Saber Marionette Real-life Tangent: Cloning

This cloning thing wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't for the US senate. They failed to pick up the bill banning such things.
This is just my view, but I feel that cloning is wrong on all counts. It's playing God, to put it simply. It's a topic best left for the science-fiction, and out of science-fact.
That's my opinion in a nutshell. I could go on for hours, though. I wrote an essay on this thing last year.
Really, though, shouldn't this have gone in the Misc. Forum?

------------------
DAMN IT! I'VE CHANGED AGAIN!

 

How does this not mean cloning? A human embryo, can become a human being... So how does this not become cloning? To me this sound more like, create a clone of the source DNA, and remove "cells" to patch up the original, which is wrong.

Ardis, "Men like to play god, until their creations fight back, then they are sorry for playing god"


[This message has been edited by Ardis (edited 11-26-2001).]

 

I'm against human cloning and genetically engineering humans myself...

I find that this is playing God, and remember what happened at the Tower of Babel when people wanted to be gods.

And just playing around with human life like this is cruel... Same with thinking that an embryo is not a human child.

Stem cell research has been questioned for quite some time due to the fact that the organs created through this will be rejected by the human body. This is proof in itself that we are not meant to take God's place, and putting more research into this is messing with higher powers methinks as a Christian.

 

About cloning. I just don't know. I certainly don't like using an embryo, or creating an embryo with no intention of letting it live/grow up.

As far as clones that are implanted and born, like test tube babies, dunno. I don't know enough of the moral implications to form an opinion, so i suppose my opinion must be: better safe than sorry, and don't do it.

And I think this forum is an oK place for cloning discussion, cloning being as it is an integral part of SMJ. My 2 hundredths of a $.

 

Cloning is wrong. However, i can see "Genetic Engineering" becoming a fad, (don't dye your hair blue, change the DNA and have real blue hair)Genetically Engineering humans, would be the same as cloning, but with out any source DNA. One could summarize it up as being wrong. However, some may justify it for the normal couples that can't have children on their own.

 

I don't know, too much sci-fi out there depicting all the bad things that could happen with genetic engineering. Gattaca and Batman Beyond for example...

But playing around with the human body will probably lead to problems. When the body experiences an abnormal change the body will fight to get rid of it, that's the way the immune system works...

And from what I've studied scientists have run into problems with genetic engineering and solved them, but new problems always arise out of nowhere... that's why I say that there's some higher power trying to stop us from doing this.

 

Dude, the stomach-churning's probably just gas from eating too many cloned fish.
Anyway, cloning seems to me to just be a way for narcissists to realize the dream of marrying themselves (freaky, no?).
I'm not gonna go all religious on you right now, but creating a duplicate of yourself result your son/daughter is right up there with marrying yourself (it all seems a little Rimmer World-ish, to all the Red Dwarf fans out there).

The two things that I fear most involving cloning are:
1. Terrorists - somebody will inevitably decide to clone a whole army of soldiers and attack the rest of us rather than use the home-grown variety of maniacal killing machines.
2. Human Farms - I can see some sick freaks cloning complete human beings, giving them lives, personalities, etc., and then just using them to harvest organs when some fat-cat needs a new liver from drinking too much chardonnay or a new lung from too many cigars.

This all reminds me of how in The Matrix the villainous machine-types were "growing" humans to use as fuel ...

------------------
DAMN IT! I'VE CHANGED AGAIN!

[This message has been edited by GentatsuNoZanshi cc61 (edited 11-28-2001).]

 

Rimmer world.. L
OL
To play devil's advocate here (this is not me speaking) how is cloning someone different than a test-tube baby? No one seems to mind artificially induced fertilization, so where and why is a clone different? No flames please, just curious about your viewpoints.

addressing some earlier points: how could people make an army of clones? All of the clones would need a woman to gestate in, and it would take years for them to mature. Where do all the women come from who would willingly (or not, ack) carry a clone?

True though, the idea of living organ banks is scary. (think: Parts, the Clonus Horror (really bad old movie I only saw because it was on Myster Science Theater 3000

 

Mattsu-san's big(ish) post covers a lot of things. (I was gonna mention the Jurassic Park thing. ^^)

About removing genes that cause genetic disorders...

Don't you think there's a reason for these diseases to be transmitted? (And here I go bringing in an ethical answer, which involves a bit of Jewish thought; I ask you now to not take this offensively, and to not offend me either. It's just me putting forth how I feel.) One day at a study, stem-cell research was mentioned. A very studious woman (as well as her son) said that genes were involved in the curses that God mentions that go on for generations. If they did eliminate this transmission, the consequences could be grave... It's like pretending to be God. That's, as BMS said, something interesting in fiction, but not reality. Life, real life, is too precious to play with that way. On the pages of a book, on television, on the radio, in the minds of people -- places where it could never be real --, there and there alone is where it's most permissible, and even then I wouldn't go too far... (It's just my opinion, that last part.)

That was a rather....long paragraph...^^;

 

Yeah, using real people as factory for limbs is really scary. Well this reminds me of the "missing kid" ads in the milk bottles before we found out about infant pornography. Anyway -

how about going a step further. Can you imagine the psychological impact on a child who finds out he (or she) is a clone?
"Hi, you were harvested as a clone for John Doe, and we want to know how the experiment's going."

Imagine that. You had no mother, nor father. Just an original.

I'd also recommend you watching Gattaca, to see how scary things can really get.

 

Stardust Phox, I understand where you are coming from. At the same time, it does sound to me a lot like people who thought lightning rods were evil, for trying to thwart the will of God. If He wants to zap your house with a lightning bolt, who are you to try to stop it? How many of us have lightning rods? /me raises hand

I think if we can kill diseases we should. I think we should gain as much knowledge as we can. That is all we can take with us. I also do not worry that we will ever trump God. Science may be advanced (and become in future more so), but if God wants someone dead, he'll be dead, no matter how much we try to prevent it. The fact that there are people whose lives are improved/saved by medicine tells me that God must be fine with that person living. It doesn't tell me that we have suddenly become more powerful than God. Seriously, i think it's the height of arrogance to think we can come even close to him. The people at Babel were overly proud, but they weren't really going to get to heaven with that tower. We aren't going to become as God with genetics either, so if we drop the prideful pretences that we will and recognize that we are still worms, I think God will be fine with it.

So, my points in short:
1: God's will WILL be done, no matter what we try.
2: Thus, if through some scientific advance, someone lives, God must be fine with him living.
3: we will NOT become as God through science. That is ridiculously prideful and trusting in our own smarts
4: recognizing that, what's the harm in making scientific advances, knowing we will never rival God?
_________________
BMS: Point taken about a clone not having parents. That would be kinda awkward for him. Family is important, so there is a strike against cloning

 

I usually do not discuss religion out in the open, and I am quite capable of discussing things without bringing it up. This conversation though has a distinctly religious tone that was already present, so I adress it in religious tones. [end little disclaimer]

You put an interesting spin on it BMS

You are right, there is an important distinction between becoming as God and 'playing god.'

My point about people receiving benefits from treatments and not being struck down was mostly in response to the idea that inherited diseases are a curse, that curing inherited diseases would be trying to get ourselves out of the curse. I am not saying that God smites people for every wrong deed. Since we were talking about curses though, the assumption is that he is already smiting someone. If that person is cured of a disease, what can the conclusion be? God stopped smiting someone because of the actions of some doctors? I say if he is already smiting somone (as he is in the case of a hypothetical curse that goes down through generations) he will continue to do so whatever we may try to do to stop it. If the disease is cured, this doesn't say to me that we thwarted God's will and removed a curse, it tells me the disease wasn't a curse. Again, my argument was related to 'curses.' Not saying that the fact that scientists aren't struck down for cloning means it is OK, I mean the fact that the supposedly cursed patients not being struck down means their treatment is OK. If it wasn't, they would be smitten, because unlike car theives they supposedly already were being smitten.

Now you may say, how many inherited diseases have we cured? Not too many, which may say something I see no harm in trying though, it furthers our knowledge. And should one be cured, well fine. As muslims would say, 'if it be the will of God' (see Cowboy Bebop movie, the moroccan says it a few times) as in "I'll see you at three, if it be the will of God" (ie if I don't get hit by a bus or something).

It seems a distinctly western thing to believe that we can actually thwart God's will. This to me is ridiculous and prideful. You may say someone commiting murder is evidence that it happens, yet is it really? What do you believe happens to that person in the hereafter? God's will cannot be thwarted. If a disease is cured (precious few have been) then I think it is OK.

My main point I guess about smiting
If we murder, we go against His will and will be punished in the hereafter. We know we will be because we have been commanded not to.

BUT, we have not been commanded not to cure cancer. I don't believe God will punish someone for doing something God never told him not to do. This means that anyone who cures cancer cannot be punished in the hereafter. Thus if it is not God's will that cancer be cured, it has to be stopped in this life. From this I conclude that if it isn't, it must be OK.

 

Now for another blasphemous comment. This is in a seperate post because I want eople to read it even if they don't slog through my last post.

A lot of you seem to hold the opinion that God is not a good role model. Why not? Who else would we rather be like? I see no problem with trying, to me the sin is believing that we can succeed (especially on our own). I have no problem with trying to understand things. Problems arise when people do things begfore they understand them (DDT anyone?) Opine.