GOP/GOD: On arguments against stem cell research

President Barack Obama on Monday signed an order undoing some of President George Bush’s limits on stem cell research, saying, “we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

and

… by asserting “the centrality of science to every issue of modern life,” said Dr. Alan I. Lesher, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse under President Bill Clinton and, briefly, Mr. Bush. Mr. Obama is suggesting that science rather than ideology will be the foundation for his decision making. “What you are seeing now is both a response to the last eight years, and a genuine reaction to President Obama’s enthusiasm for science,” he said. — The New York Times

Well, to that, I say with restraint, “Hallelujah,” for there are apparently some other pieces of legislation that Congress must look at. But for too long, we have embraced policies that have essentially said, “We would rather see living, breathing, suffering people lose the chance of having an improved life than witness the death of stem cells, which, first, aren’t living, breathing people, and second, have the potential to become any number of human cells within the body.” Evangelicals, preachers, religious apologists and generally people who don’t know what they are talking about have carried the flag against stem cell research, thus delaying progress in a promising field of study that could help, dare I say, living, breathing humans beings suffering right now from any number of diseases like Parkinson’s, diabetes, emphysema, heart disease and others. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can develop into any of 200 human cell types. Bush, of course, seems to repeat the silly claim that stem cells are people with souls and has also carried the flag either out of ignorance or out of fear of upsetting his base voting bloc.

In a related editorial, The Times had this to say:

Mr. Obama also pledged on Monday to base his administration’s policy decisions on sound science, undistorted by politics or ideology. He ordered his science office to develop a plan for all government agencies to achieve that goal.

Sound science: another novel idea. Also for too long, the country has collectively said something like, “Let’s not base much of our research on science, let’s infuse some politics and ideology in there, for we don’t truly care about making this world a better place, we care about winning elections and catering to the religious folks who voted for us.”

Of course, all this makes sense if there’s a heaven waiting for us. Heck, what does it matter if thousands or millions more die because we inhibit the research necessary to save lives. We can convert them and someday meet back up with them in heaven, right? That’s a better place, in the end, isn’t it? Those who fall by the wayside with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or whatever will get new, perfect bodies. Why bother with making the world a better place in the here and now, why bother with research, with science, with medicine, with astronomy or astrophysics: it’s all inconsequential to the all-encompassing knowledge that God, who seems to have no problem letting us fend for ourselves (sort of like the GOP), as he has for the last 2,000-plus years, will give us a new body in heaven? There’s simply no need to attempt to devise methods to help people dying from cancer or heart disease or with defunct organs, for they’ll be in a better place someday … if they believe.

Based on that thinking, it makes perfect sense to inhibit stem cell research on ideological grounds, that is, if you are willing to look away from the many afflicted with such chronic conditions that could be helped by stem cell research, of which, God can and will look away, as he has for millennia. Here, some will bring in the original sin argument that we are all under the cloak of original sin and this is why pain and suffering exist in the world. But there’s a problem: God’s omnibenevolence.

On the subject of suffering, John Loftus had this to say:

Here is the argument as stated by David Hume (Philo): ‘Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?’ But I want to be more precise. If God is perfectly good, all knowing, and all powerful, then the issue of why there is so much suffering in the world requires an explanation. The reason is that a perfectly good God would be opposed to it, and an all-powerful God would be capable of eliminating it, and an all-knowing God would know what to do about it. So the extent of intense suffering in the world means for the theist that either God is not powerful enough to eliminate it, or God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is just not smart enough to know what to do about it. The stubborn fact of intense suffering in the world means that something is wrong with God’s ability, or his goodness, or his knowledge. I consider this as close to an empirical refutation of Christianity as is possible.

To conclude, do we really care more about clusters of cells than people existing and suffering right now before our eyes? Witness a person dying of cancer or a person already in the coffin, looking thin and wrecked by months of suffering from the disease, and tell me that undifferentiated cells matter as much or more than living, breathing human beings. If you can do this, kudos to you, for you are stronger than I. But I can’t see the logic and my humanity makes me ache when religion or faith or ideology or politics gets in the way of research that could help — let me say it again — living, breathing human beings.

Footnote: If this post seems out of character for me or even shocking to family, friends or whomever might read this, the reason is that I’ve struggled with questions such as these for at least five or more years or longer. I could probably fill a book containing arguments just like this. The truth, as I see it, is the evidence does not add up and to prohibit meaningful, potential life-saving research such as this on religious or other ideological or political grounds is not only irrational, but cruel.

4 thoughts on “GOP/GOD: On arguments against stem cell research

  1. While John Loftus’ argument against God appears is convincing when read at first, you should take a closer look at his logic. Suffering does NOT exist in the world because of the doctrine of so-called “original sin.”

    Alexandre Dumas, in the Count of Monte Cristo, wrote the famous line, “A man is not capable of feeling ultimate bliss until he has felt ultimate despair.” Happiness cannot exist without unhappinesss. God knows that as well as Dumas. He wants us to be happy, so he allowed us to experience something that will help us learn and grow and have something to compare our happiness too.

    • Thanks for your comments, Ian. This is going to take a few graphs, so bear with me.

      Have you read the entirety of Loftus’ book? Loftus may have brought up the original sin argument by Christians to account for the suffering in the world, but his predominant argument, to the best of my understanding, was about intense suffering in the face of an omnibenevolent god. The point about original sin was mine.

      According to Roman 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

      Ok, perhaps, according to your statement, “suffering does NOT exist in the world” because of original sin, but death certainly does. Which is worse? Is suffering included in “death?” The traditional doctrine goes thusly (And I am speaking from one who was raised in a Wesleyan, and later, Baptist church):

      Adam and Eve were created by God in a sinless state in the garden, where the very concept of sin was absent, at least as far as Adam and Eve knew. Satan tempted Eve with the knowledge of good and evil, thus leading to the fall.

      After the fall of man, God cursed man, handing down the curse of birth pangs, imminent death by old age, etc. So, without Satan’s influence and without the introduction of sin, we can only assume Adam and Eve would have continued in their nearly perfect or perfect world free of sin and free from Satan’s influence, thus free of the knowledge of good and evil and free from birth pangs and free from certain death (But, they obviously had free will, so their fall may have been forthcoming eventually anyway). Regardless, if man hadn’t fallen, it’s conceivable, though unlikely given free will, that we would continue to this day to live in a perfect world, free of Satan’s influence, walking only in God’s light. But man did fall, thus casting us out of Eden, as John Milton’s imagery portrayed it in “Paradise Lost.” With this fall came not only sin, but death, given Paul’s quote above.

      Now, death cannot exist without suffering on our part. Who on the planet has not suffered when a beloved son or daughter or mother or father has died? Death, in itself, includes some level of suffering inherently, and this is precisely what Paul was referring to. According to traditional doctrine, we live in an imperfect, fallen world, and as a result, death and suffering are inevitable.

      I don’t necessarily agree on Dumas’ premise that happiness can’t exist without suffering (The very idea of happiness and suffering assumes we have a level of intelligence capable of such feelings). But it’s not necessary that we have both. We could have come into consciousness as a less evolved form of human, say 200,000 years ago. Say we are examining the first generation of species capable of the level of consciousness or intelligence to be able to feel happiness or suffering. Say we are at the very birthplace of the being capable of experiencing such things. Then, imagine, as the being opened its eyes, looked up, and saw a comet heading for the earth. It’s mother was there looking down at its young frame. It then looked up at its mother, and in a matter of minutes, the mother was thrown backward by the force and killed, and the baby species watched the death, and then in the next moment, was killed as well. In the milliseconds before the mother and child were killed, did the child, freshly aware of its place in the world, suffer? Did it experience any point of happiness? Perhaps only one brief second of looking up at its mother, perhaps something like comfort, but to say it felt happiness would be a stretch. In those brief moments, it must have felt tragedy in seeing its mother perish in the seconds before its own demise.

      Do children in Africa dying from AIDS or starving from hunger feel happiness? We can only suppose to some very limited degree. What about stillborn children? According to the evangelical crowd, they were humans with souls. Do they feel
      happiness or suffering?

      Dumas’ point, of course, is that one can not appreciate bliss without experiencing suffering, thus having a frame of reference for what happiness feels like. But one doesn’t need a frame of reference or a comparison. Happiness and suffering seem to be hard-wired. We don’t need one to recognize the other; we just feel them as the experiences come.

      So, finally, back to the topic of intense suffering in the face of an omnibenevolent god, three scenarios seem possible to me. First, God is either concerned about the atrocities taking place on his watch, but is not interested in intervening. He is either concerned and incapable of intervening or either concerned but unwilling. To say that God is concerned and wants us to be happy but allows intense suffering circumvents his omnibenevolence. To say that God could sit back and watch his creation be raped, starved, mutilated, lynched and burned though generation after generation and do nothing, nothing whatsoever, for at least 2,000-plus years gives a disastrous testimony to his omnibenevolence. If he exists and is also omnibenevolent, he must be the most depressed (to see his creation suffer so), powerless (to be unable to do anything about) being in the universe.

  2. Pingback: Thoughts on God, the problem of intense suffering at Our Daily Train | A blog by Jeremy Styron

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