Creation! not so wonderful after all?

stevejazzx · 12-10-2009 11:27am #1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8290138.stm

So here we are in the 21st centruy on the verge of full scale human replication and yet some of us still insist that a white bearded sky god created us in his image? Soon a white beared scientist will be creating us in his labratory. Creation it seems, is not as incredible as it once appeared. It is entirely plausible now that at some future point an entire human will be completely fabricated in a lab. Will this this human be a child of God or yet another geographically disadvantaged specimen?

Turtwig · 12-10-2009 11:30am

How you got from that link to your conclusion, I do not know.
Care to elaborate?
My understanding is that if the parent was created by God then all subsequent children are His creation.
What you're saying is akin to God not being our creator because we're not the sons and daughters of the first ancestor???

@PDN : Second Thoughts :P

MagicMarker · 12-10-2009 11:32am

Maybe they can bring back Elvis?

PDN · 12-10-2009 11:35am

Malty_T wrote: »

@PDN : Second Thoughts :P

Drat! I was hoping nobody read that post in the 10 seconds it was up.

As soon as I hit the 'Submit Reply' button I realised I had got confused and thought I was in my own forum.

Rob_l · 12-10-2009 11:36am

An article i spotted today on the subject of creation

http://www.dailyglobal.com/2009/10/god-is-not-the-creator-claims-academic/

maay not be eniterly related ot this thread but better here than i dont know

Sam Vimes · 12-10-2009 11:41am

Rob_l wrote: »

An article i spotted today on the subject of creation

http://www.dailyglobal.com/2009/10/god-is-not-the-creator-claims-academic/

maay not be eniterly related ot this thread but better here than i dont know

The article wrote:

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

Oh they won't like that. All those other ones are just superstitious nonsense, only theirs is true

robindch · 12-10-2009 11:45am

PDN wrote: »

Drat! I was hoping nobody read that post in the 10 seconds it was up.

All help is gratefully received

stevejazzx · 12-10-2009 12:04pm

Malty_T wrote: »

How you got from that link to your conclusion, I do not know.
Care to elaborate?
My understanding is that if the parent was created by God then all subsequent children are His creation.
What you're saying is akin to God not being our creator because we're not the sons and daughters of the first ancestor???

@PDN : Second Thoughts :P

I didn't think it was confusing. If I'm following you correctly you find it confusing because you're mixing in the principle that modern Christians accept evolution and that it's something God oversees?
If we look specifically at the texts however we see the creation claim happened very much instantaneously. So my point is it does not happen like this and it does not need a creator. Historically it occurred through a very long process of natural selection, in the future however the accumulated knowledge of stem cell and genetic research might allow complete replication of the human form by bypassing such.
I was simply asking what would be the religious obligations, in the eyes of believers of course, of these hypothetical beings? That's why I included my geographical analogy, you know the geologically disadvantaged creatures who have never heard of God yet someone must find him in order to save their souls?

Also Malty, even accepting that God made the first one and all others decended, surely the fact that future generations will make an exact copy makes 'creation not so wonderful at all'? which was my point to begn with!

seamus · 12-10-2009 12:15pm

stevejazzx wrote: »

It is entirely plausible now that at some future point an entire human will be completely fabricated in a lab. Will this this human be a child of God or yet another geographically disadvantaged specimen?

I see what you're saying here, but to what end would you fabricate an entire human being? Proof of concept is always a good reason to do things, but when we already have a means of "fabricating" human beings in the form of IVF, then going to the trouble of figuring out how to create an entire person without a sperm and egg seems to be a monumental waste of time.

It should even be possible to create a genetic "copy" of a single person through DNA implantation and IVF, but in the end it's much easier (and less ethically iffy) to rely on a tried-and-trusted and efficient natural process than to make up our own method of doing it and fail a few thousand times on the way there.

Of course, this means that religions will always keep some form of grasp on it because all they have to do is alter what God created or where God exists in the person. The argument after DNA implantation will be that "God is the DNA". If they manage to completely fabricate the DNA and the egg into which they're implanted, the argument will be that "God is in the code".

In order to disprove the notion of an "ultimate creator", we would need to be able to fabricate an entirely new form of life, with intelligence on a par with us, without relying on (or otherwise duplicating) DNA or any other nucleic acids. A tough project.

This is the problem with combatting religion on science's terms - science assumes that once an assertion is disproven, it's dead. However religion doesn't require proof and so is free to alter or invent assertions to suit its dogma. The dogma rarely, if ever, changes to fit the observable facts. Rather the unobservable facts are invented to suit the dogma.

CerebralCortex · 12-10-2009 12:36pm

stevejazzx wrote: »

....Will this this human be a child of God or yet another geographically disadvantaged specimen?

Who cares? The implications of this techmology are going to improve countless lifes and thats what matters.

stevejazzx · 12-10-2009 12:45pm

seamus wrote: »

I In order to disprove the notion of an "ultimate creator", we would need to be able to fabricate an entirely new form of life, with intelligence on a par with us, without relying on (or otherwise duplicating) DNA or any other nucleic acids. A tough project.

Yeah, I'd kind of agree although showing the magician how the trick is done is at least enough to prove it's not magic.

seamus wrote:

This is the problem with combatting religion on science's terms - science assumes that once an assertion is disproven, it's dead. However religion doesn't require proof and so is free to alter or invent assertions to suit its dogma. The dogma rarely, if ever, changes to fit the observable facts. Rather the unobservable facts are invented to suit the dogma.

That is most definitely correct but we should at least make it hard for them. I like the sense of palpable desperation that can be had from a believer trying to reinvent the wheel because it's at odds with his creator.

stevejazzx · 12-10-2009 12:47pm

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Who cares? The implications of this techmology are going to improve countless lifes and thats what matters.

It's not that anyone should care but rather that i thought it posed an interesting theological proposition on the nature of God's creation.

seamus · 12-10-2009 1:05pm

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Who cares? The implications of this techmology are going to improve countless lifes and thats what matters.

Well to be fair to steve, he is pointing out that this kind of research is often brought into ethical question because of religious arguments relating to creators and souls and so forth.
So attacking the theological resistance in regards to these items provides room for the scientific research to breathe and expand.

Creation! not so wonderful after all?

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