Wow, we're finally assigned to blog again for AP English! I'm doing next week's work this week because I will be on a missions trip in Honduras with my youth group next week. I'm sure I'll have tons of stories and lots of pictures! So you can expect a few posts when I get back. :)
Anyway, Mr. Harris...I listened to your clip from Letter to a Christian Nation and had a few thoughts. First of all, the way you addressed your audience (which was Christians in the United States) was very straight forward. It was almost like the you was talking to me directly and accusing me personally of disrupting stem cell research. You made assumptions when talking to 'me': "Your beliefs about the human soul are, at this very moment, prolonging the scarcely endurable misery of tens of millions of human beings." I personally never stated my beliefs to anyone. By addressing Christians in general, you placed me in a category that I'm not even a part of. "You believe that life starts at the moment of conception." I don't think all Christians believe this; I'm sure that they all don't. I'm not even sure what I believe--I haven't really thought about it before. "You believe that there are souls in each of these blastocysts and the interests of one soul...cannot trump the interests of another soul." Once again, this is an assumption. Mr. Harris, you are assuming that since 'we' don't support stem cell research, 'we' believe once soul can't trump another. But I think there are exceptions. "We should throw immense resources into stem cell research and we should do so immediately." Well, that's your opinion, Mr. Harris; I want to see your credibility. So far you have just stated your views and beliefs. I want to know that you are supported in this idea and it isn't just you who's saying this. "Because of what Christians like yourself believe about souls, we are not doing this." This made me feel like, "oh yeah! Christians do have some authority after all!" 'Cause so often it feels like Christians are the minority and the government makes decisions without us and throws aside our opinions. But now Christian's are the majority and 'we're' stopping stem cell research. (Does anyone else think that's kinda cool?)
So, Mr. Harris, I disagree with the assumptions you make and how you generalize what Christians believe about stem cell research. However, I will address the claims you made about stem cell research later.
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