And Stoid - before you respond again, please answer the following questions (to yourself, on the board, whatever):
Do religious people have the right to be represented by their government?
Was this a governmental decision?
Did the government represent a percentage of its people in this decision?
Is any part of the above unconstitutional?
If the government makes a policy you don’t agree with, what is the most constitutional course of action?
a. Deny those citizens who didn’t agree with you from having a say in further governmental decisions.
b. Make your voice and the voices of like-minded individuals heard so you may also be reprented in the government.
Now I agree that this is a government decision based on scientific matters, but the bottom line is that this is a governmental decision. What the decision is about is irrelevant. Every person has the constitutional right to have their views represented in this government on all matters of government policy. You cannot constitutionally ban any group from being represented in any decision this government makes.
Please tell me how it is constitutionally fair to ban religious people from being heard in the government. Which religious people do you ban? I’m religious, but I support stem cell research. Should I then not have a say in this? Read some of my other posts in this thread to get a view on some of my other scientific beliefs.
I’m religious, but I support stem cell research. However, according to you I should have no say in this, so there’s one vote for research lost right there. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Being religious and being scientific are not mutually exclusive.
Do religious people have the right to be represented by their government? * Of course. As citizens, not as Christians or Buddhists or Scientologists.
Was this a governmental decision? * Yes
Did the government represent a percentage of its people in this decision? * I’m not sure what this means. It shouldn’t have “represented” * anyone. * It was a policy decision. The policy decision * should * have been made by looking at scientific facts and exisiting law, not whether some people would be creeped out by it.
Is any part of the above unconstitutional? * - I don’t think it applies,but no.
If the government makes a policy you don’t agree with, what is the most constitutional course of action?
a. Deny those citizens who didn’t agree with you from having a say in further governmental decisions.
b. Make your voice and the voices of like-minded individuals heard so you may also be reprented in the government. *
Could you stop trying to make it sound like I have at any point ecouraged denying anybody their right to vote and speak? That would be really great. Thanks.
More of the same. You’d probably be less disturbed if you stopped making things up to be disturbed by.
No they don’t…where did you come up with that? You have the right to speak your mind, write op ed pieces, and vote. But that’s about it. You do NOT have a “right” to have your “view” “represented”. Your view might be completely insane.
Nope. But then, neither should I. Like I said at the top, and I’ve said about 4 times: * The decisions should be based on science and law, not a popularity poll. *
The problem isn’t government actions and religious opinions – it’s politics. Bush (or basically any other president) isn’t gonna make a policy decision that will ultimately piss off a sizeable chunk of his constituency. Heck, even FDR did a lot of political wrangling and maneuvering to get the US involved in the European theatre during WWII. He couldn’t come right out and declare his support of England, due to the predominantly isolationist feeling that existed in the country. If Roosevelt had openly campaigned for the US to become involved in Europe prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he’d have been voted out of office.
One thing I want to clear up, though: You keep saying that religious beliefs have no place in the law. Actually, a considerable portion of our laws are based on religious principles. I submit as evidence the ten commandments.
Stoid, I don’t want to misrepresent you. Are you saying that those who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research don’t have a right to any say in the matter, regardless of whether their convictions are based either on faith or on non-religious ethical belief? Hospitals and universities have bioethics boards PRECISELY because there are complex issues involved in the healing arts that often cannot be simplified down to what a scientist can empirically observe or what a politician can decide based on the statements of pressure groups, celebrities, and advisors. You seem to be putting as much faith in scientists as you seem to accuse people of faith of putting in their higher power. Scientists make mistakes, and they have been known to make AWFUL ethical mistakes. I won’t invoke Godwin’s Law by mentioning the most obvious case of pure science divorced from ethics but I will mention the syphillis experiments performed on African American men this century without their consent. I will mention radiation experiments performed on servicemen. I will mention the many thousands of sterilizations and lobotomies performed on the mentally ill in the first half of this century. All hard science, all for the good of mankind as a whole, all divorced from any ethical restraint or respect for the human person, and all thoroughly reprehensible. If the decision is to be left solely up to politicians and scientists, who gets to watch them? Who puts a check on their actions? Who is to judge whether what they do is right or wrong?
I suspect this will change your opinion not one bit, because as I’ve said before no one ever changes anyone’s mind on these issues, but this testimony from a member of Feminists for Life against human cloning and embryonic stem cell research doesn’t mention Jesus, Buddha, or L. Ron Hubbard once. Does this woman have a right to have her statements considered in the debate? After all, she’s not religious or at least is not arguining from a religious standpoint.
I don’t have all the answers, Stoid, but I also know that scientists don’t either. I’m wary of putting pure intellect and empiricism forward as the sole arbiter of human worth. That way lies eugenics, and as a woman who has a mentally retarded brother and a friend who uses a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy, I simply can’t make the statement that neither of them should have been given their chance in life.
Yeah, I don’t recall the laws against adultery or coveting (sp?) either.
I also feel that life IS precious, including the life of those suffering from, as of now, incurable diseases. It seems that we have a responsibility to help those people and that responsibility outweighs protecting some cells in a dish.
My point was that the commandments served as the basis for many of the laws we have today. Similar to the way Latin provided much of the basis for the English language. Nobody (well, only a few people) speaks Latin today, but it’s a big source of what we DO speak.
But there are many other belief systems that oppose theft and murder, of course. I think to buy the idea that our laws are based in the OT commandments I’d have to see laws against the use of YHWH’s name in vain, disrespect of parents, covetousness, and nonworship of YHWH.
Actually, you tangentially hit on something that I’d been thinking about for a long time. Not homeless people, though. How about inmates? Those people locked away for violent crimes such as rape, murder, assault, and the like? Why not use convicted drunk drivers in automotive crash tests? Same result…we’d be saving lives. I see both sides of the arguement at hand. But the good of the many outweighs the good of the few. Always. And if the greater good is accomplished with stem-cell research, then I fully support it. And personally, I’d love to see the government take something that is (IMHO) completely useless, like space exploration, and allocate that money to medical research or law enforcement.
My vote is how I get my views represented in government, Stoid. Therefore, I do have the right to have my views, as crazy as they be, represented. A democratic society is supposed to represent and reflect the will of its citizens. Are you not familiar with that concept?
Now, I agree, having a voice “on all matters of policy” is not accurate. No one consults the citizens on military matters, for instance. However, this was not a simple matter of making government policy on science. It has to do with government funding. That means it’s coming from taxpayer dollars. In that case, every person who pays taxes has a right to try to influence what happens with taxpayer money.
You can’t tell me people wouldn’t be pissed if the government decided to supplement churches in low income environments, because they are using taxpayer’s money. This is the same sort of thing: People are mad at the use of their taxes going to something they disagree with.
Separation of church and state isn’t keeping religion out of the government, it’s keeping government out of religion. And as this is a religious matter to some, that line becomes blurred.
BTW:
What the fuck does this have to do with anything? How is one idea even remotely connected to another, or is this just your way of furthur villifying the people who don’t agree with you? They don’t support funding for stem cell research, so they’re probably the same people who support sending teens to war! Where’s the logic there?
Are you saying the President shouldn’t consider religious beliefs when making policy, or that people with religious beliefs shouldn’t be allowed to have input on certain policies when dealing with sceintific matters.
If it’s the former, I agree. The President, or Congress, or whoever, should NOT take take different religious views into consideration when making government policy.
It’s the latter part I disagree with, and what I thought you’ve been saying, that religious people should be barred from making their views heard on scientific matters, simply for having religious beliefs. My feelings are that taxpayers are free to influence how those tax dollars are spent.
Assuming you’re not joking, it’s because inmates are conscious, aware entities with fully-developed nervous sytems that permit them to feel pain. A collection of stem cells is neither conscious nor capable of feeling pain.
Space exploration is useless? You’re joking, right? ALL space exploration, or just manned exploration? I mean, how do you know we won’t find something extraordinarily valuable and useful out there?
Sorry, Guin, as an adoptive parent and former fertility patient I have to let loose on this one.
Why because I couldn’t concieve do I have to take a faulty child rather than be afforded the opportunity of a healthy infant?
You want to do something about the abused and neglected kids out there in foster care, you adopt them. Don’t even need to be infertile. It is not the responsiblity of the infertile to provide homes for all these kids. We deserve the opportunity to have the child of our dreams just like anyone else.
For many people, IVF is a dead end. The pull to have a bio child is very strong. For these people, cloning (and new fertility treatments) offer hope. Right now, cloning a faulty process - a ton more research needs to occur. But to outright ban in shuts the door on many people every getting the opportunity to keep their genes in the pool.
This isn’t about designer babies to a lot of people. Its about any baby who is “flesh of my flesh.”
BTW, for the sake of full disclosure, I have a bio one as well, concieved the old fashioned non-invasive way years after completing infertility treatments. And I never did the IVF thing - the horomones were bad enough with the less invasive stuff. And for me, the pull for a bio kid was never very strong, but I know many people for whom its huge (my RE said I was the only patient she ever had who never broke down crying in her office). My adopted son is healthy, but non-white and low birthweight, and was far from newborn at arrival. Healthy was important to us, the rest wasn’t. And, like most adoptive parents, I’ll kill anyone who insinuates that my adopted son is somehow “less” to me than my bio daughter.
No, perhaps not (we don’t know, just because she didn’t speak of it doesn’t mean that isnt’ what motivates her). But she ** is ** speaking from what looks to be ignorance. Her entire speech was a mishmash of ideas that revealed her profound lack of understanding of the issues.
Which is what I think is the problem in the big picture for most Americans. And therefore, the answer to your question is ** NO **, the emotional pleas of people who do not understand the issues should not be taken into account.
** Crunchy **
You have a right to TRY to get your views represented. If your views are completely whacked out, and you and a few other headcases are the only ones who hold those views, y’all are out of luck. And not a single right you posess as an American will have been violated.
There is nothing in the Constitution or in our system of laws which promises that everybody’s views will be represented, only that we will all have an equal opportunity to TRY to get them represented.
Sure they can * try. * The question is whether they will succeed, and should they?
Years of settled case law differ with you. It is ** both ** and not one more than the other.
Simple. What’s the beef…dont’ kill embryos to save possibly millions of human beings. But go ahead and risk kids to save whatever, fill in the blank. It’s about what we are willing to * sacrifice * for the greater good, and what the exact nature of that greater good actually is. Lots of people are perfectly willing to sacrifice young men in the prime of their lives to hang on to our political system, our economic system, even our access to cheap oil. But I’m will to bet that among those same people you will find lots that are unwilling to sacrifice clumps of cells in petri dishes to save millions of human beings from the suffering of Parkinson’s, Diabetes and Alzheimers, to name a few. Take a poll and see if I’m not right.
yep
Apparantly so. You ended up expressing quite well what I had been trying to for several posts. Bravo.
Care to elaborate on this one, Stoid? If you’re going to say someone’s wrong, it might help to show how they’re wrong:)
I admit my knowledge of settled case law is not terribly deep . . . have a cite/link for that? A GD thread where someone posted a few? I’m not asking because I don’t believe you but because I want to learn.