Re: Is Genetic Engineering against God's wishes for Humans?

Helen:  I'm not sure that this is a question that a scientist ought to 
answer, but being a Christian myself, I have given some thought to such 
questions myself.  Please take my answer as an answer that works for me and 
will not be THE answer for many others.  Perhaps you might talk to your 
pastor and other "religious" people you know.  I suspect that you will get 
a variety of ideas and ultimately you will have to decide for yourself.  I 
have always felt that we as humans were made by God with free will and a 
very creative and inquisitive brain.  God gave us these tools to use for 
our betterment.  It is true that we sometimes do evil with those same 
tools, but that is our free will coming into play.  Genetic engineering is 
"the new frontier" of biology and many exciting and worthwhile discoveries 
are going to be made in the near future.  I am also sure that some of these 
new techniques and ideas will be used for profit and not for the 
advancement of human kind.  That seems to be the nature of us humans.  What 
I am sure of is that we need people like yourself, who are grappling with 
these important questions and who have a moral compass by which to be 
led, to enter fields like genetic engineering so that more good than bad 
can come from these new areas of biology.  We have many examples in science 
where scientists have had to make decisions like you are trying to make.  
The physicists at Los Alamos who developed the atomic bomb had choices to 
make. Was it good or bad that the bomb was developed?  What about 
gunpowder's invention?  Good or bad?  These are difficult questions and you 
should always be concerned about them, but I would hope that you would 
pursue your career goals and exert your moral outlook as a biologist.  I 
hope my answer helps you.  Keep up the good thinking.  J. Bridger