Why can't Christians "play God"?

[Tolya]

Take stem cell research for example. I have heard many times that it is wrong (same for cloning) because it's "playing God". But Im not exactly sure how is it bad. I've heard that it violates the first commandment (no other gods before me, idolatry and such), but frankly, Im not convinced. Is there any "serious" argument why shouldn't we play God? Anything that comes from the scripture for example? Im not aware of any such thing.

The Bible is full of stuff that actively encourage praying to God rather than seeing a doctor, but I haven't found anything that forbids humans for example to clone a baby. Or use stem cells to grow a new organ.

And let's put aside 2 Chronicles 16:12 "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians." (source:SAB) because ultimately it makes us all sinners.

[Themightytom]

You know, I've always wondered that myself. There is definitely the cultural prohibition against speaking for God, impersonating God, visiting his intentions etc but I never got a satisfactory answer to "If God gave us a brain why can't we use it? Would it also be somehwat exasparating for him if we didn't?"

There probably IS verse somewhere in something but as a Catholic my CCD system has failed mme completely, and I refuse to turn to pope Palpatine for guidance.

usually people just tell me I am a goat among sheep or whatever, which is highly insulting as goats can be irritating motherfuckers.

[Twoyboy]

Mike has a section about this on his Creation Theory page.

I'm inclined to agree, although, I'd also add where is the line drawn between playing god or not? When we have children and raise them the way we think fit, is that playing god? What about when we make life changing decision thus altering our own destiny? According to these people perhaps we should all just stand really still and see what happens!

[Themightytom]

"Good things come to those who wait" according to heinz ketchup...

[Darth Wong]

Humans are allowed to play God, as long as they're priests and prophets. You have to realize that much of the Bible is focused on the protection of the special privilege of the priesthood. Those who tread upon the special ground of the priests must be put to death; this is emphasized over and over. Jesus warns against following "false prophets" and rails that they should suffer horribly.

This whole "don't play God" line is a smokescreen, as is often the case with religious ethics. The underlying motivation is to protect the exclusivity of the priesthood. You can't judge others, or speak on behalf of God, but they can.

[MarshalPurnell]

Most mainstream Christian groups do not object to stem-cell research in the abstract, but to the use of human embryos to provide the stem cells. They have pushed rather heavily for use of mature stem-cells, synthesized from blood and marrow, instead of the embryonic stem-cells. It's an extension of pro-life ideology in most cases rather than the principle of "don't play God." Now some denominations do use that caution about genetic engineering, but Christianity is less of a threat to the benefits of genengineering than luddite tendencies among the Green crowd and the general ignorance of the population.

[Patrick Degan]

To put it simply: playing the role of god removes any actual need for god. Which drives the priests apeshit since they don't get to dictate to people about their own lives anymore. Then they're out of a job.

[Lord of the Abyss]

To put it simply: playing the role of god removes any actual need for god.

And risks making God look weak or incompetent or evil ( or nonexistent ), if we do a better job, and since God doesn't exist, we tend to do so. Like all the doctors who do a better job of saving lives than the people who pray for God to make it better; if we didn't have effective medicine the glaring failure of those prayers wouldn't be nearly as obvious as is actually is with the contrast. When we can do a better job than God, what does that say about him even if he exists ?

On the other hand, if we were to refuse to "play God" by healing the sick, we wouldn't have all those survivors running around demonstrating the superiority of human medicine over prayer.

[Darth Wong]

To put it simply: playing the role of god removes any actual need for god.

Or more accurately, it removes any need for God's self-proclaimed messengers and priests.

[Themightytom]

I thought the primary objection to stem cell research was that they were using human embryonic material and joe the Christian assumed that meant killing babies South park Style? i had this argument thrown at me last week actually by er... a parent... and it was something like "If Obama had been in power when you were born and someone had used YOUR stem cells to get bigger boobs you would never have existed."

Sooo essentially, NOT a solid nor consistent argument, i mean i started with "Well if the time is "when i was born, I would already be born right?" and when they said "Well you know what I am trying to say" I pointed out that THEY didn't know what they were trying to say and stem cell research doesn't equal dead babies.

So in the example of using stem cells to advance medical knowledge I am pretty sure it is being tied up in more political issues, IE Pro life movement, and Republicans. luke was a doctor wasn't he? he wasn't playing God when he gave care and there are probably even better examples.

Assuming the mantle of supreme being would ffall under a vice, and to the casual observer, scientists DO appear to be assuming that role because there is the assumption they can figure anything out eventually using a rational appraoch. I don't know if i would AGREE with taht since science as a whole seems rather to confirm our insignificance in general rather than our nsuperiority, but I remember the argument being made somewhere.

[ray245]

Doesn't the average follower of a certain religion ( besides the priests) have a strong reason to support the effectivness of god?

Any reduction in the effectivness of a god or gods would mean that to them possibilities of an afterlife existing will be challenged, or out of fear that you might end up in hell.

Christians has more reason to fear any challenge of god's authority than a non-believer. A non-believer is not afraid to accept that there will be nothingless if while Christians are the exact opposite.

This fear of death ( more so than an atheist) is more than enough reason for them to listen to what religion or god(s) has to say, even if they do find that those teachings are fucked up.

Of course, it will be so much better if most of the world can simply believe that an after-life exist without god, gods or any kind of specific actions to reach a comfortable after-life.

[Samuel]

You know, if we look into the 18th century we get priests arguing against lightening rods and vaccines- the insanity is not new. Religion isn't against progress, but progress not under its control.