To respond to some points, according to the muslim I asked about this, it
is already the case that some Islamic countries DO allow (and fund)
research into cloning. No flame-bait intended. My point, again, is that
Islam is not monolithic, and it is relevant to discuss political issues in
regards to technology. I fully expect the US to bow to christian pressure
and make human cloning illegal. I am hoping it won't happen, and will help
to make sure it doesn't, but I still expect it to happen.
And, yes, you can predict how a group of people will react (more or
less) if you group them by how they self-identify. That is, if they
identify themselves as muslims, you can generally expect them to act in
accord with Islamic rules. This will depend on who interprets the rules, of
course, but you can get a good general idea. However, since you were the
one who interpreted ALL muslims as unwilling to discuss certain ideas, this
seems self-contradictory.
Do you realize how insulting it is to tell people who are religious
that they have the intelligence to "break out of outdated religious memes",
since they're going to interpret that as you telling them you know better
than they do? I've said it before, I'm an atheist and I think of religion
as a disease, but you can NOT deal with people (the vast majority of whom
identify themselves with a religion) by insulting them. It is this kind of
rhetoric which gets our ideas banned.
Mike
From: "J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com>
Trying to interact with a group of people based on projections of how they
will respond tends to insult the group because such profiling too easily
slips into stereotyping, which further offends them. People like to think
of themselves as individuals, as unique and autonomous beings, not defined
by the specifics of how they accidentally fell into the world. As
extropians, I feel we should treat all people as if they have the
intelligence to break out of outdated religious memes.
> If the United States bans cloning, and an Islamic country doesn't
Do you honestly believe that a Muslim country would approve cloning before
the US does?
I doubt your sincerity in this regard, and decline the flame bait.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:39 MDT