Quote:
Originally Posted by FireFly
Wow. You arbitrarily decided that "religion" decided... I'm quite sure that there was no group conference where the Hindus and the Christians and the Buddists and the Muslims all got together to decide when a 'soul' was formed. Actually, I'm just certain that some people feel the potential for human life happens the instant the sperm fertilizes the egg. Nothing more, nothing less. And that the potential for human life was enough for religious purposes. I don't recall the soul being mentioned... but that could be me.
And while religion may not have problems with killing something that doesn't have a soul...  What about PETA? I mean... a unicellular organism is still a life form, no?
Furthermore, even science opposes science until they are forced to accept proof, but why don't you conveniently decide that that doesn't matter either. |
Well here's a shred from Wikipedia:
"According to the accepted
Confucian view, a person begins with birth; a person is an entity that has a body or shape and psyche, and has rational, emotional and social-relational capacity through a lifetime of experience, learning and innovation. Therefore to most Chinese, a human embryo, lacking the characteristics of a person, cannot be equated morally to a person or a personal life.
[36] Stem cell research in China is thus unlikely ever to be prone to the intense moral politicking that characterizes the field in the West."
"The
Confucian-influenced countries in
East Asia—
China,
Japan,
Korea,
Taiwan—all have supportive policies toward stem cell research.
India still has no policies covering stem cell research but is currently formulating them."
So it seems to me that the problem is basically the religions of the west arbitrarily decided that life starts at one point and the religions of the east arbitrarily decided that life starts at another point.
If they can't find a way around creating and destroying embryos, then the religions of the west will have to adapt their views like they have so many times before in the past, or risk becoming the next Amish.