Scientism on the March
So, a new think tank, with the eye-glazing name Center for Inquiry-Transnational, has been started to promote public policy based on "science," instead of religion. (Naturally, it got a big play in the Washington Post.) But this is nonsensical. Science is a method of obtaining and applying information. In that sense, it is amoral. It cannot tell us right from wrong, good from evil, or indeed, set policy priorities.
Scientism, however, can. Scientism is akin to religious belief in that it presumes that science is the only legitimate source of Truth. As such, it has its own views of right and wrong, and indeed, heresy and apostasy. (Just try to be a scientist with a heterodox view on issues such as cloning or global warming and you will feel like you are facing the Inquisition.)
What the Center for Inquiry-Transnational is really after is the supplanting of Judeo/Christian values as the primary basis of public policy with the utilitarian mindset of religious/philosophical scientism. This actually undermines science by co-opting the justifiable respect people have for the method and mutating it into a controversial ideology, which as part of its dogma, denies the intrinsic value of human life simply and merely because it is human.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:36 AM
32 Comments
32 Comments:
Wesley: "What the Center for Inquiry-Transnational is really after is the supplanting of Judeo/Christian values as the primary basis of public policy with the utilitarian mindset of religious/philosophical scientism."
Absolutely! As its web site clearly states, this is a project of the people behind the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). These folks are the hardest of the hard-core materialist Skeptics, and basically loathe all religion (other than scientism, that is!). An objective voice? Hardly!
There is a growing trend of intellectuals - progressive, populist and conservative - to spearhead a movement against religion.
I am reading Sam Harris's " The End of Faith" and may read his "Letter to a Christian Nation".
Though our topic here is bioethics, I find that Sam Harris and, I hope, other "responsible" secular thinkers like your own nemesis, John Derbyshire are conflicted on at least 2 issues at the heart of our continued existence as a pluralistic society. In order to "defeat" religion, they will have to actively be intolerant of religion in public policy not just dismissive academically and personally. This strikes at the heart of Western "tolerance" as the supreme virtue. It brings up that the only rational way to look at the last 100 years is how more than totalitarianism, it was marked by oppression and genocidal action against people of faith.
Secondly, this century is shaping up to be a conflict of civilizations, most prominently between Islam and the West. Harris recognizes that as we weaken true faith, the secularists have lost a great social glue and counterweight to the tide of Islam.
To get back to bioethics, I believe the other 2 civilization conflicts that face us AFTER Islam, are 1)the continuing fight against totalitarianism (whether morphed into the state capitalist/fascist China or the petty oil or narco regimes of Arabia and Latin America and 2) the scientific / corporate / globalist move toward control of human destiny. My sense is that powerful elites of #2 heady with secularist and frankly transhumanist agendas will end up using the poor and disenfranchised of the world often with the help of the #1 regimes.
I have several non-Christian profs at the university. One is an atheist who quite calmly told me that religion is about metaphysics, and science *cannot* tell us that God does not exist. Another was an agnostic who found solice in the beauty of the natural world and simply said, "What is beyond, I have no knowledge, but I live in the here and now and life is blessed." And a third is an observant orthodox Jew who does an amazing job tying Old Testament to New Testament in the secular writings of the 17th and 18th centuries.
These people get along fairly well with each other, and they respect me as I respect them.
Nobody wants to hang around with annoying Bible-thumpers who are generally misinformed about their own religions and who shout hellfire and damnation without understanding the significance behind the two terms. But does that justify becoming as bad an extremist as the people you proport to hate?
This is just Bible-thumping in reverse. Science should declare these guys the Jehova's Wittnesses of the labratory and move quietly along on the path toward true enlightenment.
The ironies are indeed rich. I am so pleased you have found a school in which there can be deep affection and respect admist disagreement.
A cheer for scientism.
Yes, this group is not doing science, it is lobbying for political positions that are based on science rather than religion. If you want to call it scientism, so be it. It is pretty clear that science, while in theory apolitical, needs to participate in politics in order to get funding and to make sure that the voice of reality is heard amongst the noisy posturing.
Given the enormous clout of the religious lobby, especially in recent years, this is a tiny, tiny push for secularism. For some reason the secularists have terrible marketing, as you point out the name of this group is klunky, and the web site is ugly too.
As far as I can tell there is not a single definite policy position on their website, for utilitarianism or anything else. They are only advocating basing ethics on naturalism rather than supernaturalism. According to your earlier postings, you base your belief in human exceptionalism on something other than theism. Now it's "judeo/christian values". If you really can base your viewpoint on something other than religion you should have no problem with these folks.
No,mtraven, they are no more and no less based in science than, say opposing cloning is. What can science tell us about SCNT? That it creates an embryo through asexual means. That's it.
At that point, ethics, philosophy, values, religion, scienstism, whatever takes over. Scientism holds that bieng human has no intrinsic moral value (for reasons too long to get into here), and hence, it is ethical to create human embryos for use in research. Others, take the same science, believe (as I do) that human life brings intrinsic value, and disagree. One side is not pro science, the other is not anti science. Just because "the scientists'" political positions tend to lean a certain way, doesn't make the policy rational or based in science. Rather, in the religion/ideology of scientism.
I forgot one point, mtraven: thank you for your input.
mtraven: "Yes, this group is not doing science, it is lobbying for political positions that are based on science rather than religion."
But how exactly are they "based on science"? What would ethical *reasoning* "based on science" look like?
As Wesley points out, all that *science* can provide is information about the physical characteristics of the objects and processes under consideration, not anything about their ethical nature or how we should deal with them in an ethical sense. CIT apparently intends to speak about the latter, and thus it is engaging in scientism, not science.
Also, I imagine that Wesley is against unseating Judeo-Christian values primarily because they are ones that support his bioethics, regardless of whether or not he personally professes the religions behind them. Likewise, I'm sure he is against CIT's scientism primarily because it opposes its bioethics. That's all there is to it.
You can't derive an ethics purely from science, granted. But ethical reasoning needs to be informed by science and reason, which is all the center seems to be about. They seem to wish for a rational, non-faith-based morality, but they don't seem to have found one yet. Surely this effort is more in keeping with the founding principles of the country than attempts to enforce a specious judeo/christian morality on those who don't subscribe to it.
"Wishing for a rational, non-faith morality"
If wishes were horses, then ESCR researchers would have stampeded the world.
As pointed out in philosophy since Plato's Republic, a society needs something to hold together its social and political fabric whether it be "a noble lie" or not.
Faith in government's purposes for man or a ethnic / racial group to rule is most definitely a road to ruin, since it is still self-referential to those seeking power.
Only believing or creating a context larger than yourself and your people group can provide a stable system of morality.
Applied to scientific research, it would mean amazingly enough, that moral values reside the institutions of existing society however "primitive" they may be and not in their own values, as Science itself can believe only in increasing knowledge by any means and decreasing what it terms irrational superstition by any means.
Wesley, did you notice that Peter Singer is one of the signatories to their inaugural Declaration?
Arthur Caplan, as well is a signatory along with that felicitiously named biological anthropologist Lionel Tiger, and Ann Druyan, the President of the Carl Sagan foundation ("billions of galaxies" but can't reach them with solar sail from a failed Russian rocket)
Ethics = One question:
Who Matters?
Hindu and Buddhist: People do not reach enlightenment or the Godhead until they realize that they must be compassionate toward others; both Hindus and Buddhists revere Bodhisattva, who have reached Enlightenment/Godhead but turn aside so that they can bring every soul to salvation. Answer: Everyone mattrs.
Jewish, Muslmi and Christian: God created everything. He created Man in His own image. Therefore, humans, who are stewards over His earth, must respect each other and the world, because humans are reflections of God, and the world belongs only to God. Answer: Everyone matters.
Wiccan and assorted Pagan: The earth is a living, breathing organism. Everything on this earth is tied to every other thing, like different cells in one body. You may do no harm, because any harm you do will return to you threefold. The Gods will help you if you ask but will not aid you if you intentionally misuse your abilities to cause pain. Answer: Everybody matters.
Atheism: "Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of others" (Ayn Rand. Humans are an end unto themselves. They are given inalienable rights by the very virtue that they exist, as do all plants, animals, etc. Answer: Everybody matters.
Philosophic Panexperientalism (as explained by Dr. Christen de Quincey): All matter tingles with the spark of spirit. All matter has a type of protoconsciousness that becomes more complex as matter increases in complexity. Thus, everything that exists has spirit, and deserves respect. Answer: Everybody matters. (Dr. de Quincey's web site - http://www.deepspirit.com/sys-tmpl/door/)
Scientism: There are no gods, humans are not an end in and of themselves, and there is no absolute morality. All morality is the result of Darwinist survival of the fittest. Therefore, there is no immorality at all, and scenarios like the following are perfectly acceptable if one does not have a personal objection to them:
"Between 1977 and 1982, four doctors and a social worker at the Children's Hospital of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City, monitored the births of babies with myelomeningocele (the medical term for spina bifida). Parents who were poor were told that it would not be appropriate to treat their baby and given an extremely pessimistic picture of their child's future life. Parents from better-off families were told more about the treatments for spina bifida and given more optimistic - and more accurate - information about their child's potential."
I didn't make that up. You can find the entire article here:
http://www.bioethicsanddisability.org/itcan.html
So you can't say that I don't like the "ethics" of the Center for Inquiry-Transnational just because they don't subscribe to Christianity. Excepting Scientism, I respect the ethics of all the above, and I'm sure that most people would, too. I leave it to you to conclude the answer to the Scientism question.
Exactly so, TE Fine, though I may quibble that atheistic humanism and pantheistic philosophy may be too vague in at least one of the following: 1) system of practical ethics 2) systematic ethics - imagining ethical situations and responses but most of all 3) assigning special values (both rights and responsibilities) of the human species AND 4) the source of those rights and values
Of course from my provincial American perspective, the Declaration of Independence provides a perfect non-sectarian, Deist / theist statement " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." All religions including my Christianity would add to it but all can work as a common framework (some may need to "spiritualize" and/or depersonalize the Creative force).
>>I may quibble that atheistic humanism and pantheistic philosophy may be too vague in at least one of the following: 1) system of practical ethics 2) systematic ethics - imagining ethical situations and responses but most of all 3) assigning special values (both rights and responsibilities) of the human species AND 4) the source of those rights and values<<
As a Catholic I know where you're coming from. I suggested those two because the form of humanism in question (Ayn Rand's vision in particular) held that human beings do have special significance in the world, and the type of panexperientalism (I use that term because the philosophy is decidedly non-theistic) that Dr. de Quincey proposes states that *everything* is special (humans included) and thus have inalienable rights, including the right to life (as I interpret his theories - I don't claim that Dr. de Quincey's opinion is the same as my own but that was the impression I got from his books and website).
What I was getting at is that Scientism can't claim that the only reason people are against its philosophy is because it's not a Christian philosophy. There are many varied philosophies that, no matter how they originated, still share basic principles: all human beings are special and have the right to exist just because they do exist.
(By the way, I apologize for any typos in the earlier post; I have a four-legged child in my lap and had "help" pushing the Login And Publish button when I was trying to hit Preview.)
You folks seem to be inventing a demonic ideology called "scientism" that has little connection with anything except your fevered imaginations. Nobody, not Peter Singer, not the Center for Inquiry, believes that "there is no immorality at all". You just object to them because they don't share YOUR particular conception of morality. Neither do I -- it strikes me as incoherent and self-congratulatory.
This discussion might be more productive if you'd respond to the things the secularists actually say, rather than things you are imagining they are saying.
If you pay any attention, that is precisely what I do. And as for "scientism," it is real. Do a Google search.
And my point is precisely yours: It isn't science that scientism is really about, it is morality and belief. And indeed, I don't agree with it. But that doesn't make me anti science or the believers in scientism, pro science.
>>>Nobody, not Peter Singer, not the Center for Inquiry, believes that "there is no immorality at all". <<<
I don't recall Mr. Singer's name ever coming up in my branch of the conversation, but since you brought him up:
"His system of ethics, which he tends to assume is ethics tout court, is an individual preference version of utilitarianism, going back to the nineteenth century and Jeremy Bentham's doctrine that each is to count as one and none is to count as more than one. The ethical goal is to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. Among the many traditions of ethical thought, this one, for Peter Singer, not only counts as more than one but is the only one. Utility, equality, universality, and individual choice--these are the dogmatic points of reference in a scheme presented as the enemy of dogma. This is pretty conventional stuff in some circles of academic philosophy, but in the utilitarian tradition Prof. Singer has gained fame and notoriety by drawing from it some unusual conclusions, or at least by promoting his conclusions with unusual candor. He also wants to believe that he is not rigidly tied to any system, utilitarian or otherwise. At times he declares that the lodestar of his thinking is one simple imperative: reduce suffering."
Source: http://euthanasia.com/neuhaus.html
Contradictory ethics and a desire for "individual preference" in ethics conceed the point that there is no stable universal morality. No absolute morality means there is no absolute immorality, for if morality is based on individual preference, and you and I prefer different ethics (as is evident by our conversation with each other), then how can I say, "I am right and you are wrong," or vice versa? I may prefer one thing and you another, and our preference is entirely utilitarian - I'm trying to survive, as are you. What works for our individual survival may be different. I may find killing babies acceptable and you may find it reprehensible, but that is survival-based on both our parts.
Therefore, no absolute immorality.
As for scientism existing only in my formidable imagination, perhaps you have nver read the CSICOPS introductory letter. The writer assured me in his form-letter address to me that he had been a Christian but was liberated from the tyrany of religion by changing his beliefs and following a cool, logical, and scientific mindset. He then proceeded to bash all religions, offend my Catholic sensibilities (I read it anyway because my beloved atheist professor told me to always read the propaganda of the enemy if you want to know what they're trying to get at), and suggest that I, too, would be happy to accept the magazine his organization puts out because it's "fair" to religion.
Given that James "The Amazing" Randi is a member of CSICOPS and he offered a million dollars to anyone who proves psychic phenomena, only to turn down an offer from an earnest contestant because said person was "obviously lying" about his abilities (the letter is available online but at the moment I'm having a little trouble getting to the web site; if anyone wants me to I'll post my source later tomorrow after I yell at Time-Warner), I'd say scientism is alive and well.
The only thing it lacks is government funding and weekly meetings.
...by the way, thank you everyone for the wonderful and mature debate. Having to care for an ill parent means I don't get a chance to get out and have adult conversations like I would like to. I very much appreciate having a chance to talk like this (even if there is a bit of a lag).
TE Fine: Singer doesn't believe in absolute morality; that doesn't mean he has NO morality. Surely you can can grant that there is a difference? I am not that much a fan of Singer's myself, but at least he is THINKING about the issues.
To me, your logic is exactly backwards. There is no absolute morality because (as our host pointed out) morality is not something objective and scientific, but subjective. People disagree about it. But we can't have everybody doing just what they want either. Moral standards are developed by a social process. Religious morality seems to split people apart and result in huge and costly wars. Some commenter noted the upcoming "war of civilizations" between Christianity and Islam -- I truly hope that this is a fantasy, if it's real we are in deep trouble.
The Center for Inquiry is trying to develop a RATIONAL basis for morality, based on the (somewhat naive) assumption that rationality at least has the potential to be universal. We can disagree about God but the hope is that everyone can ultimately agree about the rules of logic and the facts of science.
Along the way here we seem to have gotten mired in generalities. Maybe going back to specific statements by CIT will add a little clarity. This passage from their Declaration does it pretty well:
"Embryonic stem cell research, which promises to deliver revolutionary therapies, has been needlessly impeded by the misguided claim that the embryo and/or the first division of cells in a petri dish (blastocyst) is the equivalent of a human person. This is rooted in a moral-theological doctrine that has no basis in science."
First, this shows that they hold a specific bioethics position at odds with Wesley's, and suggests that they will take a utilitarian approach to bioethics in general. Second, they clearly think that "science" directly yields moral answers, since their criticism of opposition to embryo destruction is that it has "no basis in science". Furthermore, it implies 1) it is enough for a position to simply have a connection with religion to reject it, and 2) any "scientific" (ie materialist) person will naturally see embryos as morally worthless and have no problem with their destruction (demonstrably false, as groups such as the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League show).
The unscientific anti-religious animus shows up again when immediately following, the Declaration says: "We cannot hope to convince those in other countries of the dangers of religious fundamentalism when religious fundamentalists influence our policies at home...". In other words, anyone who opposes the destruction of embryos is a "religious fundamentalist". This of course is simply a slur and an attempt to press buttons in the audience.
I'll wrap this up with one more quote:
"Science transcends borders and provides the most reliable basis for finding solutions to our problems. We maintain that secular, not religious, principles must govern our public policy. This is not an anti-religious viewpoint; it is a scientific viewpoint."
Two things to notice: 1) Again, the utilitarian perspective (dealing with these issues purely as "problem-solving"). 2) The bizarre implication that it's been *scientifically proven* that public policy "must" be governed by secular principles.
Whatever CIT's professed stance may be, all this seems to substantiate the scientism charge pretty well.
mtraven: "We can disagree about God but the hope is that everyone can ultimately agree about the rules of logic and the facts of science."
Yes, but the problem is that logic and facts are necessary but not sufficient for making ethical judgments. Inevitably we keep bumping into the need for metaphysics and subjective views to provide the first principles and values that allow ethical reasoning to happen at all. My gripe with CIT is that they don't acknowledge this anywhere. I'm all for improving the public understanding of science, but CIT doesn't seem content to leave it at that, despite attempting to appear otherwise.
Any comment on the specific difficulties in using reason without religious or other "subjective / metaphysical" values in ethical judgment according to the Big 4 ethical principles - Beneficience (Do good), Non-maleficience (Do no harm), Justice (fair distribution) and Autonomy (choice - informed consent)
I think it is undeniably true that the CIT advocates a particular kind of ethics and metaphysics. If you want to call this "scientism", it doesn't bother me that much, I don't think that it invalidates it at all.
It is true that acceptance of science does not imply acceptance of scientism, and sometimes the distinction is fudged.
But on the whole I think they are pretty open about what they are doing. Here is some grafs from their position paper on stem cells:
But we should resist the temptation to resort to dogma and vague and uninformative principles such as “the sanctity of life.” One indispensable component of secular bioethics is free inquiry. ... We must be at least open to the possibility that moral norms, such as the prohibition on unjustified killing, that are universally accepted because they have proven necessary for the peaceful coexistence and cooperation of the members of a human community may not be applicable, or applicable in the same way, to groups of cells that resemble members of human communities only insofar as they have a similar genetic composition.
In addition, our moral arguments must be grounded in an accurate understanding of the available scientific evidence. We are not suggesting that we can deduce our values from facts. “Is” does not imply “ought.” However, even though facts do not dictate our choices, they do circumscribe them. A number of arguments that have been advanced in the debates over stem cell research are unpersuasive in part because they are premised on a misunderstanding of the relevant facts.
As just indicated, ethics must make use of, but it is not equivalent to, science. Nonetheless, although there are key distinctions between ethical and scientific inquiry, some aspects of sound ethical inquiry are analogous to scientific inquiry. In science, hypotheses are ontinually tested and then modified or rejected as a result of experimental evidence. Similarly, in ethics, our moral judgments should continually be tested for adequacy by considering their practical implications.
Surely, ethics isn't just about practicality. It should mostly be about right and wrong, shouldn't it? Indeed, isn't doing the ethical thing also often the impractical thing?
"We can disagree about God but the hope is that everyone can ultimately agree about the rules of logic and the facts of science."
The problem is: they're getting the facts of science wrong, spouting off their nonsense that the humanity of the human embryo is a mere religious idea being foisted upon the rest of the populace. When debating this issue online, I NEVER go quoting the Bible or any other religious text, but I DO quote from the WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA, several dictionaries, and a host of science textbooks, all of which demonstrate that human embryos are human beings even before they're implanted. And the response to all of this thorough, carefully cited work is a repetition of the charge that I'm trying to "shove religion down everybody's throat."
As I've written to the WASHINGTON POST, this group is only ostensibly one to maintain church-state separation, when in reality it's a thinly veiled collection of politically motivated individuals who will portray anyone who contradicts them as a fundamentalist Luddite. There is no monopoly on rationalism, and we cannot let these people get away with claiming they hold one.
Wesley: ethics is not JUST about practicality, but nobody has said that. Ethics has to be practical, in my opinion. Ethics might demand we incovenience ourselves, but it can't demand the absurd or impossible or it will just end up being ignored -- making it worse than useless.
Right-to-lifers recognize this when they refuse to follow their own precepts into the absurd -- for instance, prosecuting all parties to abortion for murder, or mounting heroic efforts to save the lives of the millions of embryos that spontaneously miscarry or fail to implant.
If a consistent application of your principles leads to absurdity, they you have the choice of: (1) accept the absurd conclusions, (2) sacrifice consistency, (3) try to find a better set of principles. Right-to-lifers usually pick option (2) although some of the more radical pick (1). The CIT paper is advocating (3).
bmmg: you are guilty of scientism yourself. The PERSONHOOD of an embryo can't be determined SOLELY by science, since it involves moral judgement. Science can describe what an embryo is like and the process by which it grows into a fully-equipped human organism, but it can't say at what point it becomes a person deserving of full human rights. What you can do is muster scientific facts that support your moral reasoning. The CIT paper does that, for instance pointing out that since a blastocyte might actually develop into multiple individuals (through twinning) it does not fit our intuitive moral notion of an individual person itself. That is not scientific reasoning, it is USING science for MORAL reasoning.
Well, if you believe human beings deserve human rights, the science of the matter takes care of that, because, as I said, we're human beings at the moment of fertilization.
Even if twinning occurs, nothing has been ADDED to the embryo to make this occur. That's really the point. After fertilization (or cloning), there is no mystery third element that comes down the pike to transform a "non-person" into a person.
The twinning argument seems such bunkum to me. An embryo is a human life, that at a certain stage is capable of twinning. If it twins, then there are two human lives. That is simply a characteristic of the organism at that stage, just as one of my characteristics at middle age is to gain weight.
The twinning argument is just one of the srguments against the humanhood of blastocytes. The more convincing one for you folks may be the argument from hypocrisy. If you really believe these clumps of cells had the same moral status as adults, you'd be launching a campaign to save the 50% or so of embryos that fail to implant and wind up flushed down the toilet -- surely a holocaust more horrible than anything done by abortionists or euthanistists.
The larger question may be who gets to decide these issues? If we agree that objective science can't answer moral questions, then who determines right and wrong? There are no moral standards in this area that are universally agreed upon, so it becomes a political matter. Both sides seem perfectly willing to try to enlist science on their side.
Same moral status as adults? Who says all human adults have the same status? Who?
All life that is potential human or was human, according to my theistic morality, have basic rights of not being treated as commodities, of not being experimented on without a consent that can't be given. Just like I can't intervene on every starving man in Bangladesh and we can't or won't do extraordinary measures on hydrocephalic infant, cancer ridden man or PVS woman, no I guess we won't try to save defective embryos from the sewers. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't proactively speak for dignity for humans no matter their status and condition.
By the way, I am the commenter on the conflict of civilizations. If you believe it is just a fantasy, that just goes to show how weak and unprepared Western secularism (though I must admit Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, highly popular atheist authors are trying to rectify that.
Both against Islamic fundamentalism and the new capitalist totalitarianism of China, secularism is wimpy.
Will our money buy them off? Islam - maybe if they didn't have oil. China - are you kidding. Google, Boeing and GM are eating up the profits from Chinese growth fascism. It is Buddhists, Christians and Falun Gong that are still laying down their lives in a struggle.
Will our media blow them away? Yeah, right, Brittany and reruns of ER will change the course of civilization.
Will our technology? Uhh, do the words 9-11 ring a bell?
Will our high words and internationalist feelings? Uh, no.
Supreme court rulings won't do it.
Neither will UN resolutions
Will the education of our children?
What children? Our Western demographics stink! And, Islam and China each have half a billion children and indoctrination does tend to work until proven wrong and certainly beats our self-esteem driven pedagogy.
How will secularism make a stand? Who will be the atheist Winston Churchhill?
"Same moral status as adults? Who says all human adults have the same status? Who?"
Um, I thought that was the reigning belief here, that all human beings (not just adults) have an equivalent moral standing. To quote from a later post by our host:
"The antidote to such thinking is human exceptionalism and its corollary that each and every human being has equal moral worth simply and merely because they are human."
Combine that with the assertion that blastocytes are human beings and you end up with absurd conclusions. But I'm repeating myself.
As for the clash of civilizations, that is really getting off the topic. I don't think you are completely wrong -- there are a variety of global threats that need to be dealt with -- but the implication behind your posting is that you believe that liberal secular democracies are inherently weaker than authoritarian theocracies. I don't think that's the case and it is a shame that so many people on the right are ready to surrender the values of the West in order to defend it.
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