Wellsy, in the comments from my earlier post:
I know this is how you chose to describe God in this post, but is this how you see God day-to-day?
The simple answer is no. I do not see God as a simple mathematical equation.
I see God in many ways; in Nature, in the face of my daughter, but especially in my fellow Man. It is in my fellows that I see moments of pure altruism, and moments of cold justice. I see a species that is so far removed from the natural food chain that we must seem as aliens on this planet if one were to take a snapshot of Earth at this moment.
From a crude reading of C.S. Lewis I am lead to believe that the active pursuit of the teachings of Jesus, namely loving your neighbor as yourself, is the quickest way to self-redemption. For Jesus, above all else, taught us that those who we want to help the least are the ones we should help the most. "Pretend like you love your enemy," Lewis argued, "and soon you actually shall."
And so I turn to a large demographic of people on this planet born with Down Syndrome. Born with an extra 21st chromosome, these people have a variety of physical and mental traits of varying extremity, from totally dependent adult-infants to people who function almost totally normally in today's complicated society.
Genetic engineering holds the promise to "cure" or "end" Trisomy 21 forever, and eliminate the state from the Human Genome. Proponents of such research argue that it will help cure people.
I am no judge of what is right or wrong, but it seems to me that we who do not have Down Syndrome have a rare opportunity here to practice true Christianity at a fundamental level, almost like a practice squad to throw your football team up against before facing your real opponent at the big game Friday night. I am not saying "learn to love people with Down Syndrome" for that is easy; people with Down Syndrome often exhibit a "cherubic" persona and their mental simplicity makes them easy to love. What I am saying is that Jesus did not say "Love your neighbor," instead he added the condition "as thyself."
A truly, truly Christian act is to practice and pretend that a person with Down Syndrome is every bit the person you are. Surely that is a leap of Christianity that no one is afraid to make. Surely you can say "when I am interacting with someone with Down Syndrome, I will not act like I am talking down to a child. I will talk to them with patience, yes, but not the patience I show a toddler, rather the patience I would exhibit while talking to my boss about a great idea, or with the patience I show to my wife or my grandparents." Then you simply go do it. You pretend you think this person with Down Syndrome is every bit the man you are, and eventually you achieve your goal; you find yourself treating them as equals.
For aren't they? I am afraid if I measure the whole of my life, I can name several unChristian acts in which I have participated that most people with Down Syndrome haven't. People with Down Syndrome are as a whole more caring that I often am, and though they often are prone to bouts of anger and temper tantrums, so am I, and I certainly know how to hold a grudge far longer than they most likely do. On the whole, a person with Down Syndrome is surely every bit the Christian I am, and that is really the only measure that matters.
Anyway, it seems to me a sad thing if we "cure" people of a condition they do not necessarily want cured. Also, it seems to me a disappointing way of taking the easy way out if we, instead of learning to incorporate every unique person in this world into it, instead we breed the unique ones out. Morally, one might find a huge gap between Hitler's love of the Aryan and genetic engineers trying to develop a method for correcting Trisomy 21. But in either case, the end result is the same, a vanilla society where everyone looks the way society thinks they should look, and rather than embracing diversity, it is squashed.
For me, a scientist and a Christian, it seems that we should be applying our brilliant collective minds not to finding "cures" for genetic anomalies, but rather to figuring out ways to make society embrace the uniqueness in every single human alive.
Update: Take a minute and read Wellsy's blog. He has some insightful thoughts on religion that go far beyond my humble ability to pontificate. I found this especially fitting for the topic.
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