Playing god

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Movie Review: I am Legend, Will Smith and the Dangers of playing god with Food and Medicine Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

It should also serve as a reminder to us all, teaching us to act with extreme caution when we're considering playing god with human DNA. Of course, it's not just human DNA that should concern us; it's also the DNA of the plants that feed our world. I think that human civilization will someday have a huge price to pay for relying on genetically-engineered crops like GM soybeans and GM corn while ignoring the tremendous importance of agricultural biodiversity.

On top of that, biotech companies are now playing god with the human genome, trying to figure out ways to create new, high-profit blockbuster drugs that selectively alter human genes to "cure disease" (or at least manage the disease without actually curing it so that patients need to keep buying more drugs).

Asthma Controlled Naturally: Techniques That Work Dr Ron Roberts See book keywords and concepts

Identifying Additives Food companies sometimes seem to the outsider to be playing god with our health and our lives because of their use of additives, preservatives and artificial colourings. However, consumers have some help, as there are now government guidelines controlling food labelling. All ingredients in a manufactured food must be listed on the label or packaging somewhere in descending order by weight. For those of us who are asthmatic and allergic to certain additives, or who are following a restricted diet, knowledge of the ingredients is vital.

The future of food: Why GM crops threaten the sustainability of the human race (opinion) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

What's at risk: the future of human life on planet Earth In this cartoon, the farmer character is fretting over something the entire human race is going to suddenly realize one day: playing god with seeds and the food supply for the purpose of extracting maximum corporate profits is to plae the very future of humankind at extreme risk. Suppose the terminator gene crops somehow cross-pollinate staple food crops that now feed the world... what happens then? Imagine all the wheat grown in the United States suddenly self-destructing after a single growing season.

REPPED: Corporations like Monsanto are playing god with the food supply. Did you ever wonder what happens when all the genetically modified, pesticide-compatible, gene-terminated, laboratory-concocted Frankenfoods end up genetically contaminating the natural crops we depend on for a sustainable food future? In a new CounterThink cartoon published today, I explore this important concept by showing the plight of a farmer fretting over an empty bag of seedless watermelon seeds. You may find this surprising to learn, but U.S.

The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World Lynne McTaggart See book keywords and concepts

If Rosenbaum was playing god with his spin glasses the crystal was Adam, stubbornly refusing to obey His most fundamental law. Sharing Rosenbaum's curiosity about the strange property of the crystal compound was a young student called Sayantani Ghosh, one of his star Ph.D. candidates. Sai, as her friends called her, a native of India, had graduated with a first-class honors degree from Cambridge, and had then chosen Tom's lab for her doctoral program in 1999.

Gene therapy and genetic engineering: the future of medicine? Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

We'd have to mature a long, long way before we're truly ready to start playing god with out own genetic code. But if that point is ever reached, there are truly incredible possibilities for uplifting human civilization. What if we were to engineer larger brain mass? Now, obviously there's a limit to the size of brain able to fit the human species in terms of the birth process, but what if you were to increase brain mass density or size and essentially give the next generation new hardware for higher intelligence? What would they do with that hardware?

The New Optimum Nutrition Bible Patrick Holford See book keywords and concepts

Rather than trying to "control" a person's health by playing god with high-tech medicine, a new way of looking at health has emerged that considers a human being as a whole, with an interconnected mind and body designed to adapt to health if the circumstances are right. Of course, this adaptive capacity is not the same for everyone. We are each born with different strengths and weaknesses and different levels of resilience—some of us have what is popularly called "good genes" or come from "good stock," and some of us do not.

Do We Still Need Doctors?: A Physician's Personal Account of Practicing Medicine Today John D. Lantos, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Perhaps in response to our own unrealistic expectations, we begin to imagine and to become concerned that our doctors might be "playing God." This is partly a fear and partly a desperate hope. The phrase is interesting. It implies a certain conception of what God is or does, and imagines that we can now begin to be and do likewise. It has a Promethean hubris and self-flattery about it that either overestimates our own powers or denigrates any meaningful conception of the powers of God. The conceit that we are playing god is, itself, and somewhat charmingly, all too human.

Food, Inc. Mendel to Monsanto - The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest Peter Pringle See book keywords and concepts

On the question of humans "playing God," the church pointed out that "much technology and most medicine is based on human intervention in the natural processes. Human beings are themselves part of nature, creatures within creation." Therefore, human discovery and invention could be seen as the exercise of God-given powers of mind and reason. To have the power to invent was what it meant to be "in the image of God.

Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

To paraphrase a story of Larry LeShan's: Doctors are busy playing god when so few of us have the qualifications. And besides the job is taken. playing god leads to self-destruction. Many colleges are now trying to teach compassion through courses in humanistic medicine, but perhaps the admission of more women to the profession will gradually do more to end this pathetic bravado. The best physicians are those who can find both the "masculine" and "feminine" virtues that exist within their personalities—the ability to make tough decisions and yet remain compassionate and caring.

Do We Still Need Doctors?: A Physician's Personal Account of Practicing Medicine Today John D. Lantos, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

The conceit that we are playing god is, itself, and somewhat charmingly, all too human. Our concerns about "playing God" seem to reflect one of two things. They may reflect a belief that we can now understand and control the universe, that we have the power of God. As we unravel the human genome and begin to create and patent new life forms, we may feel as if we can direct evolution. Once we stole fire from the gods; now we steal chromosomes.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill Robert Whitaker See book keywords and concepts

Galton saw eugenics as a new religion, and indeed, it was a science that would have eugenicists, in essence, playing god. "What Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly," he boasted.6 In this new eugenic view of humankind, the severely mentally ill were seen as among the most unfit. Negroes, the poor, criminals— they were all viewed as unfit to some degree. But insanity, it was argued, was the end stage of a progressive deterioration in a family's germ plasm.

Reinheriting the Earth: Awakening to Sustainable Solutions and Greater Truths Brian O'Leary See book keywords and concepts

Moreover, the feedback loops are too many and too complex to be playing god with Gaia; the only elegant solution in the long run is to cut to the quick of the problem. Getting back to the task of preserving and replanting our trees, we must become aware that the ownership of our precious remaining forests is widely distributed and subject to exploitation. In fact, only eight per cent of the world's forests are protected.15 The consequences of continuing current practices are grave, and an international system of protection must exceed the paltry efforts of the United Nations.

Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom Richard Leviton See book keywords and concepts

Weeder finds that the experiences of his four years of medical training gave him an almost palpable sense of "playing God" that in its responsibility over life and death was both "outrageous and blasphemous." Just as, according to Steiner, the Mexican apprentice developed a certain mood of soul through his ritual murder of victims, so Weeder found that playing god in the hospital has an insidious way of changing his state of mind in all aspects of his life. "He was becoming an expert on everything.

Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

And besides the job is taken. playing god leads to self-destruction. Many colleges are now trying to teach compassion through courses in humanistic medicine, but perhaps the admission of more women to the profession will gradually do more to end this pathetic bravado. The best physicians are those who can find both the "masculine" and "feminine" virtues that exist within their personalities—the ability to make tough decisions and yet remain compassionate and caring. Neither extreme makes a good physician.

Do We Still Need Doctors?: A Physician's Personal Account of Practicing Medicine Today John D. Lantos, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

In either case, the concerns about playing god suggest that we are really worried about the very human role of doctors and that our anxiety is as much spiritual as it is political or economic or scientific. We need to distinguish what we do from what God does, and we worry that the distinctions are no longer clear. We are just not sure anymore whether we want doctors to be all too human or imperfectly divine. We are unsure on a number of levels. One of the most important is medical education. To the extent that we know what doctors are, we ought to know how to prepare them.

Our concerns about "playing God" seem to reflect one of two things. They may reflect a belief that we can now understand and control the universe, that we have the power of God. As we unravel the human genome and begin to create and patent new life forms, we may feel as if we can direct evolution. Once we stole fire from the gods; now we steal chromosomes. Alternatively, our concerns may reflect the fear that our fledgling powers to manipulate biologic systems create moral dilemmas for which we are frighteningly unprepared.

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.