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    Stem Cell Research

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    Luke Bang
    This document discusses the inconsistency in conservative views on stem cell research and sacrifice for others. It argues that conservatives oppose stem cell research on the grounds that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another, yet support wars that sacrifice lives. Most importantly, conservative Christianity holds that God sacrificed his son for humanity's well-being, which is the ultimate act of sacrifice. The document questions how conservatives can oppose stem cell research given their fundamental belief in God's sacrifice, and asserts one cannot claim an act is wrong for humans but right for God without a morally relevant distinction.

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    Stem Cell Research

    Uploaded by

    Luke Bang
    9 views2 pages
    This document discusses the inconsistency in conservative views on stem cell research and sacrifice for others. It argues that conservatives oppose stem cell research on the grounds that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another, yet support wars that sacrifice lives. Most importantly, conservative Christianity holds that God sacrificed his son for humanity's well-being, which is the ultimate act of sacrifice. The document questions how conservatives can oppose stem cell research given their fundamental belief in God's sacrifice, and asserts one cannot claim an act is wrong for humans but right for God without a morally relevant distinction.

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    Rick Garlikov

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    This document discusses the inconsistency in conservative views on stem cell research and sacrifice for others. It argues that conservatives oppose stem cell research on the grounds that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another, yet support wars that sacrifice lives. Most importantly, conservative Christianity holds that God sacrificed his son for humanity's well-being, which is the ultimate act of sacrifice. The document questions how conservatives can oppose stem cell research given their fundamental belief in God's sacrifice, and asserts one cannot claim an act is wrong for humans but right for God without a morally relevant distinction.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    9 views2 pages

    Stem Cell Research

    Uploaded by

    Luke Bang
    This document discusses the inconsistency in conservative views on stem cell research and sacrifice for others. It argues that conservatives oppose stem cell research on the grounds that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another, yet support wars that sacrifice lives. Most importantly, conservative Christianity holds that God sacrificed his son for humanity's well-being, which is the ultimate act of sacrifice. The document questions how conservatives can oppose stem cell research given their fundamental belief in God's sacrifice, and asserts one cannot claim an act is wrong for humans but right for God without a morally relevant distinction.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Stem Cell Research and Sacrifice for Others: the Inconsistency of the Conservative View

    Rick Garlikov
    Many conservatives seem not to understand the contradictions among their most cherished
    beliefs.
    They oppose stem cell research bill on the grounds that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for
    another, while supporting wars that are not purely matters of self-defense, but are matters of
    freedom and liberation, or nation-building. In such wars, some lives are sacrificed for the
    well-being of others.
    More importantly, the fundamental belief of conservative evangelical Christianity is the principle
    of sacrifice by God of His only child for the good of others. John 3:16 says, as every
    conservative fundamentalist Christian knows, that For God so loved the world, that he gave his
    only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
    For Christians, there is no nobler act or greater gift of love. But conservative Christians, in
    regard to stem cell research, hold that it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another. Presumably
    they think God was wrong to sacrifice His son for them.
    The response might be that we are not God. True, we are not. But an act is not wrong for one
    person to do and right for another, unless there is some morally relevant grounds for the
    difference, and it is not a morally relevant reason that they are simply two different beings. We
    are supposed to try to emulate God in some ways; why not this one? What is the relevant
    difference between God and us that God is right to sacrifice His son for other people and we
    would be wrong to sacrifice our embryos for other people? And how can one hold that if it is
    wrong to sacrifice one life for another, how can we applaud God for doing it.
    Even being God does not give one the right to kill the innocent. In Genesis 18: 22-25, Abraham
    argues with God about destroying Sodom:
    "Abraham remained standing before the LORD. Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will
    you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the
    city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous
    people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thingto kill the righteous with the wicked,
    treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth
    do right?" And even God agreed with this line of thought, saying in verse 26: "If I find fifty
    righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
    So it is not the case that it is right for God to do whatever He does or whatever He thinks he
    wants to. Thus just being God does not make it right for Him to have sacrificed His son; and
    therefore one cannot make this particular moral distinction on the basis that we are not God and
    He is. If God is bound by what is right, and we are too, it behooves us both to know what is right,
    not just that we are not God and He is. Even God must know what is right and not just know that
    He is God.

    Without some sound moral reason for distinguishing why it was okay for God to sacrifice His
    breathing, conscious, suffering, fully formed son, but not for anyone else to sacrifice their
    embryonic cells (that will never become conscious living beings anyway) in order to add many
    years and infinite quality to the lives of countless innocent people, one cannot simply say stem
    cell research is morally wrong because it is morally wrong to sacrifice the life of one person for
    another. Furthermore one cannot consistently or without hypocrisy say that because it is wrong
    for us to sacrifice one life for another we cannot sacrifice our embryos for healing the
    devastatingly ill and injured while we at the same time sacrifice our conscious, breathing fully
    formed children, who have the best parts of their lives still ahead of them, for waging war that
    others might benefit?

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