Adult Stem Cells vs Embryonic Stem Cells.

[GIThruster]

Pretty sure it's still illegal to clone humans

Yeah, an example of a purely religiously and ideologically motivated law.

True. You know atheists always want to be treated as morally upright people despite lack of religious conviction or a sense of impending judgement, but then they go and prove they're morally bankrupt when it comes to issues like the sanctity of life. If they really can't tell you shouldn't clone people, we certainly don't want them involved in anything like public policy making.

[Skipjack]

True. You know atheists always want to be treated as morally upright people despite lack of religious conviction or a sense of impending judgement, but then they go and prove they're morally bankrupt when it comes to issues like the sanctity of life. If they really can't tell you shouldn't clone people, we certainly don't want them involved in anything like public policy making.

So you would rather let people suffer and die instead of helping them, because your religion makes you think that cloning is wrong, yes?
And you call yourself morally superior?!!!

[GIThruster]

True. You know atheists always want to be treated as morally upright people despite lack of religious conviction or a sense of impending judgement, but then they go and prove they're morally bankrupt when it comes to issues like the sanctity of life. If they really can't tell you shouldn't clone people, we certainly don't want them involved in anything like public policy making.

So you would rather let people suffer and die instead of helping them, because your religion makes you think that cloning is wrong, yes?
And you call yourself morally superior?!!!

No. I think people who think cloning people is purely a matter of technology and mechanics haven't thought about the consequences to the sanctity of life.

BTW, I have this same objection to "hunters" who are not really hunters. Real hunters like myself, understand that taking life is a very serious business. People who just grab a gun and go out to try to kill something are not really hunters, because they don't understand the proper awe, respect, and circumspection appropriate to what is involved in taking a life. Mindless, reckless killers, are not real "hunters" and people who have no moral undergirding to understand what is involved in the hallowedness, sanctity and sacredness of life, have no business trying to make public policy about how we deal with life.

[CaptainBeowulf]

You get into the problem of whether a given war is caused by religion or by secular power politics. The best muddy answer you can come up with is a combination of both, when circumstances align.

The Crusades? Religious, yes. In fact, the Pope didn't expect the huge size of peasant armies that appeared. However, there were also power politics. Despite the ongoing schism, the powers in the West (like the Vatican, a few kings, and the Holy Roman Empire) didn't want Constantinople to fall to Islam and the Turks. However, others in the west (including Europeanized Norsemen, or Normans), saw the opportunity for worldly gain through the plundering of the eastern Mediterranean. You ended up with a confused mess, with everyone fighting everyone else, the ultimate outcome of which was the complete collapse of the Byzantine Empire.

Another point to consider is that fascism and communism have been called "secular religions." Both those concepts, and religions, can turn into ideologically faith based systems. Whether the faith is in a god that supposedly commands you to go out an kill heathens, in a racist theory, or in Marx's version of Hegel's dialectic as the grand unification theory for all of human history, it translates into ideological fanaticism. It doesn't so much matter what the fanatic believes, just that he believes fanatically in an ideology. That fanaticism, rather than the substance of his beliefs, is what leads him to commit atrocities.

The problem that can arise with a belief system itself is that some are better designed to sideline fanatics than others. Fascism and Communism were designed to promote it, and some branches of Islam have currently evolved in a way that promotes it as well. Medieval and early modern Christianity had branches which promoted it too, but modern Christianity has largely returned to its roots of "turn the other cheek" and focusing on charity rather than messianic conquest. Even extremist right wing Christians tend to just attack others verbally, rather than physically, with occasional exceptions.

As for clones, until we understand how to make a healthy clone, cloning should be illegal on those grounds alone. Creating a new human who will suffer from problems such as premature senility is extremely unethical. There are other arguments against cloning as well, but those are all moot for the next few decades until we know how to make healthy clones of mammals.

However, should someone succeed in cloning themselves in the meantime, and it were discovered, then it seems obvious to me that the clone should be considered a new individual human being. Should the clone be under 18, s/he should be put into a foster home and raised as normally as possible. A fully healthy clone would be no different than an identical twin of another person, except that the clone would be a lot younger than its parent/twin. And we consider identical twins to be individual people with full independent rights.

[Skipjack]

I think people who think cloning people is purely a matter of technology and mechanics haven't thought about the consequences to the sanctity of life.

Define "sanctity of life".

BTW, I have this same objection to "hunters" who are not really hunters...

I was raised with this understanding of hunting that you describe and I do very much respect the life that is taken when hunting or even for the food that I buy in a store. I am very aware of all this and here we agree.
I do however not need any metaphysical "sacticity of life" in order to understand that.

As for clones, until we understand how to make a healthy clone, cloning should be illegal on those grounds alone.

As we know, making healthy clones is no problem either.
They will be genetically at the same age as the original was at the time of cloning though. This is a genetical age, not a physical age though. Senility is caused by physical aging mostly.
I am thinking more about making clones for therapeutic use as organ donors for the originals, e.g. These do not have to be complete and fully functional beings. One could restrain the development in ways that do not produce a real human being. E.g. one could in theory leave out most of the brain, basically producing a brain dead body.
From a philosophical point of view this may raise questions of legitimacy, but on the other hand if it saves the life of a real living, breathing and most of all self aware human, the answer to this question is very clear to me.

[GIThruster]

From a philosophical point of view this may raise questions of legitimacy, but on the other hand if it saves the life of a real living, breathing and most of all self aware human, the answer to this question is very clear to me.

Well Skippy, I thought you'd sworn off all philosophical concerns?

There may be help for you yet.

[CaptainBeowulf]

I have no problem with cloning organs, but not entire organisms for harvesting.

I believe that there have been studies on how to get a cloned organ to grow. For instance, there have been experiments with injecting tissue of a certain organ into a biodegradable scaffold, so that you end up with something the right shape.

However, probably much easier to do this with an organ like a liver or a kidney than with something like a heart, which is a muscle and has to grow in a very specific way to work properly.

[GIThruster]

I have to agree with Beo. BTW, there are fascinating studies concerning morality here, found in modern fiction. Notably, consider the film from just a few years ago, "The Island" with Ewan McGreggor and Scarlet Johansson.

You don't have a "right" to someone else's body. Okay. Got that.

Do you have a "right" to their organs? Not if they're conscious? What do you mean by "conscious"?

And isn't this the same trouble we have with deciding about abortion?

I'm not pretending to have the answers here, just saying this is all VERY complicated. Think of the "Asgard" in Stargate SG-1. A whole race of folks cloning themselves, albeit in ugly form. Is it okay to grant yourself relative immortality by sticking your consciousness again and again in bodies prepared in a vat for this?

Who knows? People who think there's an easy answer here are moral morons.

[Skipjack]

Again, if you made the cloned body without a brain, braindead if you wish, then you have no cosciousness. You do not have more than a piece of meat and bones. There is no moral problematic there. A braindead body would die as soon as you turn off the switch. It would be less of a moral dilemma than when families do that to their relatives that ended up braindead after an accident (e.g.) that rendered them braindead.

[GIThruster]

Yes, but you're avoiding the really difficult issues. Life is not so cut and dried. The situation of cloning, is not nearly so simple. The brain starts to function, well before birth. When then is it considered an authentic person?

This confusion we have is precisely why we have the conflict we do over abortion, and pretending this is a simple issue, does not help in resolving the issue.

[Skipjack]

When then is it considered an authentic person?

It would never even develop a brain.

[GIThruster]

Well that's very convenient. Reality is somewhat more complex.

In just a few weeks after conception, the human brain is working. It's reacting to outside stimulus. It's thinking. It's feeling. It's regulating the growth of the body. It's acting. Well before the first trimester is over, it's acting like its own lifeform. Yet we think it's okay to kill it for convenience sake.

You see why these issues are not sophomoric issues? They're complex issues.

[CaptainBeowulf]

Do we know to what extent the brain regulates the growth of the body? Would it even be feasible to grow a human with no brain? Or would it be more problematic than just trying to clone individual tissues/organs?

[GIThruster]

I dunno, Beo. Best is, look for someone who claims real knowledge about such things.

Merry Christmas!

[Skipjack]

In just a few weeks after conception, the human brain is working. It's reacting to outside stimulus. It's thinking. It's feeling. It's regulating the growth of the body.

As I said, you would make it so that the body does not even develop a brain other than the most necessary vegetative brain functions.
So no matter how old the fetus is, it would not develop a full brain. Therefore no consciousness.

However, I want to admit that with improvement of stem cell treatments, this sort of cloned organ donor may not even be necessary. This is why I am so for pushing ahead in this full speed. I dont care if it is adult or embryonic stem cells, it all needs to be researched and fast.

Notably, consider the film from just a few years ago, "The Island" with Ewan McGreggor and Scarlet Johansson.

Again, a typical ideoligically motivated holywood propaganda movie.
Terrible!

Is it okay to grant yourself relative immortality by sticking your consciousness again and again in bodies prepared in a vat for this?

I have no problem with that.

It is interesting that the same people opposing stem cell science and cloning, have no problem hoping that some poor bastard dies or ends up braindead somewhere so they can harvest his organs... But I guess that in that case it is considered "gods will", ROFL.