where the wind will take you
photo: flickr
Sometimes ideas seep into my brain, and they will not leave until I feel like I have figured out the connection between seemingly disparate news articles, moments on tv, real-life experiences, and/or anything else I see.
Gallup's Strengths Finder suggests that identifying connections is one of my top strengths. Unfortunately, they did not happen to share what sort of organizations or people will write checks for someone pointing out ideological relationships for them.
When I do not write, it is most often because I have not quite worked out the latest of my hypotheses. Thoughts will sit there seemingly on the tip of my tongue for weeks at a time.
Rather than leave you hanging, I thought I might include you all this time. Here are a couple of things that have my attention right now. Either one or both deserve(s) a dedicated post, but I cannot yet fully articulate what they have impressed upon me about life, culture, and/or God.
First, an article by a pro-choice writer who notes an interesting corollary between embryonic stem-cell research and torture in Iraq.
"Winning Smugly" by William Saletan
Second, an article by a man who is a self-proclaimed homosexual but chooses not to act upon his sexual preference based on a calling he feels on his life to live beyond the constraints of his own desires. In this, he has found the Church not the monstrous, bigoted lynchmob many imagine but rather his only source of personal strength. I admire this man and his courage.
"A Few Like You" by Wesley Hill
Feel free to share your thoughts.
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1 comments:
It's funny to see the conflict inside this person's head. I like the fact that the person is at least consistent, but the argument is flawed.
You are not killing a person when torturing him or her. You are making their life incredibly unpleasant or frightening in an attempt to extract information that has the potential to save an unknown number of lives. In stem cell research you are actually ending a life in the name of the attempt to save other lives.
While I believe that life begins at conception (and I mean fertilization of the egg, not implantation and pregnancy), that is not the main reason that I oppose stem cell research. Why should I as a taxpayer pay for something that private industry is not willing to fund? If this research is on the cusp of breakthrough and all that is standing in its way is ideologues, why is Pfizer not willing to throw their money behind it. Risk versus reward is the very heart of being an entrepreneur. You mean to tell me that if this research had real promise Astra Zeneca would not be all over it trying to patent the processes thereby making themselves trillionaires? If we could end all diabetes, central nervous injury, and other related "it don't grow back" type malady, the company that discovered it would make companies the size of Microsoft and Google look like Mom's Diner on 3rd. That's the biggest reason I oppose this type of research. Don't make me pay for something that no one else is willing to fund because there is that little hope of anything ever coming out of it.
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