stem cells and Jesus

I don't think I can gush enough about how proud I am of the CBC as a Public news service (tho it really lags behind the BBC for International coverage) and how it has evolved and is competent.

One of my favourite shows there is, is the Hour by Georgie. It is just a show that is simply groundbreaking in terms of its approach. I don't think anyone in the world right now can do it quite like Georgie.

I don't know how many people are talking about the Lost Tomb of Jesus, if you haven't it's about some ossuaries found in Jerusalem, it's a family tomb and it apparently Jesus and yea.."his family" with Mary Magdalene and their child. Ok...of all the controversies from 2000 years, this sounds really like 'wat? are you kidding me?' It can't be that simple. I don't know the facts, haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I don't know what to say. But this I know - there has never been quite a figure like Jesus...really. You can see the interview with Simcha Jacobivici here.

Recently, Franklin, son of Billy Graham was also on the show. Throughout the whole interview, he simply kept in line with who Jesus is and what the gospel is about. I think George was very fair as well. I like this man Franklin. He has this quiet confidence that I always wish I had constantly but have to pretned I do most of the time. Maybe someday, I'll actually know who I am and believe something with some conviction too. You can see the interview here.

I know that a lot of people know Justin Trudeau as the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and who delivered the now famous eulogy at his fathers funeral in 2000. I had the chance to see him speak this past week. I remember feeling really excited - I think there is this feeling that I want to belong to a place and then be a leader and couse change not only to that place but everything around it. Justin is a very charismatic and charming speaker and really cares about his country, the environment and appeals to the idealist in me. But in my mind, although he will make an excellent politician (he was also a teacher in BC, a profession my mom adores) I don't think he has what it takes to be a leader. One - he is not ruthless enough to make tough decisions. Former Sugeon General Everett Koop mentioned that during the abortion debate in the US, Christians would only see 100% right and 100% wrong...and thus miss out on making a compromise which would benefit it all. This attitude of all or nothing does not work in the real world especially with government decisions. His answers to some questions sounded very cliche and flimsy, as if he was not knowledgable enough. He is a young man, and he is growing. If he ever becomes Prime Minister, he needs to have a lot of concrete practicality under his belt. (his wife Gregoire is pretty hot tho...lol)

Got educated about the Air India tragedy from 1985. To think that it is still unsolved and that 331 people died. CBC archives has a good section on it. Have also been fascinated by Sikh history...there are close to 300,000 Punjabis in Canada, second only to Britain (that's like almost all of brunei tabawet!) 150,000 in BC alone. The whole Golden Temple bombing 1984, Indira Gandhi, the ensuing Sikh violence...although I am a quarter Rajasthani (a state right next to Punjab) I am a world away in terms of identity. I want to know more. Why is there so much strife?

Finally, there has been a lot of talk about stem cell research and how Christians are against it and how it is anti science etc. But there is an very humble and excellent article from Christianity today - I will quote it, but the full version is here.

"Leon Kass, a member and former chair of the President's Council on Bioethics and professor at the University of Chicago, argues that "victory over mortality is the unstated but implicit goal of modern medical science." He writes, "In parallel with medical progress, a new moral sensibility has developed that serves precisely medicine's crusade against mortality: Anything is permitted if it saves life, cures disease, prevents death."

Kass is not alone. Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon and author of How We Die, peppers his book with warnings of the hubris of scientists. "The fantasy of controlling nature lies at the very basis of modern science. … The ultimate aim of the scientist is not only knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge with the aim of overcoming that in our environment which he views as hostile. None of the acts of nature (or Nature) is more hostile than death."

Nuland says medical science will never find the Fountain of Youth. "Every triumph over some major pathology, no matter how ringing the victory, is only a reprieve from the inevitable end."

Perhaps our culture clings so tenaciously to the hope of extended youthfulness and lasting life because we have shoved death from view. "All the things that once prepared us for death—regular experience with illness and death, public grief and mourning, a culture and philosophy of death, interaction with the elderly, as well as the visibility of our own aging—are virtually gone from our lives," writes Virginia Morris in Talking About Death. "Instead, we are tempted daily by that perfect apple, by promises of youth and immortality."

The apple that's currently tempting our society is the half-million frozen human embryos created in fertility clinics. Our culture so clings to life that it is prepared to legislate taking of life at its earliest stages in order to graft it on at the end...

When we show in our weekly life that we follow the Way that transcends death, the larger culture will begin to see that its obsession with youth is not a celebration of life, but a rejection of the inevitable. Science and medicine, for all the good gifts they provide, will never be sure paths to human happiness."

That article has impacted me a lot. I have a problem with withering away and dying. So yea...stem cell research...why are we so obsessed with being immortal? Chinue Achebe said it best with his book title...'Things Fall Apart'.