On the way home from the ICRC (inter-church relations committee) meeting I rather suddenly became ill. Lots of people had to be told, since I didn’t feel able to celebrate the evening eucharist. It was pretty grim till 7.30 pm, then very suddenly over. I was just pondering whether I could risk nibbling on some rice, when I got a text from someone who said that in her family there was a tradition of ‘poorly presents’ and mine was hanging on the door. How lovely.
I decided it was time for autumn hills.
Not sure if it will stay, or if the call of the sea will prove too strong.
The announcement came tonight of the creation of an artificial life form.
The official announcement, at least. When I went looking for links, I gather this has been known for a few months, but I had somehow missed it.
Craig Ventner, who was at the heart of the human genome project, has created a synthetic chromosome based on a bacterium which has been pared down to what is essential for life.
(stop to breathe, while you ponder that phrase)
The synthetic chromosome is then implanted in a live cell, at which point it becomes, in effect, a new life form. There is a much fuller (and more reliable) description here if you want it.
And I find I don’t know what to think. One part of me simply has to acknowledge the skill of this and rejoice in the complexity of the human mind. Another part of me screams, ‘no, we mustn’t do this.’
What frightens me most is that there are so few people in the world who can think sensibly about both the science and the morality (not to mention the theology) of it.
How can we decide what is right when we do not begin to understand the consequences of our actions? Is there a basic taboo in place (human beings have no place creating life forms) or is this too part of freedom God gives us?
I cannot make sense of it. So I will take refuge in poetry instead:
And where do I go
from here? I have looked in
through the windows of their glass
laboratories and seen them plotting
the future, and have put a cross
there at the bottom
of the working out of their problems to
prove to them that they were wrong.
R. S. Thomas
from The Echoes Return Slow
So today we have learnt that Dumbledore is gay.
Peter Tatchall rejoices: ‘It’s good that children’s literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society.’
But now, I find myself in a dilemma.
I would have no issue with Dumbledore being gay.
I can even see the line of thought that says that his evil rival was his true love.
But given the several thousand pages Rowling had to play out her cards, is she really allowed to be so explicit now?
Surely we may suspect that Dumbledore is gay, we may be right in our supposing, but we cannot say that he is given his utter silence on the matter for so many centuries (of pages, you understand).
Now, as for whether he is really Piskie…
wonderful exchange 