Robo-sapiens

This week's contraversial topic is genetic technology and engineering.  Our society has been fascinated by the possiblilites of cloning and the use of genetics to promote a healthier population.  The United Methodist Church has its own stand on genetic engineering.

We are returning the the United Methodist Social Principles to make our stand on genetics.  According to the Social Principles, the Methodist Church is for genetic engineering in health interests, providing that all changes are for a single generation only.  The Methodist Chruch is against cloning, long term gene pool changes, and interfering with the genetics of an unborn child.

Most of the people in our classroom realize the dangers of genetic engineering, and we talked about a few movies and stories that provided examples of genetics gone wrong.  We all agreed that cloning was against God's will, seeing as God creates us all as he wants us originally.  This logic was also used to argue against the genetic engineering of children in the womb.

A couple of real-life examples of genetic engineering problems that we came up with were with agriculture and in some aisan countries.  In some developed countries, like India, where genetic engineering has become available for use on unborn children, many people are misusing the engineering to have male children.  Obviously, an imbalance of gender in population will cause tons of long-term problems.  In agriculture, some plants have been so genetically altered that it is almost impossible to kill them.

Continuing on technology, we skipped forwards in the Social Principles to discuss the Internet.  The Methodist Church is fascinated by the great availability of communication due to the Internet, and believes that the Internet will be a great tool that can be used to promote change in the world.  The Methodist Church also affirms its stance of caution while using the Internet, especially with children, because of the widespread immature, innappropriate, and illegal materials that have become more readily available because of the Internet.  We here at Franktown are following the Social Principles by trying to make the Internet safer and more balanced so that good is not overpowered by evil online; in other words, we want to extend Christian values through all forms of communication.  Everyone here was in unanimous agreement with the Social Principles on this point.

We continued to talk about technology for a while, and we discussed tracking chips in humans and animals, then turned our attention to individuality and how everyone is unique.  We had a few humorous examples, such as Monty Python, then turned to the seriousness of the problem.  The biggest debate we had came in how people should be chosen for positions.  On the one side, we had people who thought that people, due to their uniqueness, should be looked at separately and chosen based on their individual qualifications.  On the other side, we had people who argued that God treats sinners and saints the same, and that we should allow everyone equal opportunity.

After the debate, we read the story of the prodigal son, which was the basis for the church sermon this Sunday (Luke 15: 11-32).  In the story, a son requests his share of the inheritance early, then runs away with the money to a far-off land.  While away, the son squanders his wealth and ends up working in a pig pen.  Famished and degraded, the son decided to go back and beg for a place in his father's house again.  The son went back, but before he could plead for a job as a servant, his father ran up, hugged the son, and called for a party to be held for the return of his son.

The relation between the prodigal son and our debate over equality was to prove God's position on the subject.  The son was by all accounts a sinner and probably didn't deserve his father's praise, but the father blessed him anyways.  In this way, God doesn't really care what you do [as long as you repent], and in this way we should also provide opportunities without being overly-anyltical of people.

Following on repentance and God's forgiveness, we read about the passage of Jesus' death on the cross (Luke 23: 26-43).  In the story, there are two other men on crosses on either side of Jesus.  One man criticizes Jesus, but the other believes in Jesus and rebukes the other man.  The believer then repented to Jesus, and Jesus forgave him by saying "I tell you the truth; today, you will be with me in paradise."  The man was a criminal, and one who was sentenced to death at that, but Jesus still forgave him because he believed.  Likewise, we need do nothing but honestly believe and repent of our sins, and we can be granted salvation under Christ; Jesus does not hold back for anyone.