Peter Edman
Speaking of the tone of the stem cell debate, Senior Fellow Joseph Loconte has a piece in today’s National Review Online on the topic.
He manages to find an opponent of the President’s decision that is speaking responsibly—a sharp and depressing contrast with most of their fellows on this issue.
Notice what is missing: No conspiracy theories about a theocratic takeover. No chatter about the eclipse of Enlightenment reason. No specter of religious extremism haunting the political landscape. No contest between scientific progress and medieval superstition.
Here are religious conservatives — orthodox Jews — who have learned to engage an emotional debate over bioethics with grace and sobriety. They take seriously the moral and religious objections of their political adversaries. Though siding with political and religious liberals in this debate, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations shames them with their fairness and intellectual honesty.
Sightings, Science and Technology, Thu 20 Jul 2006
You say that it is difficult to put this advice into practice. Who denies it? Plato has a fitting saying: “Those things which are beautiful are also difficult.” Nothing is harder than for a man to conquer himself, but there is no greater reward or blessing.
Desiderius Erasmus, The Handbook of the Militant Christian (1503)
