Moral issues

GE to Test Drug Toxicity on Human Embryos, Not Lab Rats

Here we go down the slippery slope. PETA will be very happy that rats will be spared.
CNSNews | Monica Gabriel | July 9, 2009

GE Healthcare, the medical research subsidiary of General Electric, has formed a partnership with a leading U.S. biotech company to develop products based on human embryonic stem cells that can be used to develop new drugs.

On June 30, GE Healthcare and Geron Corporation announced a multi-year alliance where Geron will provide GE scientists with an undisclosed amount of human embryonic stem cells. [Read more…]

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Keeping Students Connected to the Orthodox Church

AOCA | Fr. Kevin Scherer | Summer 2009

“Keeping Our College Students Connected to the Church” is a tagline for Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF). You’ll find it throughout our literature and even on our stationery. It says concisely what we believe to be our primary mission. I’ve spent hours thinking about it, talking about it, and wrestling with it. To be honest, I think it needs some unpacking, some clarification.

When I see the word “keeping,” I wonder whether some people unconsciously expect OCF to handcuff students to the church pew—because we know what’s best for them! The word “keeping” conveys the idea of preservation. The question is: What are we preserving? It’s helpful, I think, to reflect on the why, what, how, and who of keeping students connected to the Church. [Read more…]

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The Church Everywhere

BreakPoint | Stephen Reed | May 29, 2009

Chuck Colson is fond of saying that the church shines brightest in tough times. History appears to support BreakPoint’s founder on this, as Christians have served extraordinarily well in a variety of ways during economic difficulties and social unrest. John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Mother Teresa—none of them had ideal circumstances in which to operate. That is why their respective ministries were so needed.

So what happened to America? Here we are, known far and wide as the most religious country in the West, and yet people constantly turn to the government more than the church in times of crisis. President Obama’s approach of having the federal government bail out banks, the automotive industry, and now perhaps even credit card users makes him the man of the moment. Obviously, even if the nation’s churches banded together and gave sacrificially to bail out all these entities, we probably couldn’t pull it off. [Read more…]

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Cowards, Sorcerers and Murderers

OrthodoxyToday.org | John Kapsalis | May 2009

If any of us ever found ourselves in a situation where we witnessed a car accident, I’d like to think that we would all stop and help, no matter how inconvenient. Or if we had to intervene to save someone from being assaulted, surely we would get involved no matter what the cost to us. It would be the right thing to do. After all, if we didn’t we would be wracked not only by guilt but also by shame. Who could live with themselves as a coward in such circumstances?

Yet everyday most of us act like cowards. Not because we don’t stop to help someone in need, but rather because we stand idly by while millions of people die moment by moment without knowing that God loves them. We are cowards because there is family and friends who have no relationship with Jesus Christ and we casually spend endless hours and years talking about everything under the sun, except telling them about the treasures of knowing Christ. [Read more…]

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Hollywood to Teenagers: Virginity’s for Suckers

Breitbart | Steven Crowder | May 12, 2009

Is there anything more abnormal than being a mid-teen virgin in the year 2009? Not if you’d hear Hollywood tell it. After watching a slew of teen-movies this weekend, I feel quite pathetic. It seems that all this time, I’ve been trying to follow my convictions and make a difference in this world, when I really should have been spending my time scoring with chicks. Has anybody else out there come to this realization as of late? [Read more…]

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War is Hell

American Thinker | Bruce Walker | May 12, 2009

Sherman was right: War is Hell. The current war against the Judeo-Christian world waged by al-Qaida and other radical Moslems is no different. War is Hell and Hell is full of torments. Our role, as children of a Loving God, is to make that Hell and those torments as quick, as slight, and as limited as possible. But it is not our power to end pain, to make peace, or to stop torture.

We cannot stop a Holocaust without inflicting pain. We cannot end the Gulag without hurting people. We cannot free slaves without the horror of civil war. We can be silent, passive, and helpless in the face of evil, and, perhaps, survive. But we cannot stop evil without fighting evil, and that battle cannot be conducted without hurting people. [Read more…]

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Moral Education for the New Order

AmericanThinker | Kyle-Anne Shiver | Apr. 14, 2009

The Rasmussen folks last week revealed a poll wherein American young people are just about evenly divided on whether they prefer capitalism to socialism. Among our under-30 crowd, 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided.

Sucking at the teat of the state has never looked so good, apparently. Well, this certainly helps explain Obamamania. [Read more…]

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New Broadway Play About Hero Who Is Religious!

Townhall | Dennis Prager | Mar. 31, 2009

It is rare to see a play on Broadway that is preoccupied with goodness. It is even more rare to see Broadway play extol the goodness of a religious person. When was the last Broadway show about a Christian hero? In this upside-down age that is hypersensitive to any criticism, no matter how fair, of any aspect of Islam but which regularly depicts many American Christians as buffoons and quasi-fascists, one can only hope that this play has a long run. Likewise, in an age when art increasingly celebrates the ugly and the bad, one can only hope that a million young people see a play that celebrates the goodness that God-based morality can produce. [Read more…]

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Pro-Life Groups Blast Obama for Funding Research Destroying Human Life

LifeNews.com | Steven Ertelt | March 9, 2009

Washington, DC — Responding to President Barack Obama’s decision to force taxpayers to fund research destroying human lives, pro-life groups unanimously condemned his move. They said Obama ignored the ethical considerations as well as adult stem cells and other alternatives that are actually helping patients.

Recent advances in reprogramming cells — induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) — only bolster the case that this new policy is nothing short of wasteful, pro-life advocates say. [Read more…]

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How Democracies Become Tyrannies

American Thinker | Ed Kaitz | Feb. 16, 2009

Back in 1959 the philosopher Eric Hoffer had this to say about Americans and America: “For those who want to be left alone to realize their capacities and talents this is an ideal country.”

That was then. This is now. Flash forward fifty years to the election of Barack Obama and a hard left leaning Democrat Congress. What Americans want today, apparently, is a government that has no intention of leaving any of us alone.

How could Hoffer have been so wrong about America? Why did America change so quickly? Can a free people willingly choose servitude? Is it possible for democracies to become tyrannies? How? [Read more…]

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