[extropy-chat] 22nd century

[Damien Broderick]

>  Does
>anyone actually shed tears for tiny cells? That is
>very hard to believe.

This is surely a pragmatic refutation--and one of my personal favorites--of 
all the hand-wringing. Does anyone call for the baptism of blastocysts 
before they are opened up for their stem cells? Are the dear little remains 
given proper Christian burial, with service and weeping relatives? If the 
blastocyst is severed into cells, each of which is totipotent and therefore 
potentially a separate individual human person (presumably with its own 
soul), is each portion given a *separate* ceremonial burial, with its own 
tombstone? These might strike devout Christians as grisly, blasphemous and 
grossly unseemly questions, but I'm certain Thomas Aquinas and his tonsured 
colleagues sat up late into the candle-lit night tussling with similar 
ridiculous profundities. George Bush, meanwhile, surely hops instead into 
bed for a good snooze, and the bishops and prelates assembled do the same, 
celibately of course.

Damien Broderick