific purpose of them.

Let me also try to explain how your thinking is wrong, and why. Using the way you're thinking on this you could argue the following:

Man evolved, correct? (Yes). Therefore anything man produced is a product of evolution (Not really...) Therefore Item_X made by man is 'evolved' (Uh..no), and therefore we can disprove the theory of evolution because Item_X doesn't meet Condition_Y of evolution!!!! (Wat?)

I'm not saying you're at that conclusion point obviously, but do you see how you're misapplying it?

Again, if you're still completely lost, google around. What I'm saying isn't just 'Tarot's opinion'...it's a point of fact. So I'm sure someone out there has explained it in a manner which would be more clear to you. It may simply be that the way *I'm* trying to explain it is confusing.

I'll respond to your other post in a new post so as to not mix and match.

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I haven't posted on that issue in this thread, so...wtf?

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It's sad when you don't even realize you're being mocked.

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YES

Why would it matter if it were one or a dozen or a thousand? If it saves one person, yes.

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Exactly.
Already living > maybe, someday, might be life

Of all the things going on in this thread, this struck me as hard to believe. How exactly do we "know" that a single embryo is harvested for 50-150 cells in a 1:1 ratio? Reading this, it occurred to me that your understanding of the research may be entirely different from mine. After spending some time with the almighty Google, I have not found any figures to support your assertion at all. It does seem, however that a single embryo may produce multiple "lines" of cells which can be grown indefinitely. Furthermore, there's a rather large difference between using cells for research and using cells for treatment. Suggesting that we're going to be scavenging in vitro clinics en masse for material each time we want to save a heart patient's life amounts to uninformed fear mongering. It wouldn't happen, it doesn't work that way, and it makes correlations that don't logically exist.

I did find an interesting read, while perusing some of the information out there though, and thought I might pass it along, just for funs. Cleared up a misconception or two of mine, as I have not followed this debate closely.

Article on stem cell research.