Parentless Embryos? Faith Meets BioEthics

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Weeeee'rrre Baaaack!!! After an extended hiatus, Church Potluck has returned! In this episode (recorded a few months ago), brace yourself for a journey through the ethical labyrinth of modern science with Dr. Michael Bailey and Dr. Michael Papazian as our guides, discussing  Christian and philosophical perspectives on the latest biotechnological marvel: human embryos created with neither sperm nor eggs.

Our conversation probes the ethical minefields of new reproductive technology and its threat to philosophical liberalism. We also address the Catholic Church's teachings on the sanctity of sexual intimacy and procreation and reflect on how the separation of sex from procreation has led to a cascade of societal shifts.

And of course, we toss in a few games and lots of laughs!

Join us in this thought-provoking episode that is as rich and varied as a Church Potluck, and prepare to engage with questions that will stir your soul and nourish your mind.

Note: We've marked this episode "explicit" only because of our discussions on sexuality, which include a few colorful descriptions!

The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're recording, and Michael Baylis is usually where
you jump in and say somethingAll right, dr Papasian, so you
are done with your grading.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yes, although I haven't entered all the grades
in all right.
So yeah, many my students arestill in suspense.
I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, that's good.
My grading comes tonight, andso we'll see if I can get it all
done that that is the goal forsure.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
My grading was supposed to be returned this
afternoon and I Failed mystudents.
I gave them.
I gave them one assignment back, but it wasn't the assignment
they're looking for, weightedvery heavily.
But you know, I Did what Icould at the time and my
students show mercy on me.
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah well, this is a new crop of students, obviously
for the beginning of thesemester, and I have told them
multiple times my goal is to getit back to you within a week.
Yeah right, but I'm notpromising, but I think.
I think I'll get it donetonight.
So Welcome everyone to churchpotluck, where we are serving up
a smorgasbord of Christiancuriosity.
I'm your host, dale McConkey,sociology professor and United

(01:03):
Methodist pastor, and you knowthere are two keys to a good
church potluck plenty of varietyand engaging Conversation.
And this is exactly what we aretrying to do here on church
potluck.
We're sitting down with friendsand sharing our ideas on a
variety of topics from a varietyof academic disciplines and a
variety of Christian traditions,and we have a small stable of

(01:28):
guests today, but we have aquality stable.
Yes, if by quality you mean thenumber of times that they've
come on, the podcast also.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Just the quality of our name, both being Michaels.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's right and good enough to confuse everybody,
but typically I don't alwayssucceed.
But typically I call you Mikeon the podcast, mike Bailey, and
I call you Michael.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
My high school friends used to always call me
Mike B because there were somany mics of the generation of
generavers and carons.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I'm right, yeah, so many.
We were the top name back backin the day year after year.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah right, as it should be those are national
things.
No, because the generation youknow.
Eruption of the.
I'm joking right.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
My nephew who watches this or listens to this podcast
from time to time.
His name is Ethan, and, andwhen my brother and
sister-in-law at the time toldme that they were gonna name him
Ethan, I said where in theworld did that came from?
Nobody names their childrenEthan, and then, by the time he
was about nine or ten years old,that was the number one name
for a while.
Super amazing how it rotates,because when we were kids we

(02:29):
were all in the same generalballpark of age.
It seemed like Michael andJames and Robert, david.
David was a big one for sure.
There's a fair number of yeah.
Yeah, we weren't very creativeback in the day, at least not in
the neighborhood that I wasliving in.
Well, what are we gonna talkabout?
Well, first of all, let's dointroductions formally, even
though we haven't got it donethere.
We will start with our mostfrequent guest thus far.

(02:52):
On church potluck.
We have dr Michael Bailey.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Greetings podcast world.
I'm really glad to be heretoday.
Very often I don't have anexpertise on what we're talking
about, but that doesn't stop me.
Probably this time it reallyshould stop me, because I speak
here from almost perfectignorance about our topic today.
But part of the reason we'redoing this is because I feel
like you know, all sorts offolks and Christians and others
have to Cope with the worldthat's changing and new and

(03:21):
novel, and you have to figureout how to respond to it in real
time.
So that's my excuse for beingon here now, given the topic.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well, we are very glad that you are here indeed.
And that brings us to our nextguest also, mike Michael.
Dr Michael papasian and youwere not a super frequent guest
early on in the life of churchpotluck but, man, when the
summer came you just yeah, wejust grabbed you in the hallways

(03:53):
.
Come into a podcast with us.
That not quite like that.
But we were very glad that youhave picked up your appearance
because we are definitely avalued contributor for sure I'm
glad to be part of it.
Well, wonderful, well, this iskind of an interesting topic for
us to be addressing for,especially for Mike Bailey's.
Already he's the one who cameup with the idea and he's
already confessed perfectignorance.

(04:13):
And I would say that is truefor me and then some.
And then I forget what you saidwhen you walked in as well,
saying I Read, I read thearticle.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Oh, you said you skin the article, but you're article
, so that Mike sent and yeah.
So I really don't understand.
I mean, I have an idea, butyeah so we are.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
What we are doing right here Is we are just
setting the standards in the barvery low for the listening
audience.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I don't know anything about what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
We could be very socratic actually sure.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
I have just lots of questions, so usually there's
those Socrates in the room thatcan can lead it or to direct in
the in the proper direction.
Well, what is it that we'retalking about today?
You're having my baby.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
You're the woman I love and I love what it's doing
to you.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Having my baby.
All right, we could just listento Paul Anka here for a little
while.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
We're not stalling one bit so.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I'm not sure if that was meant to be a double
entendre or not, but anyway,From the article that Mike
Bailey shared with us from thereligious news service that was
submitted just a couple days ago.
Scientists have created a humanembryo without the use of sperm
or an egg a true test to baby.

(05:41):
Such embryos cannot yet developinto full-grown human beings,
and even if transplanted into auterus, the specimen could never
Attach to the uterine wall.
Yet what we have here, theauthor say, is still a human
embryo.
I'll buy it, disabled, withoutParents.
This is an article by Charles CComosi and Joe Vakov I'm not

(06:06):
familiar from pronouncing theirnames correctly, but this is
quite the innovation, quite thebreakthrough, I would say, if
you can have a child withabsolutely no trace of any
parentage.
And so, michael Bailey, youwere the one who started us
thinking about this, and so whydon't you go ahead and Tell us a
little bit more about what youwere thinking about, why we

(06:26):
should have this conversation?

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, I just came across this article, more or
less randomly, and, as Dalepointed out, the scientists of
the Weitzman Institute of Israelhad created what they described
as an embryo model andapparently a human embryo model,
which Apparently is veryimportant for the scientists to
be distinguished between anactual Human embryo.

(06:50):
Apparently it looks like ahuman embryo and it behaves like
a human embryo and it quackslike a human embryo, but they
claim that it is.
There is a distinction betweenthis human embryo and a human
embryo, as we know, andapparently there's legal reasons
why that distinction isimportant.
It originated from stem cells,probably taken from a spine, so

(07:13):
it didn't come from an egg.
There was no use of a womb,there was no use of sperm, so it
was generally kind of thismanufactured Quasi human being.
And the reason they did this inpart they have reasons for that.
They think there'spharmaceutical reasons that this
is important, that they can,since these are not technically

(07:34):
legal human beings, they feellike it is actually an ethical
advance so they can makeExperiments on these non human
lookalikes right for the better,understand how fetuses develop
in those first 10 days, thatthey can do testing,
pharmaceutical testing on Fetaldevelopment.

(07:55):
They claim that they can learnthe causes of miscarriage, that
they'll learn what kind of drugswill work better for pregnant
women, and it might be also amethod in the future for
developing Organ.
So the justification behind itis not just that we're mad
scientists, and thejustification is not just that
they're trying to pursueknowledge, although they are.

(08:16):
Their claim is that this is amore ethical approach to dealing
with some problems, becausethere's you can learn about
embryo development, like withusing mice embryos, but you
can't do it with human embryos.
Most nations have laws againstus.
This is a way sort of evadingit, and they made clear that at
this particular moment they'renot identical to human embryos,

(08:39):
but they sure look like.
In fact, they set off apositive pregnancy test when
they did get.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Oh, my goodness yeah so the reason that's interesting
because this is we're talkingabout very, very small embryos,
but they're still enough thereto trigger.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Very small cluster of cells that are just now
beginning to differentiate and Ihave an abstract from the
article of Nature that it camefrom.
I don't want to read it becauseI'm going to mispronounce every
single biological term in there, but there is.
It also sounds very boring toread an abstract on yeah, it was
, but there's.
The differentiation of parts ofthe body is mirroring what you

(09:12):
would have in a normal embryodeveloped, created in the normal
, ordinary way.
The reason I thought this iseven worth talking about it
because my initial reaction wasick, this is no good, this
cannot be a good development andI, admittedly, am a Luddite and
I and the authors from theReligious News Service article
kind of started off with you'regoing to feel ick about this.

(09:33):
So they predicted your reactionperfectly, that's right Now.
That was my initial reaction,also with Dolly, the Clone Sheep
back in the late 90s, earlyaughts, right, and I think
people are getting used to it.
For those who aren't familiarwith Dolly, what's the?
Dolly was the first clonedsheep with again created just
essentially in a Petri dish,right without again, I think it

(09:55):
was.
I think it took, they took theDNA from a sheep, they
replicated it, inserted it intoan egg and actually created that
identical genetic sheep fromits parent, which was itself and
my initial reaction.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
A perfectly cloned sheep yes.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah.
So my initial reaction at thetime was ick, this is not so
good either.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
And that was.
You were not enticed by theidea of having a perfectly
cloned Bailey the opportunityfor a perfect Another.
You would be out there.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
It's funny that you would say that this may have to
be censored, but this came.
This happened when I wasteaching at what is now Texas
State University and I asked mystudents it's a class of about
115 students and I just said Ijust want to know your absolute
gut level intuition about this.
Is this a good thing or is thisa bad thing?
And again, there are about 115students in the class and 114 of

(10:48):
them said immediately this isbad.
And the hands went up and oneguy raised his hand.
He thought it was a good thing,and so I just was curious.
I probably shouldn't have puthim in the spot and I said well,
why is this?
And he said well, maybe wecould clone the supermodel Jenny
McCarthy.
And I said so you could beturned down twice now.
So, but I would say hisreaction is probably more common

(11:09):
now.
We're just used to it.
So I was beginning to wonder isthis idea of this manufactured
person, if that's what we'regoing to get to eventually, is
this something that we're goingto get used to?
Because my initial reaction isit's bad.
And I begin to wonder is there,do we have the moral reserves
within the ordinary discourse ofliberalism in our country,

(11:30):
liberal, democratic, you knowrights and individual autonomy
and all that good stuff thatwe're used to in America.
Is there anything in that kindof language that could help
inform why we should resist it?
Or is it, as I actually suspect, the development of this and
the ongoing development andexploration of it comes
precisely from our principles.
We believe in technology, webelieve in advancement of

(11:52):
knowledge, we believe in thepursuit of freedom.
Our number one sort of unit ofsociety is the individual, not
the group, and it's not clearwho's actually being harmed in
this.
And so I thought do we have thekind of vocabulary or moral
tradition within liberalism toput a break on this?

Speaker 1 (12:11):
And I'm not so sure that we do All right, and
Michael Wapasi and maybe DrBailey just answered it for us.
But what would be your thoughton this?
So, looking around the table,slightly truncated table, only
three of us today.
No natural scientists toexplain the science behind this,
no women to weigh in on thereproductive issues that are
being discussed here.
What in the world are we threeguys in the liberal arts, social

(12:32):
sciences, what are we to speakon this?
What insights might we have?
Oh yeah, I mean.
I think maybe we're asking thesame question why are we doing
this?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, why are we doing this Right?
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, maybe we do haveinsights.
I mean we study Mike wastalking about either political
philosophy or political thoughtsso we're aware of the liberal
tradition and its limitationsand its problems.
Some of us study moralphilosophy, and that should have
some bearing on what we thinkis proper use of technology and

(13:03):
what isn't.
So, at the very least, I thinkwe have something to offer.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
You know I thought about when we decided to do this
podcast, and all three of uswere very close to.
Dr Peter Lawler departed waytoo soon from this earth, but he
actually served on PresidentBush's the W Bush's bioethics
committee yeah, kind of a bigdeal.
So I was wondering you know howand what way he would have
waited on this.
I was also thinking whether hewould be a good podcast guest or

(13:29):
not.
Oh, he would be amazing.
Well, the thing was, would hebe so amazing that the rest of
us would just kind of sit?

Speaker 2 (13:35):
here and it'd be an hour on conversation.
Right, it would be his ownpodcast, yeah exactly he would
take over.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
We could ask things like could you?

Speaker 1 (13:44):
explain that again.
That's right Well let me.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
This is just descriptive.
There's no good or bad aboutthe following, but this was.
I'm just taking a quote fromone of the articles I read I
think this is from the BBCexplaining the process and again
, this is not a good or badthing, it's just how it works.
But, it said, the researchersuse chemical additives to coax
the stem cells, those originalcells, into forming the tissue
and embryos, placentes and otherliving structures.

(14:07):
The scientists combined 120 ofthese cells in a precise ratio,
mixed them in a shaker.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Sorry, that doesn't sound very scientific, it didn't
sound scientific.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was thinking of like a martini mix.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
And then watch us see what happened and soon an
embryo like structure Also waita second.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
I'm sorry, I keep on interrupting.
Watch us see what happened alsosounds a little less than
scientific.
Well, isn't that whatscientists?

Speaker 2 (14:31):
do I guess.
I guess let's do this and seewhat happens.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
They need to say that in much more scientific terms
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Systematically observed.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Well, I had prefaces by saying I was being neutral,
and you immediately caught me,which is what your reaction is,
more or less what I was hopingyou would have, which is that,
yeah, they're just shaking upthings, watching what will see
happen.
It says that this embryo, likestructure, formed and they're
using the stem cells becausethey said they can be using me
easily and in high numbers.

(14:59):
So one of the questions andthere's lots and lots of
questions, you know should we beconcerned at this precise
moment when the scientists and Ihave no reason to doubt them
are saying that there may be adistinction between this embryo
model and an actual embryo?
And I have no reason to thinkthat there isn't a distinction,

(15:20):
I don't know.
But on the other hand, it doesseem as if we're coming
pairlessly close to thinking ofthese embryos, of our
manufactured, essentially as akind of natural resource that
we're mining and exploiting andusing for our own personal good
and maybe for really good ends,like dementia.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
I thought of this on a much, much smaller scale, to
the matrix, right when all theembryos were being batteries,
right, and so you know we couldmanufacture it, you know,
embryos for all kinds of humanpurposes.
That didn't seem very smart tome.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, was there any explanation as to why they're
embryo, why they consider themmodels as opposed to actually?
What is the distinction?
Is it just a semantic thing sothat they can, you know, bypass
the laws and so on?
These are not really embryos.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
My response to this is just going to be essentially
fabricated, but we're going tocontinue.
I think one of the things theysaid is that none of these could
be actually, as they areattached to a uterus and then
continue to grow is that theyhad some of the external sort of
visual appearances of an embryo, but apparently there was some

(16:29):
structural limits why theywouldn't think at this
particular point they'd continueto grow beyond 10 or 12 or 14
days.
I guess in England and it mightbe in Israel as well is that
there is a limit on doingresearch on embryos over 14 days
, and so that is one thing.
Is, as they get better at thisand create more and more embryo
models that actually are moreviable and survivable, do they

(16:53):
have to change the laws?
Will they honor the laws?
And there is a representativefrom a Francis Crick Institute
in England who I think was inEngland who was excited about
this development.
So this is really promising.
You have a lot of differentkinds of research that you can
extract from this, but did saythat it really warrants the
change in the law of what countsas an embryo, and apparently in

(17:15):
most nations what counts as anembryo is a function of its
origin, how it came from.
This is a type of being thatcame from a sperm and an egg,
and apparently what they'resuggesting is that we might have
to change the notion of what alegal embryo is to the kinds of
being that it will develop into.
And if they were to do that, Iguess, as if you just simply

(17:37):
have an embryo that comes from abiological egg and a sperm,
then this is not an embryo.
You could do whatever you wantto it, but if what you're
concerned about is the endproduct, then you might put
limits on it, but it's openingup a can of mind.
The way my mind works is.
I don't know whether this is agood or bad thing.
Now I'm open to the possibilitythat this is okay for the
research that they're trying toconduct.

(17:57):
What I'm thinking about is, inthe future, what they make
advance is what if we're ablejust to manufacture, design,
designer babies and we can justsort of create them however we
want to are babies?
I don't know.
My sense is that something aboutthe way we are as human persons
, as opposed to just genericpersons or robotic persons that

(18:19):
were human persons, and whatwe're used to is being able to
trace our origin to a father andmother.
Is that fair to create beingsbecause we just wanted to
scientifically and deny themhaving an origin of a father and
mother that they could traceback, at least in principle?
My own sense is, yeah, that'sreally bad, but I don't think

(18:39):
that.
Again, I don't think that thereis a kind of moral resources
within our normal moral languageof rights and autonomy and
freedom and harmed individualsthat will be able to stop it.
I think it's going to require anotion of what a human being is
in the cosmos.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, go ahead.
No, you go ahead, michael.
No, I was just saying that youtalk about sort of the right to
have parents, right, but I meanyou could even I'm what if they
were adopted?
Like, in other words, there arepeople who want to have kids
they're incapable ofbiologically and there's this
manufactured embryo and thenthey adopt it.

(19:17):
There they, you have parents.
Is it that everyone has theright to biological parents?

Speaker 1 (19:25):
But I could actually see that serving a purpose if,
like the father, can't donatesperm.
I don't want Joe being thedonor.
I don't want this either eitherthis person I know or this
anonymous donor out there whomight have claimed a parentage.
You know, if I could just havethis completely manufactured
sperm that does the trick, orwhatever that creates the child,
that I don't have to worryabout anyone else having any

(19:47):
claim whatsoever on parentage?
I could see where that would beattractive, and some people
would even argue that that mightbe a moral yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean you can always say that well, we have enough
kids right now that need to beadopted, that this is, this
shouldn't be done, but on theother hand, you might say that
you know using your argument,you know talking about your
argument.
Do do you know?
Full fledged persons have tohave biological parents.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, well, I mean, and this is, I think, leading to
a question of is there adifference between a
philosophically full fledgedperson, we can get into a
discussion of what counts as aperson.
I think that's reallyinteresting, but is it if you
are a human person?
Is that word human?
Is it actually kind of aqualifier to person?
In other words, are persons allsimply a kind of generic type

(20:32):
of creature, or does thehumanness of us specify that we
have certain kinds of limits andunderstandings and obligations
that are unique to thisparticular kind of person?
And I might say that, in myopinion, there's a distinction
between, in my opinion, betweensaying you have caretakers,
which would be your fosterparents, your adopted parents,
and, of course, we want everyoneto have caretakers.

(20:54):
But the rest of us, apart fromAdam and Eve, right, the rest of
us?
Part of what it means to be ahuman being is that we trace
ourselves with continuity backto thousands of years, or
millions of years actually, backto, you know, the first
creatures here on earth to saythat you're this new kind of
thing that was manufactured,really, probably in design,

(21:17):
because some person just wantyou to be that way.
You're a new kind of creature.
You may have the same sort ofskill set, but you don't fit in
or belong in the same way, andmy own instinct is we should.
My own thing is that we'rerobbing someone of something
that's really important for usas human beings.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, I agree, and you know, it's just interesting.
Getting back to your pointabout the resources of
liberalism, it seems like thisis like the liberal dream.
You're completely detached fromhistory and tradition.
Right, you don't have to worryabout it being part of a family.
That's really good point.
So, and isn't that what youknow, ultimately, taken to its
extreme?
Isn't that what liberalismwants?
Cutting us off from tradition.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
My own sense is that the ongoing development of this
which I assume we haven't heardthe last of it and I assume that
we're going to developtechnology is not cutting
against our culture or our crosspurposes.
But, exactly said, is reallygoing with the grain of what we
are as liberals, is that wethink of ourselves as autonomous
creatures, we see ourselves asself-defining.

(22:14):
Now, whether or not we candefine other people, that's a
kind of different kind ofquestion.
But liberals in general doesn'thave, I think, a way of
connecting our own autonomouscells with a broader sense of
limits and responsibilities to agreater whole.
So I'll just give you thislittle example of this things

(22:36):
I'm in favor of.
So I just want to put on therecord here so it's not too
controversial, or maybecontroversial, but no, I'm on
the side of controversy as well.
I think birth control is a verygood thing, right, but I think
with that cut, that caught meoff guard I'm sorry, so once

(22:57):
upon a time this is gonna bekind of a crazy thought, but sex
was once associated with a kindof possibility, right, but
almost not inevitability, but areal likelihood of possibility
of procreation.
And what birth control did isit severed reproduction from the
act of sex and essentially madesex in enjoyable friction.

(23:17):
You can go push the application, you can go push the applause,
and I think you can make it anargument, and I'm not prepared
to make it in a full.
But I would suggest is thatthat might arguably be the
single most important socialevent in all of human history,
because it changed not only justour own control and autonomy to

(23:39):
change everything.
Once you, I think, allow andaccept the idea that sex
essentially isn't inherentlyconnected to reproduction, but
it's really simply a function ofconsensual pleasure, there
really is, in my opinion, noprincipal reason whatsoever to
not have same sex marriage.
It seems like same sex marriageto me followed inevitably, just

(24:00):
in next, necessarily, frombirth control.
And once we separate marriagefrom differences of genders and
it seems to me that the genderthat we have also becomes
distinguished from any sort ofbiological necessity as well is
that also, I think, much moretenuously, but also flows from

(24:22):
the idea of birth control, andall of that fits into the idea
that we're self creatingcreatures who can pursue whoever
we want to be.
And I just don't see and forlarge part that's good what is
what is liberalism given us?
Is giving us democracy, isgiving us freedom, is giving us
prosperity, is giving ustremendous amount of security.
It's been pretty much a winningway of organizing our social

(24:46):
relations.
But at the same time there'sall these traditional notions
that we think probably served ussome good the idea that place
matters, that the earth matters,that our relationships, that
there's family matters, that youknow certain kinds of
associations of people have asmuch claim as individuals, but

(25:08):
we don't know how to count forit.
And liberals and I would justargue that I don't know, apart
from, like, the claims ofreligion, how you would be able
to resist this idea that we justget to make, manufacture little
babies and I want to come tothe religion question.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
But it just occurred to me that some of our listeners
might not be totally familiarwith the way that you are using
terms, and so liberalism you'renot meaning progressive,
democratic politics I'm nottalking about biden or obama or
hillary.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
If those people fall under liberal, they are liberals
, but so would be someone likeronald reagan and gingrich.
I need to update some of mynames.
You think I would as apolitical scientist, but
essentially is anyone who ispart of the american tradition
of you celebrate freedom, youthink.
If you think we're born freeand equal and get to pursue our
own individual lives ofhappiness and that we as human

(25:59):
beings are, as persons, areprotected by rights and that
we're sort of the fundamentalunit of society, then you're
liberal and people on the leftand right for the most part are
liberals, and I think it's areally persuasive, successful
political project.
I don't know if it reallyexplains in full what it means

(26:20):
to be a human being because Ithink.
Probably we are social creaturesor group creatures.
We don't choose at birth ourlanguage.
We don't choose our place.
We don't choose at birth ournationality, our habits.
At beginning, you choose ourown religion.
We are, in other words, enteredinto a world not of our own

(26:41):
making.
That is who we are, and I thinkthat's supposed to be so.
There's a balance betweenfreedom on the one hand and our
social nature.
Both of those have a kind oftug that I think are important
for us, but I think we only knowhow to argue in one direction
without sounding franklyauthoritarian and because the
name of the podcast is notgovernment potluck but church

(27:03):
potluck, oh goodness, let's youknow.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
I don't.
I did not have time to see whatthe specific catholic response
or if there has been a catholicresponse to this, but you know
everything you were sayingearlier.
You know about the separationof sex and procreation and those
are not necessarily asintertwined.
I make the same kind ofargument in my classes.
I think I made it in my bookthat I wrote a couple years ago

(27:28):
that this seems to be a very bigchange and I think the catholic
church says this is not a goodchange.
Right that I think the veryformal doctrine policy of the
catholic church is that everysex act should be open to the
possibility of procreation.
You're shaking your head up anddown, which is a very bad
podcast technique.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
I want on record that was papazian shaking his head
up and I'm just trying to affirmwhat you're saying you're going
to talk and get all the glorynot me

Speaker 1 (27:55):
yeah, alright, so thank you very much.
I don't I'm not looking forglory, but it is interesting how
to have separate and nowprocreation in some ways is
either further separated fromthe sex act and to the point
where there's not even anybiological, any biology
connected to it, necessarily,possibly in the future.
We're not there yet, but itsure seems like if they've

(28:17):
reached this level of competency, that probably wouldn't be too
long before this happens I thinkyou know it's clear that I
think, related to this, rightit's, there's a whole lot of
unplanned pregnancies, right?

Speaker 3 (28:28):
that's just the way it works, is that?
What is it that you know givesrise to reproduction?
Be like, you know, sexualfriction, I think, is kind of
one of the it's.
Really it's pretty important.
It turns out we don't alwaysplan and want to have a child,
but I think we are kind oftrained into thinking, for the
reason that you said is thatwhen you have sex, there is this

(28:49):
possibility it could be asignificant one or could be an
outside one.
Your life is going to change.
You're going to have aresponsibility.
You're going to be, at least atthe very minimum, in shape,
face with a kind ofextraordinarily difficult choice
do you adopt, do you abort, doyou have a?
Do you put all of your dreamson hold?
And so it's an act of, you know, kind of tremendous import.

(29:13):
And then the question is ifscientists get to just make
these children, what do we owethese creatures?
I mean, I really don't knowwhat we owe them especially, and
I shouldn't necessarily go out.
This is not in politics.
I'm pretty much like billquitton's view when it comes to
abortion and this is, I think,related which is I want it to be

(29:34):
rare, I want it to be safe andI want it to be legal.
I don't actually know if youcan have all three, but this is
what sort I think that we oughtto strive for as a society.
But if that's a case and we havelegal abortion, what would be
wrong really if you thinkabortion is acceptable, legal of
actually creating these embryos, having them go not 14 days,

(29:54):
but eight weeks, or two monthsor three months, learning about
the species, learning aboutdevelopment, maybe saving lots
of lives, getting rid ofdementia, addressing cancer?
If abortion is okay, why wouldit not be okay to use these
creatures who have no parents,who don't have a commitment to

(30:15):
it, for the sake of exploitation?
I just don't know what reasonwhy we wouldn't do that,
especially if we had reason tothink that they weren't being
harmed.
They're not necessarily beextracted from a womb.
They could be euthanized,probably much more easily.
They're in a bag and then inthe womb.
It wouldn't even involve afemale at this point.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
So I think there's all sorts of problems that arise
from this well, given that andwhat you're saying sounds very
similar to other issues thatwe've addressed in the past and
we've fretted about and worriedabout, and so with this, let's
go ahead and let's have a gameshow, and I'm gonna give you
both the choice.

(30:53):
Do you want a game show that'svery broad, historically
speaking, or one that's a littlebit more narrow?
Well, one is just science ingeneral and ones on reproduction
analogy.
I would go more general butI'll defer to mike.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Well, I've had three dollars, I want to go
reproduction.
This let's go with, let's gowith broad.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Alright, we'll start off with broad.
Okay, so I typed in the chatgpt, the authoritative source,
and everything.
That's right.
That's not true, but anyway,what are some biological
breakthroughs throughout historythat were once controversial
but now are mostly accepted?
So biological breakthroughs.
And now you're supposed to listthem and you get a point if

(31:36):
that includes like medicaltechnology to medical biology,
yeah evolution is awful, notimportant alright, evolution is
the first one.
I was thinking more likeanesthesia, you know, like in
surgery right, I don't have the,I don't have the urn, but in,
but I'll just verbally do urn.
That's not on here.
That's a good one.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
That's not on here how about the idea that thought
emerges from the brain, ratherthan say from the harder gut?

Speaker 1 (32:01):
that's not on here's either circulation blood.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
The cell theory would be perhaps controversial as it
sells DNA double helix genetics.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
You know what?
I don't think genetics are onhere keep on going.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Rejection of the four humors or person come a little
bit more specific.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
You're in the broad, a little bit more modern.
Let's go.
I tell you what let's do.
I think let's do germ theoryand after germ theory, that is
right there was a big cause forit.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, so after germ theory.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
I think the rest of these are definitely in the
twenty twenty first century,maybe late 19th, but I think all
the rest of these are in 20thcentury or later.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Let's see, controversy is dealing with 20th
century biological discoveriesand you're saying double helix
is not one idea thathomosexuality is not a mental
disorder.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
It would be that's a good one, but not on here that
you're coming up with good ones,that just.
I think maybe all are smarterthan chat gpt.
This is say that I'm gonnastart every time you get one.
That you know.
Right.
If you agree with chat gpt,that's great.
If you come up with your own,that's not also I will.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
I'll give you a very personal one that I don't know
where they got this, but for ifyou say anything about friction
it's really for a long time.
For a long time, if you notice,in track and field.
Women did not do the pole vaultand I think my father, who was
born in 1925, was the pinion.
Oh yeah, this would be terriblefor their reproduction, is it

(33:31):
that the you know their systemcan't handle the pole vault, so
that's probably not a massivemedical discovery that I think
about like marathon running tolike, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Well, first of all, it's a capabilities you know in
many of my classes I show whatthe world records in marathon
running were in 1925.
It was an hour and ten minutegap and then, once title nine
comes, just plummet some.
What?
Now we're down 1111 11, 11.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
So the general equality of IQ between men and
women that's a good one.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
That's not on here, but that's a good one, all right
.
So now I'm just gonna read.
I'm gonna read these let's go.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
You have to say, you have to guess the chat gpt is
wrong.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
All right, you can criticize, but I'm gonna read
these off and you're gonna tellme whether or not chat gpt said
these.
Okay, yeah, all right,vaccination.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Of course it's controversial stem cell research
.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Of course it's gonna genetically modified organisms
yeah, of course.
The crisper cast nine geneediting, which is something I'm
not very familiar with at all.
The human genome project I didnot remember, I don't remember
the details behind that of whyit was controversial.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Yes, it was such as in frances, collins was a
christian who helped.
That was a big deal, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I thought he'd be an awesome guest to.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Oh, I thought it was gonna be a pocket I never pushed
it.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Will that be even more well?
Maybe not even more awesome.
Maybe he's listening.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
That's right.
That's right.
Almost certainly we can assumeyou've got.
The england is one of your weknow what.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Let's take a little break here for a second, for an
announcement.
Just minutes seriously minutesbefore we started this podcast,
we surpassed 5000 downloads, allyep.
So 5000 downloads over, thatmeans 65 listeners.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
How long has this been going?
When did you start this podcast?

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I don't remember now that november of last year.
So we've just actually I didn'tmake a big deal at the
beginning of the episode eitherthat this is actually Our 40th
episode you know, with my themeof friction we might double that
.
So actually one of the one ofthe notes I wrote to myself to
ask you at the end, we'll justgo ahead and cover it now.
Does this get an explicitWarning on it or not?

(35:50):
So far, michael for a moment.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
I was gonna say, yes, that was a while ago friction
is.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
That's vague.
I mean, it's actually I don'tknow if it's a good or not, but
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
All right well that I just did all this in the middle
of a game show.
Some of the other two that jetchat dp listed and do some be a
dick theory and epigenetics.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, I didn't know epigenetics was controversial
either, but yeah I'll look intothat.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, so don't trust everything you type into.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
So most of the time I read I don't consider
controversial.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
But that's just me, yeah so anyway, thank you for
playing.
Was that your?

Speaker 3 (36:28):
broad game show.
Can we do the narrow?

Speaker 2 (36:31):
one or is?

Speaker 3 (36:32):
it alright, let's do reproduction alright, so Alright
.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Another game show.
Yeah, what medical fertility orinfertility procedures were
once controversial but are nowwidely accepted.
You know what ain't on here andthat's a big miss.
Iud, whatever, that is a swingand a miss by chat GPT, so
repeat this Any sort of.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
I did say medical but Read the question again if you
don't mind.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
What medical fertility and or infertility
procedures were oncecontroversial, but are now
widely accepted In vitro?

Speaker 3 (37:08):
fertilization.
This shows how blessed myfamily's been with us.
We just, you know, my wife islike a petri dish, you know, and
so I should not have said thatthat needs to be cut.
The point is she's very fertileright, so we don't have to go
through it.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
OK, it's getting worse.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
You've just confirmed the explicit rating at least.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yeah, no, you know, I don't know the procedures to
have to go through is my point.
Yes, any others, I'm going tostop talking, all right.
And now it's very rude, drPapese, if you say something
like that.
Yeah, I know, sorry, ok.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Agansperm donation, surrogacy, pre-implementation,
genetic testing, frozen embryotransfer, oblation stimulating
medications and I'm not going tobe able to even say this one
all the way through Gameteintrafalopian transfer and

(38:02):
zygote intrafalopian transfer.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
You didn't give us enough time to guess because I
was an intrafalopian.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
I know, because that was just what.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I was going to say Once again, thank you.
All right, so we got a littlesilly there.
But the point I wanted to makefrom all those is that so often
our first reaction is like thisarticle predicted.
We would react yeah, this isterrible, this is awful, and

(38:30):
many of these things, especiallythe religious communities,
would very often Christiancommunities would very often say
this isn't natural.
Right, this is, look at this,it's a slippery slope.
And maybe this new procedurewithout any human involvement
whatsoever maybe they're rightnow.
This is a slippery slope, but Iwould say that for the most part
, you would ask most Christians,we would embrace all of these

(38:52):
and say what a wonderful thingand what this has helped.
Parents have children and thishas been so, so wonderful.
And my ingrid did not have anyof these procedures, but she was
certainly helped by medicalinnovations.
We had trouble with conceivingearly on.
So the fact that so manymedical innovations have
actually helped in this and wewere initially worried and

(39:13):
concerned what are theimplications of this?
And we've come around to mostlysaying these are good things.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
Real blessings, blessings, that's a good word.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Give it a good word, I mean it's natural for people
to have that response toanything new Does that?

Speaker 1 (39:25):
mean that we are kind of naturally conservative.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah.
I think so I mean yeah, there'sno doubt about it, but it can
be.
Yeah, I mean, maybe there aresome things that we find yucky,
that we should, and other thingsthat are not, but it's not
really a good guide to what'sgood or bad.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
And, on the other hand, I'd say a lack of it just
on account of familiarity isn'tthe final word either about
whether something is disturbingor not, or even if it's not
disturbing, whether it'ssomething that really doesn't
warrant our approval, even ifwe're OK with it.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
I wonder about that.
Just getting off this topic, Iwonder about that.
In a lot of my own life anddecisions I said if I were to be
doing whatever it is Calvinistof the 16th century would just
be blasting me right now forthis.
And then is it just because weare so comfortable in this that
we don't think of it as morallyobjectionable.
And so, as one who goes backinto history quite often, for

(40:16):
pazing, do you find yourselfquestioning things in that way,
comparing your behavior now tothe morality of centuries past?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Oh yeah, definitely yeah.
So I do a lot of work on theearly Christian fathers,
especially the desert fathers,and when you read them I mean
they're kind of severe on somethings.
But then you wonder, they wouldbe very critical of my
lifestyle, I guess, and theyprobably would think I'm too
materialistic and also andthey're right, they're probably
right about that.
But then, on the other hand,there are a lot of things that

(40:44):
people in past ages wouldcriticize about us, that they're
wrong about.
So it doesn't mean that we haveto just accept whatever the
people in past ages thought, butwe should listen to them,
because they may see somethingthat is in our blind spot, that
we're not aware of, as beingsomething that's problematic.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
I think that's well said.
Thank you.
I was reading that in the late90s I heard a different number
that was actually higher in theearly aughts.
But I was reading in the late90s that in the United States
the average number of hours perday of watching television was
six hours and then I heard thatin the early aughts it was
closer to seven or eight hours.
I don't know, I like televisionjust fine, but I mean I think

(41:26):
it would require a really nimbleclever imagination to say this
is good for who we are to spendthat much time sort of in front
of a box looking at a piece offurniture and consider that to
be living well.
But obviously if that's theaverage number for Americans,
that means we're all doing it ora whole lot of people are doing

(41:47):
it.
So again, just becausesomething is comfortable and
relaxed and puts it at easedoesn't mean necessarily, when
we think about it, reflect uponit.
This is we've chosen well.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
I want to go back to this concept that things that
were once controversial we kindof want to come to accept
eventually, and usually we thinkof this as a good and positive
thing.
Do you think that there'scontroversy now around cloning
around Dolly the sheep, and Iguess there still is around
human cloning that we still havekind of drawn a pretty solid
line, Although I've heard somepeople say they're out there

(42:17):
already?

Speaker 2 (42:18):
The clones are out there.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
The clones are out there already and we just don't
know about it.
But somebody is.
In other words, humans can'tresist the restraints.
If we can do it, we're going todo it.
And so there are clones outthere already.
Is the theory, the conspiracytheory, out there at least?
Do we care about Dolly anymore?
I mean, there's been plenty ofcloned animals.
Yes, that's true.
Yeah, and we don't.
I rarely think about Dollyanymore.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, I mean, I remember reading how Dolly, I
think, had maybe a veryuncomfortable, painful early
death.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
I think that was the case.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
And so I think there is always that ethical question.
If you're creating creaturesthat are so in some sense flawed
that they're consigned tosuffering, that's a sentient
creature, and you should takeinto account that.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, well, to that point and you kind of touched on
this earlier, mike Bailey butwhat about parentage of these
embryo-less, spermless creationsthat we now seem to possibly
have the potential to create?
Is it only when people I don'twant to well, we'll use this
language.
Is it kind of we just go up andorder a child and then, when

(43:22):
it's created for us, but sincewe ordered it we've taken
responsibility and it was kindof crafted for us and we didn't
really get into it.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
But you talked about designer babies and I mean I
think that's just too much powerfor people to have is to.
I mean, I would feeluncomfortable forcing any of my
three daughters to choose theirmajor, literally their academic
major, but I feel like that'snot my job to direct their life,
and if a major is way less, say, important than for me to

(43:49):
direct, and because I'm a goodWestern individualist, I
wouldn't want to choose whotheir spouse is either, although
I know that lots of cultures dothat and they tend to have
success.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh, I thought you were about to say, although my
daughter you know, Zach, youknow?
Ah, I know that is not the casewhatsoever.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
So because of that, I feel like that's their life,
and the idea that I would choosea whole array of possible
talents and limitations withoutjust I would think that makes me
feel more like God than itshould be.
And one real problem with thatis what might be valued at any

(44:28):
given time is a function of ourfashion.
So it might be.
I watch, you know, NovakDjokovic and I think, my
goodness, you know, tennis is away to go.
I'm going to design someone whois spectacular at that and
maybe tennis would go by thewayside.
That's a silly example, butwhat may be valued in terms of
our appearances or set of traitsor attributes may not be what's

(44:49):
called for later.
And here I've consigned them to, you know, that particular set
of traits, Whereas if it's justrandom, it's, and it's also a
product, not just to myself, butit's a generation, a random
sort of tumble of genetics froma partner.
That seems to be very different.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
I am not willing to go down this road, but the
standard of what counted asbeautiful when we were children
and the standard of what isconsidered beautiful now,
there's been quite a big shift,even in just one generation.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
What about if it could prevent genetic diseases?
You know thin, using thetechnology to produce embryos
that don't have certain that wecan do it better than God.
Well, we do that anyway, right?
I mean, in other words, we'reconstantly taking care of
ourselves in ways in which we'reinventing medicines and
antibiotics to prevent diseasesthat are natural, that are part

(45:39):
of the natural world.
So medicine is basically doingthat already.
This is just taking it at adifferent level.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
I mean, my initial reaction right?
Is that?
My honest initial reaction isthat this is bad.
But then you point out thatonce you're born, we actually do
try to remedy problems, we tryto get rid of suffering, we try
to cure sicknesses, and whywould we just not do that?
Genetically, I guess, myinitial reaction is I can't
explain why I have this feeling,but I do.
But my follow-up to that wouldbe is that we have always

(46:10):
politicized some sorts ofbehaviors as pathological or
psychotic or criminal, thatclearly just reflect the time,
so ensuring that someone isn'tset, you know, attracted to the
same sex or, you know, we suremight be able to impose other
kinds of views that later on weregret.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a very good point, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
I agree, I mean the.
I guess the issue is can wedraw that line between purely
medical physical disease and, Iguess, psychiatric conditions?
That you know where thatchanges and it's kind of
subjective whether something isa Psychiatric disease or not.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
I mean, life is it's also.
It's so enormously complicatedto To say, okay, someone is
subject to anxiety or someone tosubject to Depression, and so
therefore, we're going to try towire this person so that they
always have a cheerful,optimistic outlook.
You just got rid of Lincoln.
Oh, yeah, sure, if you did that.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
You know a lot of us.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Yeah, that's right.
Well, that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I mean, it's one thing to try to get rid of
cystic fibrosis or sickle cellanemia, it's another to get rid
of anxious people, because Ithink you'd get rid of me.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Seems to be a common theme in many of our episodes
just our Anxiety and our worryover where the technology is
taking us.
Sometimes we talk about it in avery broad way.
Sometimes, in this case, we'retalking about a very specific
procedure that hasn't even beenperfected yet, but just out
there on the horizon.
Is it?
Is there something aboutReligiosity in particular that

(47:44):
makes us worried about thefuture?
Or is just?
Is this just the humancondition, with the pace of
change that's going on in ourpost-industrial society, that
that we just fear what's comingdown the pike?
I mean, what a great question.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
You want to remember.
Well, I don't necessarily seereligiosity as necessarily
always conservative.
It often is right, but on theother hand it can be
revolutionary.
I mean, I think Christ was.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
I think that's a very good point, and one that we
probably need to have a podcastto offset some of the right.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
I mean it's true you often associate religions with
conservative traditionalism andall, but just think about how
religions upset Tradition, right?
I mean, in other words, youknow it's not just Christianity,
but that's a great example of areligion that really Transforms
the world in many real, veryreal ways.
So I think that if you get thebroader picture of the history

(48:33):
of Religions, you'll see thatit's not.
In some sense there is thattradition that's carried over
generations, but it's alsocausing us to change and to
think about the world indifferent ways.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
And that fits in very clearly with the notion that
God is making us a new creation.
Right that I've really liked itwhen hear people say God just
was not the creator, but God isalways in the process of
creating, and so that there isalways something new and the
idea of the Holy Spirittransforming us as well.
Yeah, it's forming us sothere's very much that idea that
the change in ourselves andchange in the world can be good

(49:08):
and positive and we're made inthe image of God, so we're
creators too.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
In other words, our task, or the gift that God has
given us, is that we alsocontinue in that creation.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Fantastic point.
Does this mean that we're onlyscared when it's technology
that's taking us into the future?

Speaker 3 (49:22):
No, of course, not me .
I think there's all scared ofeverything.
We're scared differences, we'rescared of new kinds of people
who've never seen before.
You know, yeah, I think that Ivery.
I think I'll say that I'mresponsible for being the person
who brings this theme in,because it is an Important theme
to me of the way in which thehuman predicament, I think,
changes on account of technology, and Not to go into, I really

(49:45):
will try not to belabor thepoint but my own sense is that
Christianity, and maybe evenancient understandings, that
non-Christian paganunderstandings of the human
condition or the humanpredicament, was that we were
all faced with inexorable,really non-negotiable Limits,
and so, therefore, our task isto deal with grace and

(50:09):
thoughtfully with those limits,and so elaborate real quickly
what you mean by we're facedwith limits.
A lot of life is hard, a lot oflife is painful, and then we
almost all die before we wouldhave it up to ourselves to die,
and our children are going to besuffering through this, and so
when we give birth to kids, weknow that they're actually faced
with the same horrible types ofProspects that we are going to,

(50:32):
and that is very painful, andso the consolation of religion
is One that it's still worth itbecause love is transcendent.
And it's still worth it becausewe are part of a Cosmic project
of which we have Value and, eventhough it's marked by pain and
suffering, is it is redemptivein some sort of way that even

(50:54):
points to eternity.
And I think that philosophywould suggest that, yes, we're
limited, but we should attachourselves as much as possible to
that which is permanent, whichis probably reason or truth, and
what that also means is we haveto sort of face reality for
what it is, and so, likestoicism and other types of
ancient beliefs would say thatwhat we're called to do is to

(51:16):
accept those limits and again tolive with some Honor, nobility
and grace within them.
And I think the modern projectis one where, essentially, what
we're trying to do is becomelike God and we're trying to
control our lives and perfectlyto control nature, to and to see
other human beings and to seeanimals and to see the earth as

(51:38):
a resource for our own control,our own happiness and our own
Mastery.
And I think in the last twocenturies, since the industrial
revolution, and what we'vereally done is we've become
beings really who Understandtheir lives.
Even we don't understand ourlives been puts wholly into the
service of Continuing technology, and I think that we are means

(51:59):
to an end rather than an end initself.
So, yeah, I'm worried about itbecause I think it's changed the
human predicament.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Michael Paisley, I was gonna give you the last word
, but I would say that waspretty.
I thought that was an eloquentending for us.
I agree lengthy but eloquent.
Thank you guys.
So much.
Turn out bigger conversation?

Speaker 3 (52:19):
No, you think yeah, yeah, maybe a few moments
regrettable perhaps.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Nothing that a little editing can't fix.
Let's say that we'll see.
Well, I want to thank ouraudience for sitting around the
table with us today.
I hope that we have providedyou with some food for thought
and giving you something to chewon.
But we aren't done yet.
After we finish the music, wealways have some leftovers for
you to enjoy, some additionalthoughts we share with one
another after we wrap up.
So feel free to continuelistening and we appreciate your

(52:50):
support.
All five thousand downloads weappreciate.
As part of that support, pleaseconsider subscribing, rating
and reviewing church potluckwherever you are downloading it,
until we gather around thetable next time this has been
church potluck.
Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Yeah, so that one, I mean one point that I didn't I'm
struggling to Express, is it?
And I've talked about a littlebit for here and potluck is.
I do find the interestingquestion of just how do we know
what a person is and what is theperson?
What is a?
What are sort of the, the, themoral, ethical values and

(53:40):
Special status that you have onaccount of being a person.
Let me stop you, right there.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
I didn't, I didn't press you.
Would these folks be people,persons in your in your course.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's there's no doubt that
they'd be persons.
What?
What I'm, what I'm beginning to, never really wondered before,
though, is whether I've alwaysthought of persons as sort of
like an end in themselves, andand once you know that a person,
the a being is, a person is,they have a certain set of
traits.
Yeah, I mean, philosophersdisagree, but, like usually,

(54:10):
like imagination, a sense ofyour own that you control your
own life, you have a choice thatyou can make, ethical choices,
reason, language, will, volition, all sorts of things like that,
but what I've never reallythought about is is being a
human being, that is, in theform that we are, with our
biology and with our limits, andbeing born here on this planet

(54:32):
in the normal way that we'reborn.
Do those human elementsgenuinely qualify the nature of
what it means to be a person?
In other words, there is aperson, a person, a person,
whether you're an angel atartificial intelligence, a
dolphin or a human, and I thinkwhat religion tells you, or

(54:53):
Christianity in particular says,is it really matters that you
are a certain type of creature,that you are a human being, and
human beings in the past haveAlways been able to say they're
part of a race that they cantrace back to Adam and Eve, or
you can just trace back, but arewe going to see ourselves?

(55:13):
What does it mean to a personto think that, no, you're
basically the same thing as thatcomputer.
That was you were made and yetyou can do your own thing.
But you start from.
You started fresh in 2023 andyou aren't connected to these
other people.
You have the human race.
Yes, you were Identical inappearance, but you don't share

(55:36):
this one really important thing.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, wow you know, what that kind of Touches upon.
Westworld Y'all are justlooking at me, young, much about
with the HBO.
Oh, dude, if you haven'twatched Westworld, we got to
find a way for you to watchWestworld, especially the first
season, first two seasons.
I don't think I even watchedthe third season, but it would
hit on these issues for you sohard.

(55:59):
They're the robots Okay, yeah,but a robot to do everything
Human.
And they start realizing thatand they realize that they are
separate and different from oh,interesting, it's, it's, it's,
yeah yeah just deals with theseissues in a very big way.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
I was actually just gonna take this Just a brief
tangent.
But this might also be aproblem for the doctrine of
original sin you mentioned likethat.
Oh, you know, these embryos arenot children of Adam and so at
least according to Augustinianand Western understanding of
original sin, they would beexempt from Original sin.

(56:37):
Now, not all Christians acceptthat doctrine, but it just seems
like that could be aninteresting Issue to pursue
Theologically here.
Yeah, I'll stop there.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
No, that's, that's.
That's very intriguing.
Yeah, I mean, I don't where didthese, where did this come from
?
Again we, or do we have a goodsense?
Even?

Speaker 3 (56:59):
No no.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
No, these, these cells, these embryos, I mean, if
it's not sperm, if it's notsome cells and I'm not a stem
cell- expert.
But okay, so, but stem cellsare still coming from humans.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
They are, yeah yeah, all right, so it still is.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
It is originally human tissue, then right, all
right, so I didn't catch that.
So what it have the DNA of?
That's a great question.
Yeah, these cells.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
It should have the DNA of those cells right as far
as I know, but there's no.
It's not like a.
It's not the sperm and the eggcoming together and forming a
zygote right.
That's not happening in thesecases.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
But it still is human , material that's creating this
being.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
It's still human material, and I'm assuming they
have the full genetic componentof a human being, which is what
we're kind of saying is asufficient condition, I believe,
like for personhood, if not anecessary condition, and so they
would be humans and persons too, on that view.
But they're not the result ofsexual friction.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Yeah, they'd be.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
And according to Augustine, then they're exempt
from.
I believe you know they'd beexempt from original sin in that
case.
I mean that's why Jesus isexempt.
Right, because you didn't havea human father.
Right Because the sin comesthrough the father.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
So they're humans 2.0 .
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
So this could be a great science fiction
theological novel.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
I'm working.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
I should work on this .

Speaker 1 (58:28):
There you go.
I think this is a very goodnext big project for you, sir.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I have a good friend who is also a professor, but
he'll listen to me kind of justgo on and on about some sort of
philosophical question orconundrum and you know
everyone's wanted to say.
You know, if you just watchedscience fiction you would have
encountered this a long time ago.
So it's sort of the same.
You know, these science fictionauthors do contemplate all

(58:54):
sorts of alternative realities.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
And I've never been a big science fiction person
until a student will come up tome and say, oh, that reminds me
of this and this and this show,and I say I forget just how much
literature, and science fictionin particular, deals with the
human condition just in verycreative ways, and then just
sort of be on my creativehorizon.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
And I think some people might say these embryos
are not persons, right, becauseI mean even within the Christian
tradition, right, it wasn'tAquinas claim that.
You know, it wasn't until thewhat was?
I think there was a genderdifference, right, that male
fetuses become and sold in thethird month, or something like
that, and females in the fifthmonth, very specific.

(59:38):
So there yeah, yeah, yeah, but Idon't know if that's exactly
true.
I mean, I'd have to look.
I don't believe that's true atall, but I'm not sure exactly if
that's what Aquinas said.
But this idea that you're notin soul, you're not a person
until you have a soul, and therewas this understanding that
that might happen later thanwhat we define as the moment of

(59:58):
conception.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
That's interesting, because you don't hear that ever
coming up.
You don't hear any of theancient theologians ever coming
up in the abortion debate.
You know that.
Oh, aquinas said that there'sno soul in there until you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
X month.
All of that is.
I mean, there's just, it's justendlessly, I think, complicated
and tricky to know to whatextent.
To what extent is your moralstatus depend upon your capacity
and what extent is it?

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
and that's sort of like even just saying it that
way just gives you a little bitof a feeling of discomfort,
right yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
right.
So if you have dementia, do youhave all the rights that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
you did before.
Yeah, that's the problem withdefining personhood, that's
right, and so we'd like to.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
I tend to think of it as you're part of a being, a
type of creature, a type ofbeing that that type of creature
characteristically is, you know, characteristically has the
marks of, say, reason and willand so on.
But why, I mean, why do youpersonally not have to be one of

(01:01:02):
those?
And I know that.
You know, biologists don't evenlike the idea of beings, they
like that populations.
So you just have these breedingpopulations.
You're not part of the breedingpopulation, you're a different
species.
But they don't like to thinkabout the essence of a type of
creature, because they're alwaysevolving and changing and
there's no like essence of dog.
There's just these creaturesthat reproduce, you know.

(01:01:25):
And if they don't reproduce,then you know you don't fall
into the dog family.
That somehow fit together, allmy mind.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
But my, my yeah, I get.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
My point is that there's a whole lot of people
who, I would say, absolutelydeserve our moral regard and
respect and attention, who haveit not because they have other
capabilities that we think of asassociated with personhood,
like agency and imagination, away of planning out their life

(01:01:54):
and all the rest of it, butthey're connected to,
biologically, a family ofcreatures that does, but I don't
know a reason within liberalismto do that.
I mean, I think that's muchmore of a spiritual Christian
perspective.
It doesn't have to be Christian, but the idea that you were
made human.

(01:02:14):
Some you're going to havedifferent traits, but you're
just equally human.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
I don't think we resolved anything, but that's
not the purpose of the of theshow.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
So I didn't resolve anything, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Well, I guess it should be taken as a challenge
by liberal philosophers to tryto address this, because
liberalism have the resources toperhaps recognize something
like personhood in a secular way.
And I guess the question is Imean, you know, you're skeptical
, mike, you're saying is youdon't think that it's possible?

(01:02:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
I mean some sort of Turing test.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Right, yeah, are you reason like us?
Do you act like us?
Can we tell you that?
Can we tell that you were?

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
a lot of different ways, but the question I guess
the challenge for the liberal isto is to try to come up with a
way that you can have some ofthe benefits of the religious
beliefs without being religious.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I mean there's so much about liberalism that I
mean again going back to theidea of just.
We're born free and equal.
We're not.
No one has the sort of bornwith the right to rule over
others.
Everyone is accorded justicethat notion of rights and
associated with democracy andfreedom and all that good jazz.
I love that stuff, I really do.
But you know, is it, is itcomplete?

(01:03:34):
Is it a sufficient ethicalframework to explain everything?

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And I don't think it is.
It's not.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
No, I don't think it is, and I think it's taken to a
limit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
It's just as scary and bad as almost any other
incomplete, bad, ethical youknow, and the answer might be to
have some hybrid kind of systemwhere you have, you know,
liberalism to a certain extent,but then you have these
anti-liberal institutions rightin your society.
Now the question is whetherwhat are the foundations for
those institutions?

(01:04:06):
Yeah right, can liberalism propthose things up?
But I mean to a large extentand you know we talked about
Peter Lawler earlier, but Ithink if you were here you would
mention institutions like thechurch, like religious
institutions, but also collegesand universities, like Barry too
, are serving as we in some way.
In some sense we're elitists,right, so we're anti-liberal in

(01:04:27):
a way, and we are teaching thetradition, you know, in our
classes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I'd say number one in value and number one in
undergraduate teaching is veryelitist.
That's the college in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Yes, yes, very elite, but that's good.
We want that right Becauseliberalism cuts everything down
to size and doesn't care abouttraditions.
Here at a college, even thoughwe are, you know, losing ground
perhaps to liberalism, and youknow the whole idea of, you know
, being a place to get a job, weshould be more than that right.

(01:05:02):
We're also, as scholars, asprofessors and as students, you
know, continuing and carrying onand passing on this great
tradition that transcendsliberalism.
Liberalism allows us to, youknow, be free and to recognize
each other's rights, but, on theother hand, we also need to

(01:05:25):
feel part of this greattradition as well, or?

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
traditions.
Problem with liberalism, I mean, is almost like you know,
lincoln said, you know, a housedivided cannot stand.
I mean, liberalism just takesover everything.
Yeah, that's the answer.
I mean the market takes overeverything.
Just that notion.
I mean it is just, and I thinkyou could argue maybe not with
Hobbes, but you could argue withthis.

(01:05:49):
John Locke, who was one of thefirst really smart persons to
articulate some of theseprinciples way back in the 17th
century, is that I think youcould maybe read him as
suggesting that these liberalprinciples really are most
applicable to politics.

(01:06:09):
So, but they don't work quiteas well as talking about the
family.
Actually, he does do a littlebit of that as well.
He does, he does, but I mean, Ithink you could argue he opens
the door to this.
You know he does.
But I think you can argue thatliberalism is really thus far
the best-invented set of beliefsto deal with making government

(01:06:31):
decent.
But we wouldn't necessarilywant to apply it to other
institutions.
And how do you do this kind ofhybrid thing?
I don't think we've figuredthis out.
Oh no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
So a little churchillian liberalism is the
worst political system.
Well, I think it's a reallyExcept for all the others.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
I think it's a great political system.
I'm not so sure that democracyand liberalism is a really great
way of organizing the church ororganizing academics or maybe
even organizing the family oreven other kinds of groups where
we want to sacrifice for thegroup.
We want to see the group as,first and foremost, that we

(01:07:14):
might be comfortable withdivisions, labor that are sort
of traditional.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
So I think Don't look at another podcast for another
day.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Yeah, maybe no.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
I think so.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
I think so.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Well, I didn't figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
I thought we, yeah, we didn't, I thought by now we
would have solved all theseproblems.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
You know it was like 45, 50 minutes of talking about
this and we didn't resolve it.
I mean what?
At least we know what theproblem is.
Yeah, we know what the problemis now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Yeah, and we've done 40 podcasts, but I've no, no, no
, no, no closer to having thewisdom of the world than when I
started.
So but I'm having fun.
I'm having fun, yeah, lots ofgood questions, and folks that
are listening seem to beenjoying it as well, which is
cool.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
That's good 5,000 times.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
All right.
Well, thank you all very much,Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Thank you.