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
One of the big differences between scientific faith in that sense and religious faith in another sense is that religious faith involves commitment of the whole person. I believe in quarks and gluons very strongly, actually, but it doesn’t affect my life in any very critical way. I can’t be a Christian without it affecting my life in all sorts of ways. There is moral demand in religious belief as well as an intellectual demand, which does make it more costly, more challenging, and in the end more worthwhile.
John Polkinghorne
