Author: nh

I was impressed with the Sunday comics this morning. First Garry Trudeau’s courage . His willingness to revisit the Bush administration’s loony reasoning on stem cell research will certainly generate conservative attack, and the ever dependable death threats of the “pro-life” camp. I remain amazed that anyone is willing to ignore medical progress for the living to favor the rights of the 70-100 cell blastocyst. Given that these microscopic flecks engender such significant support, I guess I should be surprised that this lunacy hasn’t gone further over the edge.

Why are there no protests at the fertility clinics producing these poor “souls?” Are all the true believers too busy tormenting the families of dead servicemen? Why isn’t destroying them as illegal as using them for research? Destruction is ok, but lifesaving isn’t? Can’t we prosecute their freezing as torture, and the failed implants as malpractice? (Oh …. forgot … true believers are ok with torture and want medical tort reform… my bad)

Why haven’t we outlawed reproduction by any means other than those methods on a government approved (county level only… can’t give the feds more control) list? We used to outlaw contraception and we still outlaw sex toys (but only those that women might use); surely we can ignore that pesky right to privacy that conservatives so hate.

Have these fundamentalists no gumption?

Next was Wiley Miller’s wonderful comic, Non Sequitur’s , take on the world of religious diktat. Truth is as I say it is. You are evil to question me. My religion is most popular here so I can make you respect it. And if I can’t force you to act as I wish, then I’m being oppressed.

All in all a refreshing change from the loose duck droppings of “Mallard Filmore“

I was recently amused to see that the same questions I was pondering earlier here hit the New York Times here

I believe I brought up the same issues, though they wrote better and had experts they could quote.

There was some interesting history. In 1950 Pope Pius XII said ““Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.” Googling this phrase leads to a rats nest of philosophical contortion. None of which (well none of the 198,000 hits I actually looked at) considers the possibility that this soul thing is just a figment of hopeful imagination or even works through when twins get souls. Then I see that Pope John Paul said “considering the mind as emerging merely from physical phenomena” was “incompatible with the truth about man.”

Is not.

Is too.

Is not.

I’m infallible, so there.

And he was just warming up by laying out the truth about mind. Just wait for it on the soul thing.

Hmm. So if this soul thing is not based in physical phenomena then I guess imaginary people could be just as soulful as physical ones. I bet there’s a religious divide by zero trick in there somewhere. Good thing they got their “get out of paradox free” card.

According to the Times it was Descartes’, “I think, therefore I am,” that cast animals into the non-thinking and non-soulful abyss. And this is being undermined as biologists are showing more and more similarity between animal thought and human thought.

I was pleased to see that the “man has a soul, animals do not” thing has religious opponents, including apparently Thomas Aquinas. I’ll have to read more about this. I’d like to know how he justified the treatment of animals. Being a Saint and all.

If you’re looking into this New York Times article, I’d also search for other mentions of people quoted there; V. S. Ramachandran, Nancey Murphy (of the Fuller Theological Seminary), John F. Haught (Georgetown University) and Kenneth R. Miller who wrote “God After Darwin”.

And Dr. Haught was prepared to grant souls back way past Neanderthals, all the way to Australopithecus afarensis (though he quibbled about their souls “shape”). If that isn’t religious tolerance, I don’t know what could be.