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Sam Harris delivers an interesting argument for why exiting life should trump life in development. This is a serious issue to consider and logically he has claims. It is unfortunate that his detractors probably won’t share in any logically debate. It would be interesting to see some of the better responses.

Some questions arising:

1) How many cells are required to have a soul?

2) Does the lack of nerve cells and feeling constitute the lack of a soul?

3) Do twins share a soul? Did they at one time share a single soul? Do they only have half a soul?

4) Is a chimera two souls in one body? Does one soul die?

5) Should the rights of existing souls prevail over the rights of those who might exist or have a high probability of never existing? Historically souls of non-believers of a religion were considered not as worthy as those with faith; how is this different since the unborn have no chosen faith?

6) Should atheists or the non-faithful and those of faith be bound by the same rules?
Maybe funding in different areas of government research should be tied directly to what the person paying the taxes directly wants to do? Who wants a check boxes on your tax forms to be able to chose or deny this use of their tax money? This could create a percentage to know exactly how much the full population wants to fund these efforts.

There are many puzzling and thought provoking questions in this video. This is the type of discussion our leaders and political heads need to discuss. Right now there is no logical debate or discussion on these topics.

We are stuck talking about trivial things like “what was Obama wearing at his last debate?”. It is reprehensible that true issues and deep meaningful conversations are deemed by the media as too overwhelming for their typical audiences. Where is the media outlet tough enough to take on an issue like this? Any level of debate is crucially needed, yet ignored. Both atheists and the faithful can agree that these are tough new issues, we need to negotiate and discuss in the very near future.

Tags: Atheists, Six Questions, Stem Cell,