As we all know, a few weeks ago, Mr. Bush announced the compromise about federal funding for stem-cell research. I'm assuming you already know most of the background information regarding this, so I will be breif with that.
Stem-cell research is important because by using stem-cells from human embryos, we are able to grow new cells, possibly even entirely new body parts. With a single embryo, we can grow as many new cells/arms/legs/whatever as we need. There are many obvious uses for such a technology, such as providing people who have had parts of their body badly damaged with brand-new parts (such as neurons, which do not naturally regenerate).
But of course, as always, there are people who oppose this technology. The big reason I see people using for opposing stem-cell research is that they think that life starts at conception, and it would be a Bad Thing to destroy such life. But the truth (or at least what seems the most logical and likely, by far) is that there is no sharp distinction between what should be considered a person and what should not, but rather a continuum of levels of 'consciousness' (and therefore 'personness'), with particles of dust at one end, mosquitos and analog computers somewhere in the middle, and dolphins and humans at the other. There is also more than one dimension to this continuum. Digital computers, for instance, certainly have a lot of information-processing power, but are not as flexible as a neural network. Those few cells we tear apart to do the stem-cell research business are somewhere between mosquitos and rocks. They are not complex enough to have a desire to live or feel pain, and we're not losing much by tearing them up - there are plenty more embryos where they came from. I would think we should be more concerned with the treatment of animals in factory farms and laboratories (what a mess that is, as you'll know unless you're completely ignorant of such things (unfortunately, it seems most people are)), for they are much closer to us in the spectrum; even if their lives are not worth much, they are much more capable of thought and pain than an embryo. As I see it, we have much to gain and nothing to lose from this line of research.
But back to the opposition...
I do not know for sure, since I am not of these people, but I have some good gesses as to what they are thinking. It seems most of the people I have heard talking against stem-cell research are 'Cristians' (I put that in quotes because I consider myself a Cristian, without believing a lot of the nonsense that they do, but that's getting OT). As I mentioned before, they believe that life begins at conception. But what about squirrels and rabbits and dolphins and chimpanzees (whose DNA matches ours by over 98%)? If a little human embryo diserves to be given a chance at life, surely these animals deserve at least as much respect? Well, no. According to many of these people, humans are special. There is a clear-cut destinction between a human (be it an embryo or an adult) and any other form of life, despite the logical conclusion about life that I outlined above. They believe this because, either they want to feel special (it's convenient for them to believe it), they have blind faith in the text of some 2000 year-old book which says so, or both.
I'm going to bash faith now, so close your eyes if that will offend you.
As I see it, there are basically four ways to hold such faith: you were brainwashed as a small child, you don't want to think, you let your 'spiritual' side get the better of you, or your life is such a mess that you need something to believe in if you're going to keep living. The last is the only excusable one, as far as I can tell. The human brain is often not logical; we have goofy emotions like greed and jealousy that get us nowhere. This spiritual business is another one of those emotions; it is what allows people to throw away all logic and believe in something simply because a book says that it's the word of God. In my experience, people who are able to put greed, jealousy, pointless aggression, and all that bad stuff mostly behind them, are often the same people who don't hold blind faith in anything. Those who not able to do so need to be forgiven all the time. I won't deny that there are many very good faith-holding people, and many really crummy athiests, but I think that in general, logic is better than faith.
If you are still interested in my definition of Christianity, here it is: I believe that Jesus was a nice guy who saw what a bunch of total jerks people were and wanted to make the world a better place. I don't think that he was actually the son of God, though. Either he really believed that he was (he was dilusional), he didn't believe that he was but told people so to get them a reason to listen to him (be nice and my daddy'll letcha go to heaven!), or he didn't say it at all, but the people who wrote it all down made it up (in order to get people to listen). Jusus didn't care if you believed in God or not, he just wanted people to be nice to eachother. Z believes the former (as I recall). My mother believes the latter. I believe the one in the middle. I think they should have settled this in Back to he Future.
