quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
I believe that an embryo is "not a potential human being but a human being with potential"

not a bad philosophy, when does the embryo get a soul to make it human though?

I believe that an embryo is a human being that is sacred - made in the image and likeness of God

thats your right but none of the science being referred to in this thread has anything to do with Embryos - it is a collection of cells - unless you say that the mancow has a soul, does it?

This is the bottom line - and any argument for or against embryonic stem cell research is ultimately going to come against this impasse.

stem cells are building blocks, they can make anything in the body e.g. they can be used to make bone marrow for leukaemia patients. Embryos are not created in this process, only a collection of mixed human and cow cells which by default cannot make a human. At no time is any viable life compromised

quote:

Originally posted by Chairman Al:
stem cells are building blocks, they can make anything in the body e.g. they can be used to make bone marrow for leukaemia patients. Embryos are not created in this process, only a collection of mixed human and cow cells which by default cannot make a human. At no time is any viable life compromised

DNA from a human cell is implanted into an cow egg which has had its nucleus and genetic material removed

who's to say what the status the resultant life is. THe process is repugnant to a lot of people; maybe not to you but to a lot of people; and in a democracy it is scandelous that the HFEA has granted a licence to do this before there has been a full and public parliamentary debate.

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Originally posted by Have a Word:

quote:

Originally posted by Chairman Al:
stem cells are building blocks, they can make anything in the body e.g. they can be used to make bone marrow for leukaemia patients. Embryos are not created in this process, only a collection of mixed human and cow cells which by default cannot make a human. At no time is any viable life compromised

DNA from a human cell is implanted into an cow egg which has had its nucleus and genetic material removed

who's to say what the status the resultant life is. THe process is repugnant to a lot of people; maybe not to you but to a lot of people; and in a democracy it is scandelous that the HFEA has granted a licence to do this before there has been a full and public parliamentary debate.

Yes it is not repugnant to me, its only cells not life and certainly not human life.

Everytime we take a human blood sample and test it we destroy the human cells. Nobody cares if we test and destroy human cells.

We eat cows and destroy all of their cells, this has been acceptable practice since farming began. Nobody cares if we test and destroy cow cells.

So why would it be repugnant to test these cells together. They do not form life, they are just cells.

The church is trying to create a sense of repugnancy - but against what? - scientists are not taking human life and destroying it.

The churches use of words such as Frankenstein are deliberately missleading, frankly the dishonesty of the church is the only thing that is morally repugnant.

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Originally posted by Chairman Al:

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Originally posted by Have a Word:

quote:

Originally posted by Chairman Al:
stem cells are building blocks, they can make anything in the body e.g. they can be used to make bone marrow for leukaemia patients. Embryos are not created in this process, only a collection of mixed human and cow cells which by default cannot make a human. At no time is any viable life compromised

DNA from a human cell is implanted into an cow egg which has had its nucleus and genetic material removed

who's to say what the status the resultant life is. THe process is repugnant to a lot of people; maybe not to you but to a lot of people; and in a democracy it is scandelous that the HFEA has granted a licence to do this before there has been a full and public parliamentary debate.

Yes it is not repugnant to me, its only cells not life and certainly not human life.

Everytime we take a human blood sample and test it we destroy the human cells. Nobody cares if we test and destroy human cells.

We eat cows and destroy all of their cells, this has been acceptable practice since farming began. Nobody cares if we test and destroy cow cells.

So why would it be repugnant to test these cells together. They do not form life, they are just cells.

The church is trying to create a sense of repugnancy - but against what? - scientists are not taking human life and destroying it.

The churches use of words such as Frankenstein are deliberately missleading, frankly the dishonesty of the church is the only thing that is morally repugnant.

Of course it's life. You can kill it. As for being human - who's to say. "certainly not human? what makes you so certain?

Frankenstein is a pretty good description

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Originally posted by Have a Word:
Of course it's life. You can kill it.

Are you vegan then?

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As for being human - who's to say.

You? The scientifically unenlightened Pope? Heh, thought as much. Your assumption - that your supernatural beliefs imbue you with moral superiority - is ridiculous.

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"certainly not human? what makes you so certain?

Well, let's put it in an identity parade. A man, a woman, and an altered embryo. Now, which one isn't human?

Say what now? It's not a fair test? Oh OK let's put the same embryo next to a few unaltered embryos. Let's pick a chicken embryo and a chimpanzee embryo for fun. Swizzle them about, and now you can tell me which one's which. Oh, what that? They all look alike? Deary me. What seemed SO obvious to you actually is rather tricky. Maybe - shock! - you aren't the best judge of things after all

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Frankenstein is a pretty good description

You think the embryo has bolts through its neck and gets activated by a thunderstorm? Gee, talk about the dark ages.

Ground Control to Major Tom: Frankenstein was the DOCTOR, not the monster.

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Originally posted by Have a Word:
Of course it's life. You can kill it.

So by your definition any cell is life and destroying a cell kills it.
Stroking someone sloughs off cells and kills them.
Do you see any moral distinction with this and say murdering a person?
In both cases it is taking a life, it is killing something.

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As for being human - who's to say. "certainly not human? what makes you so certain?

Go on then. Give us a definition of human that includes these cow/human cells but does not include, say, snot and toenail clippings.

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Frankenstein is a pretty good description.

It is a good word when you are wanting to scare and outrage the un-informed.
I think it is important that educated informed non-scientist contribute to scientific ethical discussions. However, the church does not have a monopoly on ethical issue and, given the history of church interference in the advancement of human knowledge (such as its attitude to Galileo) I think it pretty much disqualifies itself.

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Originally posted by smokeAndMirrors

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
Of course it's life. You can kill it.

Are you vegan then?

Vegans kill billions of plant cells. They used to be alive.
The only form of nutrition I can think of that does not kill cells would be in-organically sourced artificial sugars. Even then opening the packet would kill hundreds of skin cells.

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
... on a slightly more serious note what exactly did Blair say? I'm guessing he didn't actually say that he "heard voices". I mean I pray and I ask for guidence - but I don't "hear voices"

I doubt very much that Blair went to war because he thought God was telling him to - but even supposeing for the sake of argument that he did - what of all the MP's who voted for the war. Did they all hear voices as well?

As for WMD - I do suspect that the 45 minute claim was "sexed up". It was a line that - much to by chargrin - I bought. Common sense should have told me that in a counrty struggling under the buren of sanctions the claim was rather far fetched. I accept what you say on that. And insofar as parliament were similarly misled their support of the war can be to a certain extent defended (they were not culpable insofar as the infomation on which they based their decision was inaccurate)

THe Pope - BTW - consistantly soke out and warned against the war. Do you suppose he hears voices as well?

I suspect that we were deliberately misled - and insofar as we were misled then

----------------------------------------------

He admitted this whilst on Parkinson..can't remember the exact words I'm afraid...although was quite stunned.

My point is this. Muslim fundamentalists have the same evidence for their religion as Blair. Both believe they are right and both have been instructed to kill by their god. When I vote for someone I want to know whether they are religious and more importantly how deep their faith is . I completely distrust the judgement of religious people because they make decisions based on faith and not evidence.

For example 80% of Amercan people think the world is less than 10,000 years old and there's a fair few in the UK who believe that aswell. If you believe that you should not have public responsibilities because its a proven fact the world is billions of years old. If religious people can overlook that then I question their judgement on all matters. Just imagine the scenario "god told me to press the button but its OK armegeddon and all that, believers will be saved."

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
I believe that an embryo is "not a potential human being but a human being with potential"

I believe that an embryo is a human being that is sacred - made in the image and likeness of God

If this were the case and your god agreed that embryonic life was sacred, why does he allows the vast majority of embryos to perish.
Surely an all powerful deity that created us would create a mechanism that protected each embryo so that it was 100% certain to be born healthy. That this doesn't happen is surely a sign that your god just isn't that bothered, is powerless to do anything about it or just doesn't exist.

quote:

Originally posted by CDarwin:
For example 80% of Amercan people think the world is less than 10,000 years old and there's a fair few in the UK who believe that aswell.

I rather doubt the figure is that high, care to give a source.
Whatever the figure is, it has to be viewed in the context that something like 20% believe in UFO and 5% have been abducted (or something - can't be bothered to get some good data).

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If you believe that you should not have public responsibilities because its a proven fact the world is billions of years old.

I'm going to be a bit of a pedant here, reluctant as I am to contradict someone with a username of CDarwin. It is not 'a proven fact' that the Earth is billions of years old. All the evidence points to this being the overwhelmingly most likely explanation

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If religious people can overlook that then I question their judgement on all matters. Just imagine the scenario "god told me to press the button but its OK armegeddon and all that, believers will be saved."

Rather more worrying is that many xians think rapture is a good thing and are eager to trigger Armageddon.

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Originally posted by free_thinker:
So by your definition any cell is life and destroying a cell kills it.
Stroking someone sloughs off cells and kills them.
Do you see any moral distinction with this and say murdering a person?
In both cases it is taking a life, it is killing something.

skin that falls off the body is called dead skin because it no longer functions as part of the whole - the human organism

quote:

Go on then. Give us a definition of human that includes these cow/human cells but does not include, say, snot and toenail clippings.

If you leave the cow/human cells long enough they will develop into an organism. I mean I'm not scientist but this is pretty basic stuff. Are you for real?

Human DNA from a skin cell inserted into an egg taken from a cow (after removing the nucleus from the egg).....
An electric shock then applied to induce the hybrid embryo to grow.

Are you being deliberately obtuse. To ask "what is the difference between that and snot" demonstrates either profound ignorance or deliberate dishonesty

"electric shock" - now what does that remind me of....

quote:

Originally posted by free_thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
I believe that an embryo is "not a potential human being but a human being with potential"

I believe that an embryo is a human being that is sacred - made in the image and likeness of God

If this were the case and your god agreed that embryonic life was sacred, why does he allows the vast majority of embryos to perish.
Surely an all powerful deity that created us would create a mechanism that protected each embryo so that it was 100% certain to be born healthy. That this doesn't happen is surely a sign that your god just isn't that bothered, is powerless to do anything about it or just doesn't exist.

Not forgetting that god is the biggest abortionist of them all, given the number of miscarriages that occur.

THe Theodicy debate. If God is good and God is all powerful why do bad things happen

THat is a whole other debate - which I'm sure I have responded to before on these pages

Peter Kreeft is good on this. Go to Peter Kreeft dot com go down audio and listen to his talk entitled the problem of pain.

As regards why so many embryo's never make implantation - the church does not actually say categorially at what moment in time ensoulment takes place. The emphasis of church teaching is always, however, towards respect for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception.

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
skin that falls off the body is called dead skin because it no longer functions as part of the whole - the human organism

And how exactly does a single cow/man cell 'function as part of the whole'.
Single skin cells are no more dead than a single cow/man cell, and thus cow/man cells are no more alive.

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quote:

Go on then. Give us a definition of human that includes these cow/human cells but does not include, say, snot and toenail clippings.

If you leave the cow/human cells long enough they will develop into an organism.

Err no it won't, are you for real?
This is in vitro culturing of stem cells.
At best you end up with a culture dish worth of cells. The best they have achieved so far is 32 cells.
Is that your definition of alive then - something that if left for long enough becomes an organism?

quote:

I mean I'm not scientist but this is pretty basic stuff. Are you for real?

Human DNA from a skin cell inserted into an egg taken from a cow (after removing the nucleus from the egg).....
An electric shock then applied to induce the hybrid embryo to grow.

Are you being deliberately obtuse. To ask "what is the difference between that and snot" demonstrates either profound ignorance or deliberate dishonesty

It was an honest question. They are both collections of cells. You had said that destroying the cells 'killed' it and I wanted to know one collection of cells was any different to another.

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Originally posted by free_thinker:
It was an honest question. They are both collections of cells. You had said that destroying the cells 'killed' it and I wanted to know one collection of cells was any different to another.

Well - you've answered your own question. If you leave a snot cell for 3 days (or however long it was) it doesn't magically turn into 32 snot cells.

Somatic cell nucleur transfer has been used successfully to clone animals. Dolly the sheep proved that the genetic material from a specific adult cell, programmed to express only a distinct subset of its genes, could be reprogrammed to grow an entire new organism.

Which leads us smack bang into the impasse that I predicted at the very beginning of the discussion. I believe that an embryo is not a potential human being but a human being with potential and that all human life is sacred, made in the image and likeness of God

"Then Yahweh God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live for ever!" (Gen 3:22)

For "Tree of Life" read "DNA"

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
As regards why so many embryo's never make implantation - the church does not actually say categorially at what moment in time ensoulment takes place. The emphasis of church teaching is always, however, towards respect for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception.

So, no obfuscation here then.
If a single cell is life it is irrelevant when ensolement takes place and fails to answer why your god kills so many little kiddies.

So growing makes something alive.
If you leave a crystal in a supersaturated solution in grows - is it alive?

Bone marrow 'grows' blood cells, is it alive?

""Then Yahweh God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live for ever!" (Gen 3:22)"

Tree of life = DNA. Hum, not a tenuous link then.
So adam was cast out of the garden of eden before he could do any genetic research.
Btw, how many gods? How many other gods were there for 'us' to make sense.

quote:

Originally posted by free_thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by Have a Word:
As regards why so many embryo's never make implantation - the church does not actually say categorially at what moment in time ensoulment takes place. The emphasis of church teaching is always, however, towards respect for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception.

So, no obfuscation here then.
If a single cell is life it is irrelevant when ensolement takes place and fails to answer why your god kills so many little kiddies.

So growing makes something alive.
If you leave a crystal in a supersaturated solution in grows - is it alive?

Bone marrow 'grows' blood cells, is it alive?

""Then Yahweh God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live for ever!" (Gen 3:22)"

Tree of life = DNA. Hum, not a tenuous link then.
So adam was cast out of the garden of eden before he could do any genetic research.
Btw, how many gods? How many other gods were there for 'us' to make sense.

This debate is going nowhere. Sophistic pendantry

You're trying postulate some general notion of what constitutes "life". I'm really not interested in this. My interest in it was soley as a means of countering the proposition that the human animal hybrid was not a viable life.

quote:

Originally posted by Chariman Al
stem cells are building blocks, they can make anything in the body e.g. they can be used to make bone marrow for leukaemia patients. Embryos are not created in this process, only a collection of mixed human and cow cells which by default cannot make a human. At no time is any viable life compromised

I am not interested in what constitutes life per se - but what constitutes a human life.

Bone marrow cells are adult cells that are programmed to express only a distinct subset of its genes. A bone marrow cell is not a human life.

A crystal is not a human life.

You really need to move on from this line of interrogation because as far as I'm concerendd it is irrelevant to the forum thread; or at least if you want to pursue it you should take as your starting point Chariman Al's comment above. Do you stand by his assessment?


God does not kill loads of little kiddies. God creates loads of little kiddies - and we have the priviledge of participating in that act of creation - we procreate. A majority will die very early on. Some will implant. Of those that implant some will not reach full term. Of those that reach full term some will suffer complications and die. Of those who survive into childhood and beyond some will get knocked down by a bus, some will contract cancer, others will live to old age.

God does not kill people - he creates them

... I mean I'm not making this up. I'm not obfuscating. THe same techniques that they are using to harvest stem cells is the same technique they use to clone Dolly the Sheep: Somatic Cell Nucleur Transfer

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Originally posted by Have a Word:
You're trying postulate some general notion of what constitutes "life". I'm really not interested in this.

No I'm not; I'm trying to get you to.

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My interest in it was soley as a means of countering the proposition that the human animal hybrid was not a viable life.

But without offering any kind of definition of life, or human life.
Which is what I asked for.

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I am not interested in what constitutes life per se - but what constitutes a human life.

Interested maybe, but as far as offering any definition or justification.

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You really need to move on from this line of interrogation because as far as I'm concerendd it is irrelevant to the forum thread;

Asking you to define your terms is irrelevant to the debate? There was me thinking it is key to any debate.

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or at least if you want to pursue it you should take as your starting point Chariman Al's comment above. Do you stand by his assessment?

I don't need you to tell me what I should 'take as my starting point'.
I do however agree with Chairman Al.

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God does not kill people - he creates them

Your god is supposedly omnipotent. He is supposed to be perfect and created us in his image.
It is thus entirely within his power to have created a reproductive mechanism that is 100% efficient.
The fact that it isn't has to be 1/ down to him, 2/ OK with him.
It is simply logically inconsistent to then claim that your god considers all life sacred and for life to begin at conception.
Whether you wish to call allowing a death to happen 'killing' is semantics.
It is certainly the case that the law in this country, which is presumably supported by most people, considers someone who lets another die when they could have prevented it, culpable.

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I'm not obfuscating

You were asked to define 'life' and you introduced a church debate about ensoulment.
Either ensoulment is irrelevant (and thus you are obfuscating) or life begins at ensoulment which means it is not at conception.
Take your pick.

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Originally posted by Have a Word:
THe same techniques that they are using to harvest stem cells is the same technique they use to clone Dolly the Sheep: Somatic Cell Nucleur Transfer

I think you need to be reminded of what you have already conceded:

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I mean I'm not scientist but this is pretty basic stuff

Just because they are using the same technique does not mean this process has even the slightest chance of producing a living organism.
If you were a scientist, did some research or knew what you were talking about, you would know this.
It is exactly this un-informed scaremongering that the church is doing.