I didn’t realise quite how true and multifaceted that heading was when I typed it. It’s so sad that for whatever reason a number of different species in our world are becoming rarer. This morning I was reading about how bees and the flowers that they pollinate are become rarer in England. Which is sad because this kind of thing happens all over the place and it’s not quite known why or how or which happened first. Did the bees die and so fewer flowers were pollinated or did the flowers die so the bees had less food so fewer bees were born meaning fewer bees to spread the flowers’ pollen?
Are the people of the world getting sicker as well? AIDS is spreading, I read stories of people that pick up people and tell them they’ve recently had an HIV test with a negative result when they’ve actually had HIV for ten years! I read about one woman that was a victim of such abuse and she proceeded, as revenge, to sleep with as many men as possible of the same ethnic background. It’s possible she infected about 200 people. She also won’t cooperate to track those people down. Not only does that show a level of mental sickness but how does the world have a chance to fight disease when people purposely spread it.
Where are the cures for such diseases? I think that as time passes our medical knowledge and ability grows but so does the number of diseases. Why? Because we can’t control genetics to the extent required to eliminate genetic defects, we don’t even know what all of these defects are and what they do. We haven’t got cures for viruses which is a problem for colds, flus, herpes, HIV and more. Especially the ones that our bodies just can’t fight properly.
Now I’m neither passionately for or against embryonic stem cell research. Why? Well, I guess I’m just not the kind to take a strong stand, I’m not interested enough to find out enough information about it to be informed enough to fight for one side. I do however, recognise that if you are wondering when life actually starts you either have to say: when a foetus is born and is a baby, or at the point of conception. Some try to say that once it’s developed enough to survive independently of the mother is when it can be considered a person, but who knows when that is? I also recognise that stem cell research could lead to techniques and understanding that would significantly advance our medicine. I also know that fertilised embryos are just thrown away by IVF clinics. I don’t know if the volume from IVF clinics is enough for research, possibly not. I just wonder why all the people picketing against stem cell research aren’t picketing at all the IVF clinics as well.
Apparently Gov. Arnie has announced the possibility of funding for a state supported stem cell research clinic to the tune of $150 bill. Whether this research is adult spinal cells or embryonic I don’t know. Dub-ya however vetoed a bill to expand research in the US and Germany is petitioning the EU to ban the research. While I think that people should definitely fight for life and all that. I feel like this move to ban the research in the whole EU is condemning a lot of people to pain and death by preventing research on cures and even just quality-of-life improving treatments.
Update: This article says that it’s not illegal (in the US) to use the stem cells from aborton clinics and IVF treatments if you have provate funding to do it. Apparently the same people disagreeing with it also disapprove of aborton, doesn’t say about IVF though.
I read an interesting part of the gospel of Matthew, in chapter 10, yesterday that said:
34″Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
” ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –
36a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.'[e]37″Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
e Matthew 10:36 Micah 7:6
I thought this was interesting because a lot of people have a lovey-dovey view of Jesus. Many people preach that if you believe in Jesus you business will do well, you will be financially and emotionally secure. As if Jesus is some kind of magical cure to the world’s problems. Jesus will cure the world’s problems in the sense of bringing the world to an end. The bible describes at that time he will bring in peace but that time isn’t this time. Trusting in Jesus may help you in this life in some ways, especially in the way of meeting brothers and sisters that become friends and love you and want to care for you. Trusting in Jesus won’t just make everything in this life okay though. In fact the bible speaks often about Christians suffering because the world doesn’t want to know about Jesus, they will think we’re foolish. Some hardship may be like the Father disciplining his children, to teach them, to produce perseverance in them. Jesus says he is “the way, the truth and the life” and that “no one gets to the father, except through [him].” So if Jesus is the life then when he ends the world those that aren’t with him won’t have life and in that way the world is dying.
🙁
