IN THEORY:Have scientists gone too far?

In June, scientists managed to replace the genetic identity of one bacterium with that of a second microbe.

Other scientists are working to construct life from scratch. These and other recent scientific advances have ethicists asking themselves one of civilization’s most eternal questions: What is life?

The Daily Pilot, though, merely wants to ask, How do you think science’s rapidly growing ability to alter and create life after the mapping of the human genome will change religion in the 21st Century?

Religion is a discipline that seeks to define and understand one’s relationship with God. Science is the study of life in all its identifiable forms. Both will change as humanity evolves through experience, study, and research.

Life and God are dynamic and constantly revealing more of themselves as we discover our unlimited potential for good. The infinite cannot be quantified or tied down.

When we finally see God in all of life and learn to live in gratitude and forgiveness we will find a God that is creative, present, nonjudgmental, and always guiding us with love, compassion, and intelligence.

God doesn’t make junk and no one is left behind.

Science’s growing ability to alter and create life will have far-reaching effects on many things, including religion and politics.

Religious fundamentalists will either have to acknowledge that some of their beliefs are in error, or they will become even more fundamental and join the ranks of flat-earthers who simply will not allow basic truth into their fantasy world.

Problems could result from some scientific experiments, but science is self-correcting, and it is much wiser to let scientists do all kinds of experiments than to let politicians block needed experiments on supposedly ethical grounds.

Politicians such as those who took us into Vietnam and Iraq should not be allowed to limit scientific research, a field in which they have even less competence.

— Jerry Parks

Member

Humanist assn. of Orange County

I think discoveries about the human genome and DNA will enhance life and religion. I am an optimist. Religion is the search for new insights into our spirituality and the understanding of our physical world. Religion is not the filing or retelling over and over of old facts and old literature.

Life needs modern interpretation of historical data. Judaism teaches that knowledge is a blessing, not a curse. This is especially true in the case of genetic knowledge.

To understand the molecular nature of cancer for the first time, to diagnose and prevent Alzheimer’s disease, to discover the secrets of human history, to reconstruct the organisms that populated earth at Creation seem to be blessings that would enrich our lives.

It is true genetics brings the threat of new dangers; but most of these are easily dealt with or are far-fetched.

In sum, I cannot subscribe to the fashionable pessimism of fundamental religionists about the growth of scientific discovery, nor can I warm myself to a world that turns its back on science and the unending assault on new forms of ignorance.