Embryology and Christians; also, Vaughan Williams Article

[tree_and_leaf]

A couple of links:

In The Tablet, Mary Seller (an Anglican priest and an embryologist) considers the implications of cybrid research, and asks if playing God isn't what humans do all the time anyway. Likely to generate a lot of controversy on the letters page, I would think. itihasa, I'd be interested to hear what you make of this.

Also, there's a nice short piece in the Torygraph on Vaughan Williams's use of Tallis and his work for the New English Hymnal.

Comments

[lucullean.livejournal.com]

Sorry, what are the antecedents of "it" and "that"?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Satan in daily life. Just because evil exists, does it cease to be evil?

[lucullean.livejournal.com]

My point was that moral ambiguities exist.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My point is that most of them are excuses. And not only excuses, but feeble excuses. To use a beautiful Italian expression, they are "hiding behind a finger".

[lucullean.livejournal.com]

Accepting the possibility of saving many human lives and not having to sacrifice any to do it is not "hiding behind a finger." Eggs, not embryos, are being used. The argument against SCNT (which I think is primarily the Catholic church's, that it's not a universal Christian argument) is not that it destroys life but that it may affect human dignity to use ova. That's a complex theological argument which I'm not sure I fully understand.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It is not complex - I just made it upthread in answer to tree_and_leaf. Have a look. (The one that begins "According to Muslim theology...")

[lucullean.livejournal.com]

"And that being the case, to seriously alter the physical being of Man..."

But that's my point--that's really not happening here. At least not that I can see. I mean the sperm and ovum separately do not constitute "the physical being of Man." I can see that there could be an argument to be made, but again it's not as straightforward as the argument against embryonic stem cell research.