Atheists and other non-believers are coming out of the closet
Of course, the problem is that non-believers are so independent it's hard to get a coherent group of them together to act.
Recently in Science and Religion Category
A new book from the National Academy for the Sciences explains to laypeople why science and religion do not conflict, and evolution does not disprove the existence of God.
The book is aimed at defusing the tension between religion and science, and in that regard, I consider it welcome. So long there has been hostility of scientists toward religion (and, granted, the reverse as well) that it has only inflamed passions. That scientists are making an effort to counter that is exciting news.
From the Family Research Council:
Genetics researcher Craig Venter has announced that his team has created a completely artificial chromosome, and he will use it to create a new, artificial life form. This first artificial life (patent application has already been made) will be a very simple type of bacteria, not significantly different from existing bacteria, but its genome will be artificially sewn together to render it a completely new species. The idea of genetically manipulating organisms is not new. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded today to three scientists who developed techniques to alter mice genetically. The idea of creating genetically new organisms, including humans, is a short step away. The scientists seem unconcerned about possible inadvertent creation of hazardous organisms, and completely without ethical moorings (but with plenty of hubris) when it comes to potential engineering of designer humans. Venter says, "We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it," and notes that "we are trying to create a new value system for life." Such a new value system is moving forward in the United Kingdom. Today the government replied positively to the idea of creating human-animal hybrids by the cloning process. It might be time for us all to seriously contemplate whether this is a direction in which human society should go.
A couple of good ZENIT articles this week to post.
The first pertains to comments the Pope made on the synthesis of science and religion. He says that Catholic universities must recover the harmonious synthesis between science and religion that Aquinas and others reached, but this "is unfortunately contested by important currents of modern philosophy." He opines that fundamental philosophical questions are "confined to the sphere of subjectivity". On the contrary he urges their research to be open to God.
I can't recall if I've commented on this before — I suppose it's likely that I have but I'll comment again anyway — I think the issue with Intelligent Design vs. Evolution is that scientists have brought in their own atheistic philosophy and are teaching it in schools. The complaint is that ID teaches theistic philosophy in science classes where it doesn't belong, and perhaps that is true, but atheistic philosophy has made its way into science classes, and that's just as unacceptable. Any time you categorically assign responsibility for the origins of the universe to random chance, you are engaging in atheistic philosophy. And that is what the ID people are trying to oppose.
According to the latest quantum theory pertaining to time travel which was posted to the Weird Events blog, it may be possible to go back in time, but if so, it would be impossible to change any event whose outcome you know. So, for example, if you knew about the Protestant Reformation, something would always stop you from preventing it. If you were unaware of it, however, you might be able to. Strange!
There is a Wall Street Journal article (link good until Thu 5/12) about the existence now of chimeras — that is, combining genetics from different animal species into a new creature. They've already created a combine sheep/goat they call a "geep". They implanted brain cells from a quail into a chicken embryo, and the chicks make sounds like quail. Someone applied for a patent on a human-chimpanzee chimera, and lots of work is being done on implanting human stem cells into mice. They even talk about safeguards to prevent, say, a mouse that produces human sperm cells and a mouse that produces human eggs from copulating and producing a human embryo (which of course they'd be unable to fully gestate).
This is some seriously freaky stuff, folks. And you know given today's environment, that anything goes. The concept of ethics is just a nice though: someone will violate the ethical boundaries.
Obviously this brings up a lot of tough philosophical questions. If you graft human brain cells into a mouse, and they start to form complex human neural networks such that the mouse starts to think like a human, does the mouse become in part human? (They somewhat whimsically bring up in the article the possibility of some such mouse saying "Get me out of this body!") Under what circumstances does a chimera acquire the dignity of a human being?
I am envisioning an ethically-challenged doctor producing some sort of human-based chimera (i.e. injecting animal DNA into a human embryo), one male and one female so they can breed, raising it (it? him? her? what?) up as his own children. Not to mention the philosophical questions face by such a being: being rejected and feared by men, unless it had the fortune to have the appearance of a man.
Here is a telling quote: "But Prof. Weissman had in mind a new sort of chimera. He would start with ill-fated mice whose neurons all die just before or soon after birth. He planned to transplant human-brain stem cells into their brains just before their own neurons died off. Would that lead the human cells to turn into neurons and replace the dead-or-dying mouse neurons, producing a mostly human brain in a mouse? Such a chimera could bring important scientific benefits."
Hello? Can we say "missing the point"? Anyone who doesn't get a chill down the spine at that thought — just isn't human (sorry, couldn't resist!).
The big question is, what does the Catholic Church have to say about this? We know what she says about stem cells, or at least how they are harvested, although it is possible to get stem cells from adults. We know that IVF is out. As far as I know the church has had little to say about genetic experimentation in general. But if any pope is able to respond to this brave new world, I know it is Pope Benedict.
"Is the Virgin Birth Scientifically Impossible?
Skeptics have often stated that it is impossible for a virgin to give
birth to a child. While it would be a scientific anomaly to give birth
while a virgin, it is not a scientific impossibility. This has been
known to happen in nature, although it is rare. When it does happen,
all offspring are female, since the female has two X chromosomes, so
that the offspring inherit, also, two X chromosomes. However, it could
be possible in humans for a woman to give birth to a male. The way that
it could happen is if the woman had both an X and Y chromosome, which
occurs in 1 in 5 million women. So, this possibility cannot be
completely ruled out as impossible.
Of course, the Bible describes the virgin birth as a miracle that
resulted from the action of the Holy Spirit. We don't know exactly
what was involved, but it would probably require at least some genetic
source from the Holy Spirit.
Regardless of the method by which Jesus was conceived, it would have
been very risky to document and claim that He was born of a virgin. In
the Middle East there were "honor killings" for women who conceived out
of wedlock, so to speak of a virgin birth was extremely dishonorable.
In fact, the Bible alludes to some disparaging remarks made by the
opponents of Jesus. In addition, if you look at the anti-Christian
literature at the time, much of it focused on this aspect of
Christianity. This makes one wonder why, if Christians were just making
up a religion, they say something that would offend virtually everybody
in the Middle East. It makes no sense to make up something offensive,
unless it were true."
Someone forwarded this to me; it's from http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/virginbirth.html.
Since it is not documented we should take it with a grain of salt (however I did not find it on Snopes), scientists have been able to achieve parthenogenesis (virginal conception) in humans. I have never heard of a woman with a Y chromosome but it doesn't seem impossible. I would even argue that external genetic material from the Holy Spirit is not necessarily demanded by what the text says; in other words, I'd be willing to believe that Jesus could have been conceived from genetic material purely from Mary (if indeed it is possible for a woman to carry a Y chromosome).
More interesting and relevant is their argument about why it would be risky to proclaim the Virgin Birth!
I'm going to confirm this with some scientifically-knowledgeable people I know &mdash it's important not to forward undocumented and unsupported things uncritically &mdash and I'll let you know if they have anything to say.
Remember that post I made about the atheist who decided to believe in God on account of a book he read whose author he had known for about twenty years? I was exceedingly surprised to be introduced at St. Mary's Malankara Catholic Church (see my earlier post on live coals) to the man who wrote the book and converted him, a very humble man. Somehow I think it was providential I met him at what has to be the most obscure Catholic church in the whole Southwest.
Let's continue to pray for Roy and Antony.
I'm convinced this is a gracious favor of God! A Christmas gift, if you will ...
I saw a very interesting program yesterday on Nova about quantum theory, relativity, and string theory.
Seems that some scientist have finally reached a point in their study where they found something (string theory) that can reconcile all theories of matter (quantum theory, gravity, and relativity), except that, lo and behold, it's impossible to prove empirically. (Strings are tiny segments of vibrating energy; if a proton were the size of the solar system, a string would be the size of a tree.) Nonetheless intuition and mathematics tell them they exist. Others mock them for being philosophers, not physicists, because the existence of strings, they say, cannot be proven. (To me, this seems obvious; if they are the fundamental component of the universe, of course you can't see or test for them; just think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle cranked up a few notches. Just like you can't prove the axioms of mathematics, you can't prove the existence of the fundamental building block of the universe.)
Hmmm, sounds familiar. The old science-vs.-religion debate.
Continue reading String Theory.
