Vatican keeps up attack on Nobel committee over IVF
Offline http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101005/ts_nm/us_nobel_medicine_vatican
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican kept up its attack on the Nobel committee on Tuesday for giving the medicine prize to in-vitro fertilization pioneer Robert Edwards, saying he had led to a culture where embryos are seen as commodities.For the second straight day, it gave the thumbs down to the choice of Edwards, whose success in fertilizing a human egg outside of the womb led to "test tube babies" and innovations such as embryonic stem cell research and surrogate motherhood.
The Vatican ratcheted up its negative opinion as several leading Italian newspapers criticized it for its attack on Edwards.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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I'd ask that someone tell them their stupid is flaring up again, but I doubt that would have any effect on them...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Of course embryos are a commodity. They have been a commodity since people first started worrying about who was going to inherit their stuff. And yeah, life is cheap - always has been. Lame brains.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
But CJ when we say "life is cheap" the believers take it as meaning "worthless" and "lawless", when all we are saying is that our species is not special. Having a baby is as mundane and frequent as rain and sunshine. It is too easy to have a baby and our world's population is becoming less manageable and creating more pollution and division.
We behave like all other species. We seek and fight over resources and when we deplete them we seek out more resources and when an environment becomes baron, we move on. However, the planet is way too small now for our mundane behavior to continue.
I just saw in the news today that the South East may hit record high temps in some locations in the next couple days. IT IS FUCKING OCTOBER!
Our species will go extinct, there is no avoiding that. But we are not helping ourselves collectively by keeping our standard artificial priorities of political parties, race and religion. As long as we collectively keep these on the front burner we will be speeding up the process, not slowing it down.
The Pope could sell his mansion(country) and that money could wipe out hunger in a ton of places, but that ass hat doesn't care about helping people, he only cares about protecting his club. I am not shocked in the least that that myth loving clown is spewing the same old tribal bullshit.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
There's actually no such thing as "race", haven't you been reading the numerous posts proclaiming that "race doesn't exist " ? Kind of makes it hard to discriminate against a racial category when they don't exist to begin with.
I agree with your post, Brian. I was thinking historically. The countless people through the centuries who died of disease, starvation, cruelty and Marie Antoinette saying, "Let them eat cake!" People have only very recently in history started to care about other people. Have started to realize we all sink or swim together. And many of the people who carry on about embryos are against people immigrating to this country for a better life. For capital punishment. For killing other people - in self defense, in national defense. And in ruining the earth and thereby killing many millions more.
Mind you, I can support killing in some circumstances - self defense, national defense, the criminally insane. It seems strange to me to elevate the importance of an embryo to the status of "potential" genius when it is more likely to be "potential" couch potato.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Yeh, sure, there were Adam and Eve, no evolution, and nevertheless we have races??? BS! The races don't exist! There are just some foreigners that we can take as slaves, but they don't really count.
I am not sure I have heard about "Creation of slaves" place in the bible. Perhaps they evolved naturally? Taking in myind that according to modern theories human originally came from Africa, we all are foreign slaves now. Most of us. Except Hebrew people. Are they aliens or what? Yeh Hubbard was write! LOL.
Guys, I think the point was that some people believe race is a reason to kill and maim other people. I happen to agree with - there is no such thing as race. There is a mutation that affects the gene that affects melanin production such that those people with the mutation are paler in skin and hair color than those people without.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.