I would like to point out to all you “zealots” that to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Jesus was a Religious Leftist. Now I’m not saying that Rick Warren is another Jesus, but perhaps you should lighten up and ask yourselves “What would Jesus ask?”.
The question I have for both sides is; What should we do with all those unused embryos? Should we force them to come to full term and then let them become wards of the State. Should we make the “parents raise a half a dozen kids when all they wanted was to have one? Or should we just keep them in the freezer until Armageddon?
Or maybe we should use these embryos to save lives of thousands of other children who want a quality life. I don’t know and I pray that we do what is right before God, but I haven’t heard from Him on this matter.

I completely agree with you on the stem cell research issue, Paul. Unfortunately, many of your fellow Christians seem to believe that God is an old, bearded man who lives in the sky and hates the idea of stem cell research, and considers a three-day-old blastocyst as equivalent to a born human being. It’s criminal to just throw out all those unused embryos when they could be used to perform life-saving and life-enhancing research. I hope that in the future we look upon those who opposed embryonic stem cell research the same way we now look upon those who persecuted Galileo because of his belief that the earth revolves around the sun (not vice versa) and those who believed that the earth was flat.

Jay Sekulow ALWAYS rides his “High Horse”! He is so sad and needs a reality check! I have Type 1/Juvenile DIABETES. I have to take insulin injections MY ENTIRE LIFE! I have to manage my diabetes 24/7. There are times my blood sugar has been LOW and I’ve had to be taken to the hospital. Jay, I can only assume YOU do NOT HAVE DIABETES. Because YOU are so nasty, and uneducated about LIFE; YOU have NO idea what diabetics must go through! If transplanting stem cells into ME would CURE MY DAMN DIABETES; then by GOD, let’s get to the Operating Room NOW and get going! BRING ON THE STEM CELLS, BABY! BRING’EM ON! Jay, learn, lisetn, open your closed-distorted-limp-unused brain, and lighten up! YOU and others like YOU ARE THE REAL “KILLERS” of human lives….including MY LIFE! Jay, Bring on the STEM CELLS NOW!

Amen, David! You are a PERFECT example of why the government should federally fund embryonic stem cell research. Why don’t you say all that to Michele McGinty on Reformed Chicks Blabbing (she said that she was glad Bush vetoed the bill allowing federal funding for ESCR). She really takes the “pro-life but pro-war” hypocrisy to an extreme.

David,
I pray that God gives you your healing from diabetes, in whatever form He chooses to do it. That said, I continue to hear all of this talk about embryonic stem cells and their usefullness for curing all kinds of ills but to date I have not heard of one success story or proof that adult stem are ANY LESS PROMISING than embryonic stem cells. So, this amounts to human experimentation, human testing. I wonder, for those who are for this, if you are honest, how many object to animal testing? Do you give animals or the environment more rights than the unborn? To borrow a line from a Casting Crown’s song, do you “save the trees but kill the children?”

Calling a blastocyst a baby or a child, although dramatic, doesn’t make it so. For a compelling look at when a fertilized egg becomes a human being, see Carl Sagan and Ann Druian’s article: http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
According to recent polls, Americans are becoming some of the most scientifically illiterate humans in the First World. I dread to think that we could actually be going backwards to the Dark Ages because of the current trends by religious fundamentalists and the strides they are trying to make in our government and everyday walk of life. Beware we don’t become another religion-based country like most Middle Eastern countries…just a different religion.

Why are fertilized eggs desired in the first place? It is because there is a special reaction that takes place, allowing the growth of life, and this versatile growth is what some want to harness. In a purely material world, where the material is all that matters, there is no reason to oppose stem cell research. However, if our world is more than just materialistic in nature, if there is a spiritual side to it, then we have to consider this seriously. Believing what the Bible says means believing that every person is conceived by the mind of God before they are physically conceived. Every person has a destiny determined by God that they have the potential to fulfill. Thinking of Biblical destiny, we must realize that either we have eternal purpose or we don’t. If we do, and there is more than just materialism, then these stem cells unquestionably represent human life. It is with this view of destiny in mind that the U.S. Constitution reads “created equal,” not “born equal.”
It is only when we believe solely in a material universe as we understand it that stem cell research becomes attractive. Even if we decide to not take everything in the Bible literally, we would be forced to completely reject the personal nature of God as it relates to His intentions for us in order to accept stem cell research “no problem.” There are some with serious diseases that could benefit greatly from stem cell research, and the reason is that these stem cells are growing, within a week or two of taking the actual shape of a human being. It is this state of growth that makes stem cells so potentially dynamic in a scientist’s hands. It is the same state of growth that makes them a life.
I have many diabetics in my family, type 1 and type 2. My father has type 1, usually the harder of the two to deal with. One of my brothers also has type 1 diabetes. I don’t have any condition so severe, but I do need glasses because of being a bit near-sighted. I cried after learning, a month after getting my driver’s license, that I needed glasses and that it would be irresponsible for me to drive without them. Maybe Stem cell research could help people with poor eyesight. Let’s assume they found a way to inject me with something that came from stem cells and could regenerate my eyes. It would be weird to think that the reason my eyes were being regenerated was because the dynamics of a life beginning had been redirected, for my benefit.
San Francisco, as a city so full of people, uses tons of water. The needs of the city are great, and water gets redirected from far away. However, almost everything needs water. When San Fransisco expanded their aquaducts in the 1940′s to grab water from further away, they tapped the watershed that fed California’s beautiful mono lake. A quick search online will direct you to Mono Lake’s conservation group’s website. Because so much water was being redirected, the local ecosystem suffered. San Francisco benefited greatly from this and other projects that fueled growth and progress. Mono Lake suffered. Over the years, less and less water flowed into the lake, the lake’s salinity therefore increased, fish died, and the migratory bird population dropped by something like 99%. The water level was at record lows. Today, because of voiced concerns, San Francisco plans to draw less water from the watershed that feeds Mono Lake. While this is promising, it is doubtful that Mono Lake will ever fully recover, and city of San Francisco will continue to tap the watershed, even if they take less water.
Like San Fransisco, we are redirecting materials in the name of progress, and like Mono Lake there are things we risk losing. Things that should be in place for the next generation to inherit are being redirected. We redirect money to meet our own needs, money that won’t be there for the next generation. We redirect water, as in the case of Mono Lake, and damage the ecosystem the next generation should inherit. Now, we talk about redirecting the very “biological material” that would become the next generation.
I believe that stem cell research is fundamentally wrong, my diabetic brother agrees, though I have another brother who disagrees. Instead of putting ourselves in a position to say “well, those embryos would have been wasted anyway,” we should pass laws that affirm the sacred nature of life and its development, and make sure that it is illegal to store embryose in a refridgerator or cooler. We should not allow a situation where there are embryos in storage to waste. I believe we need to stop treating embryos like a commodity. This will be harder to do if embryonic stem cell research becomes a profitable industry.

To DAVE , Jay is not your enemy. You are looking for help in helpless areas. Go search out http://www.hacres.com then click on testimonies and scroll down to diabetes. Hope this will give you some ‘hope’.

To Barry Lynn , Notice I left Rev. title off. As a former ACLU player you KNOW the ACLU was started in 1920 by two communist party members and in 1936 openly declared their goal was for the USA to be converted to communism. Now for the ommission of ‘abortion’ in the bible. Old Testament Jeremiah 19:4-6 the Jewish nation fell into Baal( false god )worship and burned their children by fire unto death!Text states…v4 Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent v5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing I never commanded or spoke of,nor did it ever enter My Mind;v6 therefore behold days are coming,”declares the Lord,”when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hin-nom,but rather the valley of Slaugther.” Sadly 10,000 children died that day ! SADLY AMERICA CHOSE THE SAME DESTRUCTIVE COURSE IN 1973

Alan,
Abortion has been performed for thousands of years, and in every society that has been studied. It was legal in the United States from the time the earliest settlers arrived. At the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before “quickening” were openly advertised and commonly performed.
It is estimated that in the years immediately preceding the Rove v Wade decision about 1.2 million American woman per year had illegal abortions. Emergency rooms and hospital wards were packed with women suffering from injuries acquired from botched abortions. In 1972 at least 39 women died attempting to give themselves abortions. Your problem with abortion has little to do with protecting the young and everything to do with your male-dominated religion trying to keep power out of the hands of women and turn control of their bodies over to the government.

Alan,
FYI one of several of the founders of the ACLU was Helen Keller. But it doesn’t matter who founded the ACLU, they’re not around anymore and the people in charge now are not communists. The men who started this country were hypocritical slave owners who didn’t want to pay their fair share of taxes so they used terrorism against the army sent to protect them and their land until they could seize power for themselves. Who is worse? The communists who started the ACLU or the criminals who founded the United States?

Hi Rev. Lynn,
You stated:
“And as we both know, he’s not been out there advocating for the use of all those unwanted frozen embryos for use in the research that could ultimately save the lives of thousands of us.”
The key word here is “could”. What about all the embryos and potential lives that are destroyed from experimentation? Are you saying that they are not as merited as those lives past the second trimester? If so, this view is erroneous. God states to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”