In an article about Family doctor Francisco Prieto who is going to help dole out funds for California’s Embryonic stem-cell research.
Raised Catholic, Prieto considers himself a religious person, but he doesn’t believe the body acquires a soul until about the time of birth. So he does not look upon the research as destroying life.
"My personal religious belief is sort of a Zen Catholicism," he said, adding with a self-mocking grin, "The pope would not be pleased." [Source]
I can understand those that deny the existence of the soul who supports ESCR since these ideas would support each other. Less understandable is how those who acknowledge the existence of a soul and that God creates each soul could then support ESCR. To claim though that the soul is required at birth is rather strange. If a soul is what animates life then to say that the baby who was alive and kicking in the womb was a soulless creature is more than just a bit of a stretch. This might be a useful dodge to ignore the morality of ESCR but it also denies reason. This article was more proof that any article that someone was "raised Catholic" will always end up badly.
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The point isn’t that the Pope won’t be pleased, but that God won’t be pleased. The point is that what he describes – Buddhist/Christian synchretism – has been specifically put down. And it’s all bosh, anyway; Zen teaches a reverence for all life, hardly in keeping with his line of work. Really, a walk through the depths of this man’s intellect wouldn’t get your ankles wet.
But to American liberals,Buddhism and Zen mean “whatever I feel like doing.” Most likely Buddha wouldn’t be pleased with them.
People who say stuff like this don’t understand what the definition of “soul” is.
I’m quite sure that the Buddha would not be pleased.
I have two questions for the good doctor.
(1)When does a baby acquire a mind? It is with his mind that a human being experiences everything, including pain.
(2)Just where in the body does he think the mind resides? Consciousness does not exist in physical space at all.
Are all people who favor the destruction of embryonic human life completely ignorant philosophically speaking? (That is a rhetorical question.)
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