Posted on 11/28/2001 7:45:29 AM PST by patent
28-Nov-2001 -- ZENIT.org News Agency
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Reaction to U.S. Company´s Announcement
ROME, (Zenit.org).- The human cloning experiment announced in the United States brings to mind the "crimes against humanity of a Nazi brand," says an Orthodox Church leader.
"The destruction of an embryo is equivalent to an abortion, in other words, a homicide," said Father Antoni Ilin, a spokesman for the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow.
"We condemn human cloning, whether for therapeutic or reproductive ends," he said. "From the moment of conception, the embryo is invested with human dignity and blessed with the gift of life. So-called therapeutic cloning is nothing other than the worst instrumentalization of a human being, sacrificed for the benefit of others."
On Sunday, a U.S. firm, Advanced Cell Technology, announced it had cloned an embryonic human being but later destroyed it.
For its part, the Union of Muslim Communities in Italy stated: "We simply and absolutely condemn any attempt to modify or imitate creation."
"Even if they say that they do not intend reproductive but therapeutic cloning, they are sorcerer´s apprentices who don´t know where they will end up," the secretary of the Union, Roberto Hamza, said. "It is a defiance against God that will lead to grave disasters."
The new chief rabbi of Rome, physician Riccardo Di Segni, commented that he was following very closely "all progress related to procreation techniques and the possible applications in the human realm. Anguishing scenarios emerge, which are difficult to control and, therefore, extreme caution is necessary."
I know the legend, and while I reject its message as I deny its authenticity, I see it as quite beside the point. Your argument seems to be that because man is evil, he can't be trusted with this technology. But where does that argument end? How can man be trusted with any technology? What would you permit man to use, and what revoke? Would you revoke the wheel? Fire? Agriculture? And assuming that such choices can be made at all, who shall be the judge?
i don't know how you came to this conclusion. the issue at hand is cloning.
hitler was trying to create a master race and purify his territories through genocide, involving the killing of innocent people. people that want to clone are in a sense trying to create a master race in that they want to perpetuate themselves. they can also be involved in genocide, the killing of embryos.
the bible outlaws cloning as a way to make humans. please read genesis with special attention to chapter 4 vs 1 and 2. also, embryos are alive, please read job where, when lamenting life, he wished he had been killed before he was born. there must be life before there can be a death.
of course, we have all of the ethical questions about what we are creating, and all the theological questions. is a clone a human being? does it have a soul? will it be a mass of human cells, but lacking a conscience, or morals?
i certainly do not want to be an alarmist, but let's just say that these cloned beings do not have human values and want to destroy humans. how will we know who they are? how will we stop them? sort of like an al-qaeda cell in the united states, except they look like you and me!
Thanks for the links, but I hardly understand the relevance here. The clause essentially says that if an irrelevant reference is made to nazis, it means that the argument is over.
I can hardly see how a reference to Nazis can be irrelevant in a thread titled 'Human Cloning a Reminder of Nazis, Says Orthodox'. If you jump into the pool, don't complain about getting wet!!
Perfect. You expressed precisely what I had been thinking.
Such comparisons trivialize the Nazi crimes against humanity for divisive purposes.
Actually I think that the greater danger is that comparing this hellishness to the relatively minor evil of Nazism trivializes the evil that is the essense of cloning and all it entails.
The results are so attractive (longer lives, pefect kids, etc) to many people that it has and will attract large amounts of research money. With financing like this, there will be some places on earth that will be friendly to the research even the R&D has to be done secret.
Because the products of this research will be illegal, the products will be available only to the very rich. The very rich will live longer and have offspring of the highest quality thus enabling them to gain more money and power. The end result of the illegalization will be to encrease the divide between the have's and the have nots.
People who demand morality based legislation have a blind eye for the lessons history.
And this argument is supposed to make me put my aversion to human destruction for the sake of vanity aside? I'd rather be a "have-not" and be true to my faith than a lemming following blindly so I can be "one of the advantaged crowd."
When did you become anointed to make God's decsions for him?
Well, there you have it. The Nazis didn't clone anybody.
hitler was trying to create a master race and purify his territories through genocide, involving the killing of innocent people. people that want to clone are in a sense trying to create a master race in that they want to perpetuate themselves.
Don't you see the difference? In Nazi Germany, genetic choices were made by the State and implemented through death. With IVF and cloning, the choices will be made by the individual and implemented through new life. They are opposites. (As for the killing of embryos, I have already stipulated that that needs to be fixed.)
the bible outlaws cloning as a way to make humans. please read genesis with special attention to chapter 4 vs 1 and 2.
I am neither a Christian nor a Jew, and in any case our laws are not based on the Bible.
of course, we have all of the ethical questions about what we are creating, and all the theological questions. is a clone a human being? does it have a soul? will it be a mass of human cells, but lacking a conscience, or morals?
i certainly do not want to be an alarmist, but let's just say that these cloned beings do not have human values and want to destroy humans. how will we know who they are? how will we stop them? sort of like an al-qaeda cell in the united states, except they look like you and me!
Your fears are so foolish and ill-founded that I will not address them other than to point out that every twin in existence is a clone. I suggest you ask one of them.
Thus when man creates life as he is doing with cloning then man becomes God.
Man has long relagated all that which can not be done to God or Satan. As technology advances man learns how to do what used to be in God's realm alone. Is man thus beoming more God like?
The idea that man is made in the image and likeness of God is central to many religions. As man learns more God like skills is he not fulfilling his destiny of being in the image and likeness of God?
An alternative path of thought is that man is just becoming more realistic about the nature of God.
That simple statement exlains why man slays his neighbors, engages in warfare, forms countless religons, divides into political parties and has the choice of Fords or Audis.
We must find fault with the statements of people whom we do not share a common belief
I am not picking on you dansangel. I am just pontificating on the nature of man.
do you have a religious affiliation?
actually, our constitution is based on the bible. our forefathers wrote a constitution with the understanding that men believed in god. belief in god undergirded our constitution and laws, which alleviated the need to have a lot of detailed laws and a lot of federal authority.
i will quote 1 corinthians 1:18-19 NIV:
for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of god. for it is written:
'i will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent i will frustrate'
this is st. paul talking to a group of christians in corinth who were having a difficult time because outsiders were trying to rationalize a heathen belief and discredit god.
Read the last paragraph of the article.
I'll accept the results of cloning humans as humans with all the rights I would give other humans (protection of life, liberty and property). But, I don't approve of the manipulation that creates the clones (like IVF, the loss of life before success is too high).
Nevertheless, these *particular* clones were/are only created in order to destroy them in harvesting stem cells.
The 'disfunctioning' of the body? How is infertility dysfunctional?
Bodies function as bodies function. To speak (meaningfully) of the dysfunctioning of the body requires the speaker to assume that bodies ought properly to function a certain way, as if they were designed to work in a manner the speaker can identify if not indeed define.
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