Scientific and Religious Reflections
Rabbi Elie Abadie, MD Senior Rabbi, Jewish Council of the Emirates and Association of Gulf Jewish Communities It is the soul that makes us understand and be able to choose between right and wrong, that understands higher and more lofty principles. It is the soul that is able to comprehend and receive the divine presence and divine inspiration. It is the soul where the intellect really rests. We have the brain, that is physical, but we cannot pinpoint a location in the brain where intellect is. That is part of the soul.
We don’t live in isolation. We live in communities, and if one accentuates only the individual natures, then it’s like playing one instrument in an orchestra instead of getting all of the instruments in the orchestra to play together. So, the dialogue that we have unifies us, thus enabling us to accomplish what is more than even the sum of the individual parts. We synergize together to accomplish doing what is good.
Elder Dale G. Renlund, MD Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
God alone is unlimited, and God alone is capable of unlimited love and compassion. However, I believe that God has placed within human beings the capacity to develop their love and their compassion through connection to Him, and then through manifesting it outwardly to such a point that it may seem like unlimited love and compassion.
Shaykh Asim Yusuf, MBChB Chair, British Board of Scholars and Imams and Fellow, Royal College of Psychiatrists
Ellen Wright Clayton, MD, JD Craig-Weaver Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Health Policy, Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law School Enhancement is not clearly defined. Our job is to enhance the lives of others; we are supposed to enhance the lives of our children. In fact, we suggest that when parents don’t pay attention to how their children grow, whether they learn, whether they learn manners or whether they follow good morality, we think that parents are not doing their jobs. So, enhancement is actually part and parcel of what we are called to do. As a species, we have come up with some extraordinary tools to improve human wellbeing: vaccines and providing clean air and clean water, which make an enormous difference in human wellbeing.
There are certainly limits to what we should do. Safety, efficacy and equitable distribution of technology are paramount, and there are organizations dedicated to protecting these.
George Church, PhD Founding Core Faculty and Lead, Wyss Institute, Harvard University; Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard and MIT
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