Hey again.
This, like a few posts I plan to write eventually, is going to be a short expansion on a topic touched upon at some point in one of my weekly Religious Studies lessons… Believe it or not, I actually enjoy Religious Studies. Each last period on a Thursday I am given a new material for beautiful inky rants, which is always a lot of fun. This time, the subject was ‘Animal Rights and Cloning’ – a favourite of mine in the class’ history.
As you would expect, scriptural quotes referencing Animal welfare were presented to the class. Simply down to time limitations it’s only ever Christian and Islamic quotes which are considered (which I have questioned, once or twice). An example from the lesson, off of the top of my head, was the quote from Hadith:“That person killed me for nothing. He did not kill me for any useful purpose”. We were to consider such quotes later on in the lesson, throughout a discussion and for help in answering questions at the end – pretty much the form of all RS lessons.
So, at the end of this lesson we were given two questions to answer in short essay form. These questions were: “Explore Christian and Muslim views towards Cloning” and “Comment on the statement: ‘Cloning is Playing God’”. Needless to say, I had fun with both, and a vague knowledge of other sections of each world-view’s texts allowed me to explore some contrary ideas to the seemingly solely positive ones posed at the start of the lesson.
Below are my answers to each statement, with slight changes shown in square brackets so that I could amend the minor mistakes I made when rushing to get my thoughts down on paper, under timed conditions:
Explore Christian and Muslim views towards cloning.
Christian and Muslim views towards cloning, like any other group, are mixed. Christians and Muslims can quote rather contrary ideas on the subject from their respective texts; like Muslims talking of the “purpose” of living things (in relation to [what they can provide for] humans) [while] also mentioning love and compassion towards all animals (except pigs of course) – ideas which clash. Christians would value humans above all other creatures, as they are in ‘God’s image’, while he presumably chose a different, less important stencil for all else. This [human dominance] fits in with the prevalent step-by-step guides to animal sacrifice in The Bible, but of course goes against the ‘teachings’ of Jesus, where he called for everyone to value and appreciate all under the “Heavenly Father”.
The last section of the very last sentence, I hate to admit, was written only to conform to the mark scheme. You had to include some positive points on religion’s behalf (without obvious o-so-tempting sarcasm, so here is was less obvious, but still present – I assure you). I did think I got a clear point across though – that there is no such thing as true religious consensus on certain (especially ethical) issues. Everything is openly ‘open to interpretation’, and yet each set of scripture claims to provide absolute truth? I have never understood that one…
Comment on the statement: ‘Cloning is Playing God’.
I disagree with the above statement. To-the-point, I would argue that the concept of ‘God’ is human in origin anyway, so the idea of ‘playing God’ is to say that we are ‘playing human’. ‘God’ is purely man-made, not the other way around, so the very [premise of the] statement [and its meaning] is absurd. I cannot think of a single religious person who would agree with me on this, as their overall consensus is that God mad them, contrary to the idea which I am posing. Frankly, it goes against the fundamental underpinnings of all religion, and if ‘playing God = bad’ is your argument, you have no argument. Of course, if you take ‘playing God’ to mean ‘messing with nature’ (free from a divine origin) then the argument rightly becomes about the ethics and unforeseen consequences of cloning – not the issue of pretending to be something which you pretend to ‘be’.
My favourite thing about answering this last question was the feedback from the teacher I received. Under my writing he had written: “Some v. interesting ideas included in your answer. Now share them with the class”. I was sadly never given the opportunity.
The class, and my friends around school, do however know me for being especially vocal with my arguments from rationality, so it’s not as if I keep ideas like those I express in these essay questions to myself. I enjoy discussion, especially when it comes to religion. I have always found that talking about (and indeed criticising) religion is wrongly perceived to be a taboo subject, and I don’t see any reason for it to be. I’m always happy to openly oppose religious thinking; to criticise and poke fun simply because I don’t feel that faith has any reason to be any more beyond criticism or humour than anything else. Besides, religious sensitivity and self-victimisation pop up too much considering that the one of the whole supposed premises of ideas of, again, ‘absolute truth’ are that they’re beyond criticism.
So when an idiot proclaims that scientists are ‘playing God’, he/she is an idiot. There is no reason to refrain from telling them. Religion is shielded from criticism by even some Atheists who are too afraid to cause ‘offence’, and so belief somehow ends up existing without the same level of critical logic applied to it as all over aspects of our discourse. Rational discussions are shied away from at the expense of the betterment of overall opinion on issues such as the ethics of cloning, because of a false sense of entitlement to the logical immunity of faith.
There is no reason why we shouldn’t hold it to the same standard of criticism as any other aspect of human thinking, especially when it can lead to warped perceptions of reality and immorality. Wouldn’t it be nice if the worries over the dangers and implications of cloning were left to those who do not rely on differing scriptural opinions and false premises of, I love to repeat, “pretending to be something which you pretend to ‘be’“?
I’ll answer: Yes, yes it would.
Carnun 
